Offer of a secondary school place

Waiting lists

Southwark Council’s school admissions team holds waiting lists for all Southwark schools until 10 July 2025.

We'll allocate an alternative school if it's impossible to offer a place at one of your preferred Southwark schools. In the meantime, your child’s name will automatically be put on the waiting lists of schools named as a higher preference on your application. However, there's a lot of movement on waiting lists until the start of the academic year. The school admissions team will contact you if a place becomes available at your preferred school.

The school admissions code requires admission authorities to hold their waiting list strictly in order of the priorities of their published oversubscription criteria. If your child's name is added to a school's waiting list, their position may go up or down the list depending on whether any late applicants have been added and how the oversubscription criteria apply to these children (for example, if a late applicant meets a higher admissions criterion than others already on the list, they will be given a higher waiting list position). This ensures that if a vacancy arises at a school at any time, the admissions criteria are used to determine which child is offered a place from the waiting list.

If you wish to check your child’s position on a waiting list for any Southwark school contact the school admissions team by email after 3 March 2025. Waiting lists will be handed over to schools to manage from 11 July 2025 and applicants should direct any queries relating to their child’s position to the individual school after this date. As we do not hold waiting list information for schools outside of Southwark, you should contact the local authority where the school is situated, who can advise you further. 

If a conditional offer made from a waiting list is not accepted within five working days, it will be withdrawn and offered to the next child on the list.

If you change address while on a waiting list, evidence of the new address will be required when measuring for the home to school distance criterion.

You may also ask for your child’s name to be added to the waiting list of any out of borough schools listed on your application form.

Page last updated: 30 August 2024