For parents of current year 5 children.
Dear Parents,
You will need to apply for your child’s secondary school place in the first term of their year 6.
It is your responsibility to submit your child’s application on time. Start your research early and be prepared.
Over the summer you should start thinking about which secondary schools you would like to apply for. We recommend expressing 5 preferences (or 3 if solely applying for Welsh medium education). Information about the schools is available on the Council’s website www.cardiff.gov.uk
How the application process works
- For your child to be allocated a place in a secondary school, you MUST submit an application.
- Applications must be made online at cardiff.gov.uk/secondaryadmissions – your local Hub can help you with this process if you would like further guidance.
- You can apply from Monday 26 September 2022 until Monday 28 November 2022 (the ‘closing date’).
- If you apply after the closing date the schools you prefer may already be full.
- You can upload any supporting documents you want considered during your application.
- If you wish the application to be considered under criteria that include previously looked after, medical or social grounds it is essential you provide supporting documents before the closing date.
Did you know?
- Living in the catchment area, living close to the school or having an older brother or sister at the school, does not guarantee a place.
- Selecting only one school on the form does not improve your chance of getting at place at that school.
- Several schools attract more applications than there are places available every year.
- You can find out more about a school by attending their open evenings, arranging a visit with them, looking at their websites and reading their Estyn reports.
- There is no guarantee you will get your first preference. You can and should state five preferred schools when you apply. For Welsh-medium, there are three schools across the city, listing all three schools in your preferred order is our recommendation.
Important information you need to consider
- All secondary schools in Cardiff usually run open evenings for you to visit, some schools have not confirmed dates yet for the autumn term 2022. We recommend you contact the school directly if a date is not listed on the school admission booklet 2023/24, they will be able to advise you on their arrangements.
- Find out about the oversubscription criteria for each school. We use this to decide who we can offer places to when there are more applications than spaces in a school. We use the same criteria for all community secondary schools but Foundation and Faith schools will use their own. Details of all of these can be found in the Information for Parents booklet – this is available to download at cardiff.gov.uk/secondaryadmissions.
- If you are applying for Bishop of Llandaff CiW High School, Corpus Christi High School or St Teilo’s CiW High School you will need to apply online AND complete and return their supplementary form. For all other Faith schools in the Cardiff area you will need to apply directly to the school.
Your child could walk, cycle or travel to school by bus, have you thought about how they will get to school?
Changes to secondary admission processes for children with statements of special educational needs (SEN)
During the academic year 2022-23, pupils in Year 6 who have a statement of SEN will be transferred to the new Additional Learning Needs (ALN) system. (For further information about this process you can speak to your ALN Coordinator (ALNCo) in school, visit website cardiffeducationservices.co.uk or contact the ALN advice and Helpline on 029 2087 2731.)
Year 6 learners who have a statement will need to apply for a place at a mainstream school through the secondary admissions process. The Local Authority will continue to consider and agree school placements for those learners who were identified as requiring a specialist placement during their Year 5 SEN Annual Review.
If you want to find out more about applying for your secondary school place, visit www.cardiff.gov.uk/secondaryadmissions or go into your local Hub where staff can tell you about the admissions process.
