Admissions - change of school

Information about applying for a school place at any time after the normal intake.

If you live in Solihull you can fill in the form to apply for a school place.  If you live outside Solihull you must contact your home council for a form.

Many Solihull primary schools are full and you are advised to contact the School Admissions Team about vacancies.  Most secondary schools are full and a satisfactory alternative cannot always be found.  If you are not offered a place at your preferred school you will have the right of appeal, but this process can take in excess of six weeks.

You can download the supporting information and a list of schools.  You can download and print the application form, fill it in and return it to :

School Admissions
Education and Children's Services
PO Box 20
Council House
Solihull
B91 9QU

What is the procedure if I am moving house?

• Phone the Admission Team to talk about possible vacancies.  If there are vacancies at your preferred school you will be offered a place, which should be taken up within half a term.
• If there are no vacancies at your preferred school(s) we will need a solicitor’s letter stating that contracts have been exchanged and specifying a completion date; or a signed and dated tenancy agreement.  You must also provide proof of you selling or renting out your previous property.  A letter of intention to purchase is not sufficient.
• If you are returning to live in a property that you already own, which has been empty, you must provide confirmation that you are paying full council tax.  If the property has been rented out, you must provide a copy of the notice given to your tenants to leave.
• If your move involves any other circumstances, you must provide appropriate written independent evidence of the date you started living there and the length of time you think you will stay there.  We may also need to see your council tax bill, Child Tax Credit or Working Family Tax Credit.
• If you cannot provide satisfactory proof we may ask for further documents or send an education welfare officer to your home.
• If we believe that the move is temporary and a deliberate device to improve your priority for a school place we will not use the new address.

What to do if your child is experiencing difficulties at school?

• Before making a change of school application you must contact your child’s current school to arrange an appointment with the Head Teacher, Head of Year or your child’s form tutor/class teacher to discuss a possible course of action.  If your child is being bullied you may ask to see the school’s ‘Anti-Bullying Policy’.  If you have already removed your child from their current school, you must contact Education Welfare on 0121 788 1505 for help and support.  If, after all of the above, the matter has not been resolved you can fill in an application form.  You will need to take the form to your child’s current or most recent school so they can fill in section 2.  If the circumstances are complex it will take longer to process the application.

Applications for pupils in year 10 and year 11

Moving children after the start of Year 10 puts them at a disadvantage.  It is unlikely that the same GCSE options will be available and schools often follow different courses.  For this reason transfer requests will be referred back to the current school unless a house move means that travel is impossible.   You must provide details of the subjects being studied, the examination boards and predicted grades.

How do we measure the distance from a home to a school?

The distance is measured in a straight line from the child’s normal home address to the preferred school.  Children living closer to the school are offered places first.

Distances are measured by our admissions system using ADDRESS-POINT®.  ADDRESS-POINT® provides a national grid co-ordinate and a unique reference for each postal address in Great Britain.  The grid reference is provided to a resolution of 0.1 metre (10cm).  The accuracy of each ADDRESS-POINT® is such that each point will fall within the addressed building.