After you get your school offer
1. Overview
Letting you know
We will send a decision letter on the national offer day.
- Secondary schools: 3 March 2025
- Infant, primary or junior schools: 16 April 2025
The letter has all the information you need to accept your offer, or to go on a waiting list or appeal.
If you applied online, you will get an email with a link to your decision letter.
If you applied on paper, we will attempt to send your decision via email. If we are unable we will send your decision letter by first class post.
What to do when you get your offer
How to accept your offer
Your school should contact you within 10 days of your offer.
If you don’t hear from them in 10 days, please contact them directly.
What if you don’t want the school you’re offered?
First, we recommend you accept the school place in your decision letter, even if it’s not your first preference.
Accepting your school place ensures your child has a school to go to.
Accepting won’t stop you:
- appealing
- going on a waiting list for a different school
If you turn down the place at your allocated school this may be given away to another child and we may not be able to offer this again if you change your mind. We have no duty to offer another school. This may result in your child being without a school place in September.
Find out why an application may have been unsuccessful
To help you understand the 2025 intake, you'll find details on this page about the number of preferences stated for each school.
Preference data on national allocation day
Primary and Junior schools including infant schools
Information about this will appear here on national offer day, 16 April 2025
Secondary schools
Information about this will appear here on national offer day, 3 March 2025
If you use assistive technology such as a screen reader, please contact us, and we will do our best to help. We will contact you about the next step.
Telephone: 0300 330 9472
Email: Admissions and Transport Team
Find out why an application may have been unsuccessful
For oversubscribed local authority administered schools, we have given the criterion and distance(measure in a straight-line) of the last child allocated. If the tiebreaker was applied, we have stated the distance that relates to the furthest child allocated a place at the school within that admission priority.
Primary and junior schools
| All Saints CE Primary School, Bexhill | 316m in Priority 4 |
| Catsfield CE Primary School | 4,544m in Priority 6 |
| Chantry Community Primary School* | 1,172m in Priority 4 |
| Chiddingly Primary School | 2,945m in Priority 6 |
| Churchwood Community Primary Academy* | 2,464m in Priority 4 |
| Cradle Hill Community Primary School | 3,028 in Priority 6 |
| Denton Community School | 372m in Priority 4 |
| Ditchling (St Margaret's) CE Primary School | 5,099m in Priority 6 |
| Etchingham CE Primary School | 3,667m in Priority 6 |
| Forest Row CE Primary School | All on-time offered |
| Harbour Primary & Nursery School | 690m in Priority 4 |
| Harlands Primary School | 740m in Priority 4 |
| Hellingly Community Primary School | 2,285m in Priority 4 |
| Herstmonceux CE Primary School | 4,524m in Priority 6 |
| Langney Primary Academy* | 2,775m in Priority 4 |
| Meridian Primary School | 715m in Priority 4 |
| Netherfield CE Primary School | 5,574m in Priority 6 |
| Ninfield CE Primary School* | 5,006m in Priority 6 |
| Parkland Infant School* | 1,318m in Priority 4 |
| Parkside Community Primary School | 1,271m in Priority 4 |
| Polegate School | 2,011m in Priority 6 |
| Rocks Park Primary School | 3,240m in Priority 6 |
| Sandown Primary School | 2,350m in Priority 4 |
| South Malling CE Primary School | 818m in Priority 4 |
| St Leonards CE Primary Academy* | 1,490m in Priority 5 |
| Stone Cross School | 337m in Priority 6 |
| Stonegate CE Primary School | 3,559m in Priority 6 |
| Wallands Community Primary School | 1,074m in Priority 4 |
| White House Academy* | Late - 363m in priority 4 |
| Willingdon Primary School | 2,196m in Priority 6 |
| Wivelsfield Primary School | 2,994m in Priority 6 |
If your child was refused an own admission school you will need to contact them directly to request this information.
Junior schools
All preferences were met.
Secondary schools
|
School |
Furthest place offered in metres (m) |
|
Chailey School |
6,117m in category 6* |
|
Claverham Community College |
6,645m in category 6 |
|
Heathfield Community College |
9,789m in category 6 |
|
Robertsbridge Community College |
16,000m in category 6 |
|
Willingdon Community School |
8,831m in category 4 |
*Please note the information for Chailey School have been corrected due to an incorrect distance being given previously.
Categories
- Category 1 children allocated Looked After
- Category 2 children allocated in-area sibling
- Category 3 children of staff members contracted to work at the school in question
where:
a) The member of staff has been employed at the school for two or more years at
the time at which the application for admission to the school is made, and/or
b) The member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a
demonstrable skill shortage - Category 4 children allocated in-area
- Category 5 children allocated out-area sibling
- Category 6 children allocated outside area
The following schools manage their own admissions and were also oversubscribed. Please contact them for details on why they were unable to offer a place:
Ark Alexandra Academy
Beacon Academy
Gildredge House
King's Academy Ringmer
Peacehaven Community School
Priory School
Seaford Head School
St Catherine's College
St Richard's Catholic College
The Cavendish School
Uplands Academy
All other East Sussex Schools were able to offer places to all on-time applicants who were not offered a higher preference.
Waiting lists
What is a waiting list?
You can add your child to a waiting list for any of the schools in your original application.
If a space becomes free, the school uses its admissions policy to decide who they can take.
That means:
- it will look at things like how close your child lives and other individual factors
- it won’t decide on a first-come-first-served basis
Admissions rules – how places are offered in East Sussex
How to join a waiting list
We are responsible for the waiting lists for local authority controlled schools and manage the waiting list for the following academies:
Primary:
- Breakwater Academy
- Burfield Academy
- Chantry Community Primary School
- Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy
- Churchwood Primary Academy
- Dudley Infant Academy
- Hawkes Farm Academy
- High Cliff Academy
- Hollington Primary Academy
- Hurst Green CE Primary School
- Langney Primary Academy
- Little Common School
- Newick CE Primary School
- Ninfield CE Primary School
- Northiam CE Primary School
- Parkland Infant School
- Peacehaven Heights Academy
- Phoenix Academy
- Robsack Wood Primary Academy
- St Andrew's CE Infants
- St John's Meads CE Primary School
- St Leonards CE Primary Academy
- St Paul's CE Academy
- Sedlescombe CE Primary School
- Shinewater Primary School
- Silverdale Primary Academy
- Telscombe Cliffs Academy
- The Baird Primary Academy
- The Haven Voluntary Aided CE Methodist Primary School
- West St Leonards Primary Academy
- White House Academy
Secondary:
- The Hastings Academy
- The St Leonards Academy
- The Turing School.
For all other own admissions authority schools, please contact the school direct.
To join a waiting list, please email your child’s:
- name
- date of birth
- address
- relevant siblings and
- the name(s) of the schools whose waiting list you wish to join
Phase transfers waiting list -for children joining a secondary, primary or junior school in September 2025.
In year waiting list email - for all in-year applications.
We won't be able to tell you where your child is on the waiting list for starting school in September 2025 until after the deadline for accepting places.
What happens if your waiting list application is successful?
Before your child starts school:
- we’ll automatically withdraw your original allocation and replace it with the new school
- we’ll let you know in writing that we’ve changed your child’s school
After your child starts school:
- we’ll give you 10 school days to accept or refuse the place
If you wish to withdraw from a waiting list at any time, you must do so in writing to the Admissions and Transport Team.
Staying on waiting lists
You need to renew the request each term to keep your child on a waiting list. If you don’t renew we’ll remove your child’s name.
For local authority controlled schools and the academies listed above, please email in year waiting list giving us:
-
your child’s name and
-
reminding us of the school(s) in question.
For all other schools, contact the school directly.
Example (for schools controlled by East Sussex County Council):
Jack, who lives outside a school’s community area, joins their waiting list in January. Jenny lives inside the school’s community area and joins the waiting list in February. A place becomes available in March. This will be offered to Jenny first as she has a higher priority according to the admissions rules.
Request a change of allocated school for September 2025
If your preferred school(s) are full for entry in September 2025, we can look into changing your child’s allocated school, provided the alternative school did not turn down any on-time applications. It is not possible to express a new preference for a school not listed on your application until 1 September 2025.
We cannot guarantee all requests will be successful. It will depend on the number of requests we receive and availability at each school.
If your change of allocation can be met, your original allocation will be withdrawn.
The list of schools available for change of allocation requests and details of how to do this will appear here on national offer day. This is 3 March 2025 (secondary) and 16 April 2025 (primary).
Make a request
Please put your request in an email to allocationchange@eastsussex.gov.uk and include:
- your child’s name and date of birth
- the school you wish to be considered.
- the reasons you wish to change your child’s allocated school (ie sibling)
The decisions on these requests do not carry a right of appeal nor can you join a waiting list. This service is not available for In year applications
Primary schools available for change of allocation requests will appear here on national offer day
16 April 2025
| Area | Available schools |
|---|---|
| Bexhill | |
| Crowborough | |
| Hailsham | |
| Hastings and St Leonards | |
| Heathfield | |
| Lewes | |
| Newhaven | |
| Seaford | |
| Uckfield | |
| Rurals | |
| Junior schools | |
Secondary schools available for requests will appear here:
3 March 2025
Appeals
If you did not get the school place you wanted, you may want to appeal. Our guidance notes explain what you need to consider:
