Bristol secondary school applications open until the end of October

Parents have until midnight on October 31 to make the decision

Applications are now open for parents of Year Six pupils in Bristol to choose a secondary school for their child. They have until midnight on October 31 to make that decision.

If you live in Bristol and have a child who was born between September 1, 2013 and August 31, 2014 then you need to apply for a secondary school before the end of October via the council application form. Even if you decide to apply to a school outside the Bristol boundaries, you should apply via Bristol City Council if it is where you pay council tax.

Although paper forms can be downloaded, printed and sent in the post, the council recommends that families use the online form. This is because errors can be checked before submission and there is no risk of it getting lost in the post- which has occurred in previous years.

In order to apply, you need to log in to the parent portal first or create an account if using it for the first time. Parents of children with an Educational Health and Care Pan (EHCP) are not required to apply to schools using the online application, they need to email sen@bristol.gov.uk instead.

Although the deadline for completing the Bristol City Council application form is 31 October 2024, some schools including grammar schools in neighbouring areas may be holding aptitude and attainment tests before this date. Some schools also require supplementary information forms to be submitted with the application, this could be the case if you are applying for a Catholic school with admissions based on church attendance or to a school with a music specialism.

If your child is not within their standard year group, the secondary school needs to give written permission to accept a place before the online application is submitted. In this case, you should contact the school as soon as possible to ensure this is done on time.

You can choose a maximum of three schools and should put your preferred school as option one. The order of preference does not impact the chance of a child gaining a place but if the child gets accepted to the first school on your list then they will automatically be taken off the list of the two other schools.

Finding your local school

For families whose local school allocates places according to distance, choosing a school can be an easy choice. But for others who live near to schools with a different selection criteria or do not wish to apply to their local school, the process of choosing a school can be more complicated.

With most secondary schools being oversubscribed there may be a school which is near to your home but doesn’t offer your child a place. Two new schools have opened in recent years (Oasis Daventry Road and Oasis Temple Quarter) to meet the shortage of secondary school places in Bristol.

Both of the new Oasis Academy schools are currently in temporary accommodation while their permanent buildings are still under construction and set to be completed in 2026. Daventry Road caters for children in South Bristol and Temple Quarter offers places to pupils living in East Bristol - it is currently in Bedminster but the new building will be on Silverthorne Lane.

You may mistakenly believe your child is within the priority area of a school which is close to your home but in fact fall outside of those boundaries. You can find out on the Bristol City Council website’s schools map page which can be found by clicking on the ‘information about secondary schools’ link on the main page for applying for a new secondary school year 7 place.

Next to each school there is a link to the area of first priority which links to an area map and a search button where you can input your postcode to see if your home falls within the school’s catchment area.

Which schools have a different selection process?

While most schools follow the standard policy of offering priority to children who live within their ‘priority area’ after applications from adopted children, children in care and siblings of those in the priority area are all considered - it’s good to be aware of a number of schools who operate under a different selection criteria.

The following schools in Bristol operate under a different selection criteria: Blaise High School, Bridge Learning Campus, Bristol Cathedral Choir School, E-Act Merchant's Academy, E-Act Montpelier High School, Oasis Academy Brightstowe, Oasis Academy Brislington, St Bede's Catholic College, St Bernadette Catholic Secondary School and St Mary Redcliffe & Temple Ce Secondary School.

St Mary Redcliffe, which has been rated Outstanding by Ofsted, offers most places to children who attend church, with priority given to those who attend church the most often. E-Act Montpelier which still has places available for September 2024 is the only non-fee paying girls school in Bristol and offers places on the basis of random allocation.

Open events

In September and October, secondary schools are opening up their buildings for prospective pupils and their parents to look around the schools. While independent schools will have a separate process, the majority of families who will be applying for a state-funded school can do so via the Bristol City Council website.

Bristol Live has put together a handy list of open events at secondary schools across Bristol which parents and their Year Six children can attend over the next few weeks. While most schools have drop-in open evening sessions, for some there are limited spaces that need to be booked in advance which can be viewed on the school website or the Bristol Live open events list.

Open mornings and tours of schools give parents a chance to gain a more authentic view of the school while teaching and learning takes place. Many of the morning tours need to be booked in advance and not all schools are offering them.

Open events at some of Bristol’s most popular schools such as Bristol Cathedral Choir School are already fully booked. Other schools, such as Fairfield School have limited slots available and there are a few schools, including Cotham, who at the time of writing had not yet published information about any open events on their website.