Secondary Transfer
If you applied online and provided an email address, we will email you on Friday 1 March 2024 to tell you which secondary school your child has been offered.
We cannot guarantee the exact time you will receive your email as this depends on your service provider. However, we expect you to receive your offer email by 4pm on Wednesday 1 March 2024.
We will also send you a formal offer letter posted by 1st class post on Friday 1 March 2024, allowing at least three working days for your letter to arrive.
The offer letter will explain how to accept or refuse the offer that has been made.
Do not contact Birmingham City Council before you have received the offer of a school place.
The school admissions team cannot tell you which secondary school place has been offered to your child by phone or email.
You must have received your email or letter before contacting the school admissions team.
If you have not received your email or letter by Tuesday 5 March 2024, you may contact school admissions.
Acceptance and refusals
The email and letter you receive will name the secondary school your child has been offered for September 2024.
You do not need to let us know if you plan to accept this offer.
You will only need to inform us by 16 March 2024 if you are refusing it. Your offer letter will tell you how you can refuse the offer. If you do not refuse the offer, our records will show that the offer has been accepted.
If your child attends an all-through school, you must inform your child's current school if they will no longer be attending in September 2024 because your child has received and you have accepted an offer of a place at a different school.
If your child has not been offered a place at any of the schools you applied for, this will be because the school received more applications than there were places available and other children met the admission criteria more closely than your child.
You are strongly encouraged to accept the offer so that your child has a guaranteed place for September 2024.
By refusing the offer, the place may be given to a child on the waiting list for that school.
The offer being accepted will not affect your child's waiting list position for any of your higher preference schools or influence the outcome of any appeal you may submit.
Waiting Lists
If you do not receive an offer for a place at your higher preference Birmingham schools, your child's name will automatically be placed on the waiting lists for those schools, except for the Birmingham grammar schools, where your child must have scored the qualifying score of 205 to be included.
Waiting lists are compiled in the same order as the school's over subscription criteria, for example, siblings first.
Late applicants are also added according to this order, so your child's name could move down as well as up a waiting list. Having a place on the waiting list does not guarantee that a place will become available.
Information on waiting list positions will not be available until Monday 25 March 2024.
From Monday 25 March 2024, you can phone Children's Services on 0121 303 1888. They will let you know who holds the waiting list for the school you want. This will be either school admissions or the school itself.
Waiting list advice will not be available before this date to allow time for offers to be accepted and refused.
The admissions team will contact you if a school place becomes available for your child from a waiting list.
For schools outside of Birmingham, you will need to check that local authority's website for information about their waiting lists.
Appeals
You have the right to appeal at a school where you have applied and been refused admission.
If you are considering submitting an appeal, read the advice regarding appeals on the school admissions website carefully.
You can only appeal against the refusal of a place at a school that is currently one of your live preferences.
Appeals are heard and decided by panels that are completely independent of the council and the school you may appeal for.
It is important that you consider the likelihood of your appeal being successful. For example, whether you were realistic with the preferences you submitted for your child.
Appeals are generally only successful if you or your child have exceptional reasons for needing admission to a particular school.
There are no guarantees that any appeal will be successful. The table below shows the number of heard and successful appeals which were administrated by Birmingham City Council in the last 3 years.
If you wish to appeal, the closing date for submitting your written appeal is 12 April 2024.
If you submit an appeal after this date, it will be classed as a late appeal and will be heard after the on-time appeals. It may not be heard before the beginning of September 2024.
You will be able to access the appeal form online from 9am on 1 March 2024
Other useful information
Parents guide on how to complete an online application.