How in-year admissions and the Fair Access Protocol work, sitting the 11+ or a grammar school's own late-entry test, and when UKiset is the better route
Book a Free ConsultationFamilies relocating to the UK from overseas rarely arrive on the same clock as the English school admissions system. A job offer, a visa decision, or a house sale abroad can land a family in England in November, February, or June - months away from the September Year 7 intake that most 11+ guidance assumes you are working towards. This is a genuinely different problem from planning a return well in advance: you need to secure a school place quickly, understand which admissions door is actually open to you at this point in the year, and decide fast whether the state-selective route, a standard state school, or the independent sector is realistic given your timeline. This guide sets out how the UK's in-year and Fair Access Protocol admissions system actually works for any newly arrived family, what grammar schools require from a child arriving mid-cycle, how UKiset offers a more flexible route into the independent sector, and the practical paperwork - address evidence, immigration status, English language support - that determines how quickly your child gets into a classroom.
England's school admissions system runs two parallel tracks. The first is the annual national round - the process most parents read about, where applications for Reception and Year 7 are submitted the previous autumn and offers are made on a fixed National Offer Day. The second, far less publicised, is the in-year admissions process, which exists specifically for families who need a school place at any other point in the year - including families who have just relocated to the UK from abroad. Every local authority in England is required, under the School Admissions Code 2021, to operate and publish a coordinated in-year admissions scheme so that a family arriving in July or November is not simply told to wait until next September.
In practice, this means you apply directly to the admission authority for each school you want to be considered for. For community and voluntary-controlled schools, that is the local authority covering the address you are moving to. For academies, free schools, and voluntary-aided or foundation schools - which now make up the majority of secondary schools in many areas - the school or its trust is its own admission authority, and the application may go directly to the school rather than the council, even though most councils still coordinate the paperwork on the school's behalf. Every application is assessed against that school's published oversubscription criteria in exactly the same way as any other in-year applicant: there is no separate fast lane simply because a family has moved from abroad rather than across town. If your first-choice schools have no space, the local authority is still required to offer a place at an alternative school with a vacancy, and your child is added to the waiting list for any school you prefer but did not get.
The practical difference for a relocating family is speed of paperwork, not a different process. Councils are expected to process in-year applications and respond within a reasonable period - commonly within about 15 school days - once you can provide the evidence they need. That evidence, not your nationality or your visa category, is almost always what determines how quickly your child is offered a place.
| Route | When it applies | Who you apply to |
|---|---|---|
| National offer round | You are settled in the UK well before the Year 7 admissions deadline (October, Year 6) | Local authority Common Application Form, offers on National Offer Day (1 March) |
| In-year application | You relocate at any other point - the standard route for most relocating families | Local authority (community/VC schools) or the school/trust directly (academies, VA/foundation) |
| Fair Access Protocol | A backstop where a child has gone unplaced for several weeks, or meets a defined vulnerability category | Local authority admissions team, applied jointly with local schools |
| Independent/international school | Any point in the year - most schools run rolling admissions for overseas arrivals | The school's own admissions office, often via a UKiset profile |
The Fair Access Protocol is a statutory mechanism set out in section 3 of the School Admissions Code 2021 that every local authority must agree with its schools, including academies, free schools, and grammar schools. Its purpose is narrower than many families assume: it exists to make sure children who are struggling to secure a place through the ordinary in-year process - particularly those who are vulnerable, or who have been refused by several schools already - are found a school quickly, and it gives the local authority the power to place a child at a school even where that school's published admission number has technically been reached.
For most relocating families, the Fair Access Protocol is not the first step - it is a safety net. The ordinary in-year application process, described above, is how the great majority of newly arrived families secure a place, usually within weeks. The Protocol becomes relevant mainly in two situations: where a child has gone unplaced for a prolonged period despite genuine efforts through the normal process, or where the family or child falls into one of the specific priority categories the local Protocol defines (which can include children with a social worker, those who are homeless, or those who have been out of education for an extended period - definitions vary by local authority and are published in each council's own Protocol document). One important limit specific to selective schools: grammar schools do take part in the Fair Access Protocol procedurally, but the Code does not require them to admit a child through it who has not met the school's academic entry requirement - the Protocol overrides oversubscription and capacity issues, not the selective test itself.
Relocating to the UK and Need to Sit the 11+ or UKiset Quickly?
Leading Tuition provides specialist, entirely online preparation for children of relocating families - whichever door you are trying to open, whether that is the 11+, a grammar school's in-year assessment, or UKiset for the independent sector.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppWhether your child can sit a normal 11+ paper at all depends entirely on your arrival date relative to that area's registration window. The 11+ registration window for September Year 7 entry typically opens in May and closes by June or July of Year 5 - many months before most relocating families have a confirmed move date, let alone a UK address. The test itself is then sat in September of Year 6. A family that lands in England while that window is still open can usually register and sit the test in the ordinary way, provided they can supply the child's date of birth and, in most areas, an indicative address or school preference. A family that arrives after the test has already been sat has effectively missed the standard route for that admissions year, regardless of how strong the child's ability is.
For a family in that position, the realistic path is not a special "late 11+" - it is the same in-year admissions route to a grammar school that any family missing the normal round would use, and the assessment set is usually different from the Year 6 paper. Depending on the area, in-year applicants to a grammar school may sit a CAT4 (Cognitive Abilities Test) assessment - many schools require a mean standardised score of around 114 across all four batteries, with no individual battery below about 108 - a school-designed Maths and English paper, or, in Buckinghamshire, the county's own formal Late Transfer Test, which runs a narrow registration window each October and is explicitly open to families who have moved into the county from abroad since the Year 6 round. Places at this stage are genuinely scarce: some heavily oversubscribed grammar schools report zero in-year offers in a typical year and waiting lists that are rarely, if ever, called. We cover the specific tests, thresholds, and regional processes - Buckinghamshire, Kent, and London's Bexley borough among them - in full in our in-year grammar school admissions guide, and if moving address within England (rather than internationally) is part of your planning, our guide to moving house for grammar school catchment explains how distance-based oversubscription criteria work.
One planning point specific to international relocation is worth flagging early: super-selective grammar schools, which admit purely on test score with no catchment or distance requirement, remove the address-timing problem entirely for families who can get their child into the relevant in-year assessment - the score is the only variable that matters, not how recently you arrived or where you are currently living. Families who expect to relocate to the UK within the next 12-24 months, rather than needing a place immediately, may find it easier to plan around the normal registration window instead - our guide for families returning to or relocating to the UK for grammar school sets out that longer-lead-time route, including the curriculum gaps children from international schools typically need to close before sitting a UK-style 11+ paper.
For families who need a school place quickly and are open to the independent or international school sector rather than state grammar schools, UKiset (the UK Independent Schools' Entry Test) is usually the more practical route, precisely because it was designed for this exact situation. UKiset is a computer-adaptive assessment of reasoning and English proficiency, run by the education consultancy Gabbitas in partnership with Cambridge University Press & Assessment, and it produces a single profile that a family can send to multiple schools at once rather than sitting a different entrance exam for every school on their list. Crucially for a mid-cycle relocation, the reasoning and English components are typically sat online under remote invigilation, which means a child can be assessed before the family has even landed in the UK, and results remain valid for one year - long enough to cover a family's full moving window.
More than 250 UK independent schools now accept a UKiset profile as part of their international admissions process, and unlike the state grammar system, independent schools generally run admissions on a rolling basis throughout the year rather than around a single national deadline - a school with a mid-year vacancy in Year 8 or Year 9 is a routine occurrence rather than the rare event it is in the selective state sector. This makes the independent route materially faster for a family that needs a decision within weeks rather than a full admissions cycle. It is not a replacement for the 11+ where a state grammar school place is the specific goal - grammar schools do not accept UKiset in place of their own test - but for families weighing both sectors, sitting UKiset in parallel with pursuing an in-year grammar application is a common and sensible strategy given the time pressure a relocation creates. Our full breakdown of the test format, adaptive scoring bands, and preparation approach is in our UKiset explained guide.
The single biggest practical delay relocating families report is not bureaucratic obstruction over immigration status - it is simply not having the right paperwork ready on day one. Every child of compulsory school age living in England is entitled to apply for a state-funded school place regardless of their or their family's immigration or visa status, and admission authorities cannot lawfully demand immigration documents as a condition of processing a school application. What they do need, and what genuinely determines how fast a place is offered, is: evidence of the child's date of birth (a passport is the standard document); evidence of the UK address the child will live at, such as a signed tenancy agreement, a mortgage offer or solicitor's letter confirming a property purchase, or a recent council tax or utility bill; and the child's most recent school reports or transcripts from their previous country, which help the receiving school place them in the right year group and set expectations correctly from the first week.
Families who have not yet finalised a UK address sometimes assume this blocks the application entirely - it does not have to. Providing an intended address, supported by whatever documentary evidence is available (a signed rental agreement for a move-in date a few weeks out, for example), is usually sufficient for the local authority to begin processing the application, even if the formal oversubscription assessment is finalised once the tenancy is confirmed. Contacting the local authority's admissions team directly, rather than relying solely on an online portal, is consistently the fastest way relocating families report resolving ambiguous cases.
If your child's first language is not English, or if they have been educated in a different language, flag this explicitly on the school application rather than waiting to discuss it after arrival. Schools in England record every pupil's English proficiency and first language through the Department for Education's annual school census, which underpins additional funding for English as an Additional Language (EAL) support - in-class support, withdrawal groups, or specialist EAL teaching depending on the school and the child's assessed proficiency level. This is standard, funded provision in state schools, not an optional extra a family needs to negotiate individually, and most local authorities also maintain an advisory team (often called an Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service, or an equivalent name locally) that can guide schools on induction for newly arrived international pupils. For children applying to the independent sector via UKiset, the assessment's English component and CEFR-scaled result (from A1 beginner to C2 near-native) is specifically designed to give schools an honest picture of English proficiency alongside reasoning ability, so that a school can plan appropriate support from the outset rather than discovering a gap after enrolment.
Bringing the process together, the following order of operations reflects what actually gets a relocating family's child into a classroom fastest:
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Gather documents early: child's passport, previous school reports/transcripts, and whatever address evidence you have (even a signed tenancy for a future move-in date). |
| 2 | Contact the local authority covering your intended address directly and ask about their in-year admissions scheme, not just the general website guidance. |
| 3 | If a grammar school place is the goal, ask each target school directly which in-year test it uses (CAT4, a school-set paper, or a county process like Buckinghamshire's Late Transfer Test) and the current vacancy position. |
| 4 | If considering independent schools, register for a UKiset profile as early as possible - it can typically be sat before you relocate and sent to several schools at once. |
| 5 | Flag any English language support needs on every application so EAL provision is arranged before your child's first day, not after. |
| 6 | If no school place has been offered after several weeks of a genuine in-year application, ask the local authority explicitly about the Fair Access Protocol. |
No. Families who move to England outside the normal admissions timetable use a separate process called an in-year application, which every local authority must operate all year round under the School Admissions Code 2021. You apply for a place as soon as you have (or can evidence) a UK address, rather than waiting for the following September's national offer round. For a place at a non-selective state school this is usually the fastest route. For a grammar school place, an in-year application still requires your child to meet the school's selective entry requirement, which is usually a different test to the Year 6 11+ - see our guide to in-year grammar admissions for the detail on those tests.
You apply directly to the local authority covering the address you are moving to for community and voluntary-controlled schools, or directly to the school or academy trust where the school is its own admission authority (most academies, free schools, voluntary-aided and foundation schools). The application is assessed against that school's published oversubscription criteria in the same way as any other in-year applicant - there is no separate queue for relocating families. Local authorities are legally required to publish a coordinated in-year admissions scheme and to tell you within a reasonable time, usually within 15 school days, whether a place can be offered. If your preferred schools are full, you go on their waiting lists and the local authority must still name an alternative school with an available place.
The Fair Access Protocol is a statutory safety net that every local authority must run under section 3 of the School Admissions Code 2021, agreed jointly with local schools including academies and grammar schools. Its purpose is to get children who have struggled to secure a place through the normal in-year process - particularly those who are vulnerable or have been repeatedly refused - into a school quickly, and it can place a child at a school even where the published admission number has technically been reached. It is a backstop rather than a first step: most relocating families secure a place through the ordinary in-year application, and the Protocol becomes relevant mainly where a child has gone several weeks without a school place, or falls into one of the priority categories the local Protocol defines. Selective grammar schools take part in the Protocol for administrative purposes but are not required to admit a child through it who has not met their academic entry requirement.
It depends on the exact timing. The 11+ registration window for the following September's Year 7 entry typically opens in May and closes by June or July of Year 5 - well before most relocating families have a confirmed return date - and the test itself is sat in September of Year 6. If you arrive before registration closes, your child can usually be entered in the normal way. If you arrive after the test has been sat, the standard route has closed for that year, and the realistic alternative is an in-year application once you are settled, followed by whatever assessment your target grammar school sets for in-year entrants - commonly a CAT4 cognitive abilities test, a bespoke school-set paper, or in Buckinghamshire the formal Late Transfer Test - rather than a re-sit of the Year 6 11+ paper itself. Our in-year grammar admissions guide sets out the specific tests, thresholds and regional processes in detail.
For families targeting the independent and boarding sector rather than state grammar schools, UKiset is usually the more practical route precisely because it was built for exactly this situation. It is a computer-adaptive reasoning and English assessment that can typically be sat remotely from overseas before you relocate, producing a single profile that over 250 UK independent schools accept, rather than requiring a return to England on a fixed test date. State grammar schools do not accept UKiset - they require the 11+ or their own in-year test - so the right choice depends on whether you are targeting the state-selective or independent sector. Many relocating families explore both routes in parallel given the time pressure a mid-cycle move creates.
No. Every child of compulsory school age living in England is entitled to apply for a state-funded school place regardless of their or their parents' immigration or visa status, and admission authorities are not permitted to demand immigration documents as a condition of processing a school application. What local authorities and schools do need is evidence of the child's date of birth (typically a passport) and evidence of the address the child will live at, such as a signed tenancy agreement, a solicitor's letter confirming a property purchase, or a recent utility bill. Keeping this paperwork ready before you relocate is one of the most common practical delays families report.
Most local authorities ask for: proof of the child's date of birth (passport or birth certificate); proof of the UK address the child will live at (tenancy agreement, mortgage offer or solicitor's completion letter, or a recent council tax or utility bill); the child's most recent school reports or transcripts from their previous country; and, where relevant, any statement of special educational needs or an Education, Health and Care Plan. If your child does not yet speak English, mentioning this on the application helps the receiving school arrange English as an Additional Language (EAL) support from the first day, since EAL provision is recorded through the DfE's annual school census and funded accordingly.
Leading Tuition provides specialist preparation for children of relocating families, whichever admissions route you are pursuing - 11+ verbal and non-verbal reasoning from scratch, CAT4-style in-year grammar assessments, or UKiset reasoning and English preparation for independent school applications. Our tutors work entirely online, so preparation can begin before your move date and continue seamlessly once you have arrived, calibrated to your specific target schools and your realistic timeline. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. Book a free consultation at leadingtuition.co.uk/consultation or message us on WhatsApp.
Leading Tuition provides specialist online preparation for relocating families sitting the 11+, in-year grammar assessments, or UKiset. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot.
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