Moving your child mid-year without moving house: in-year transfers in Kent

• An in-year transfer is any application to change school outside the normal Reception or Year 7 rounds, whatever the reason.
• Unlike the main admissions rounds, you apply directly to the school (or schools) you want, not to Kent County Council, even for community schools.
• You'll need a separate In-Year Admissions Form for each child and each school.
• Ring the school first to check they actually have a space in your child's year group before applying, since availability changes constantly.
• Don't take your child out of their current school until you have a confirmed alternative place. There's no guarantee one will be available.
• Schools must tell you their decision within 15 school days of receiving your application, and most reply within 10.
• If you're refused everywhere suitable, you can join waiting lists and appeal.

Any application to move your child to a different school, at any point other than the normal Reception or Year 7 application rounds, counts as an in-year admission. That covers a genuinely wide range of situations: you're moving into Kent from elsewhere, you're moving within Kent to a different catchment, your child is unhappy or struggling at their current school, or a place has simply come up at a school you'd have preferred from the start. The process is the same regardless of the reason.

This is the part that catches people out. For the main Reception and Year 7 rounds, you apply once through Kent County Council, which coordinates offers across all your preferences. In-year admissions don't work that way. You apply directly to each school you're interested in, using an In-Year Admissions Form, and you need a separate form for every child and every school. Kent County Council doesn't make the offer on your behalf, and it can't guarantee your preferred school will have a space, so it's worth ringing the school directly first to check current availability in your child's specific year group before you go to the trouble of applying.

This is worth saying plainly. There's no guarantee that any particular school will have space, so don't remove your child from their current school on the assumption that a new place will follow. Keep them enrolled where they are until you have a confirmed offer somewhere else.

Once a school receives your In-Year Admissions Form, it must not take longer than 15 school days to tell you whether it can offer a place, though most schools are expected to respond within 10 school days. If the school isn't oversubscribed in your child's year group, this is often fairly quick and straightforward. If it is oversubscribed, your application will be ranked against the school's published oversubscription criteria, the same rules used in the main admissions round, alongside every other in-year application received for that year group.

You have a few options, and it's worth pursuing more than one at the same time rather than one after another:

• Apply to other schools in your area that do have space. It's genuinely unlikely that popular, oversubscribed schools will have room, since other families will usually have already taken any spaces as they appear.
• Join the school's waiting list. The school will contact you if a space becomes available, but there's no way to know if or when that might happen.
• Appeal the decision. This goes to an independent panel and follows broadly the same process as an appeal after the main admissions rounds.

If there genuinely isn't a place within a reasonable distance of your home at any suitable school, Kent County Council will work with local schools to make sure an alternative is found, so you're not left with nowhere for your child to go.

If you're applying to a grammar school in-year and your child has already sat the Kent Test, that result is valid for any Kent grammar school until the end of the first term of the school year. After that point, or if your child hasn't been tested yet, the specific grammar school you're applying to will arrange its own assessment. If you're applying to more than one grammar school, be aware that each one will usually require your child to sit a separate test, since results aren't automatically shared between schools past that first-term cutoff. Our [guide to the Kent Test](/guides/kent-test-2026) covers how the test itself works if this is new to you.

If your child is in the care of Kent County Council, their social worker or virtual school should contact the council's SEN and admissions team directly to arrange a move, rather than going through the standard in-year process alone. If your child has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan, or is currently going through an EHC needs assessment, contact Kent's SEND Enquiries Hub before applying, since moving school when a plan is in place, or being assessed, involves extra steps to make sure the right support follows your child. Our [guide to EHCPs in Kent](/guides/ehcp-kent-guide) has more detail on how the wider EHC process works.

If you're a member of the UK Armed Forces or a Crown servant with a confirmed posting to Kent, you can apply for an in-year place using the same In-Year Admissions Form, along with an official letter confirming your relocation date and your unit postal address or quartering area address. Where a school can offer a place, it will usually honour it even if you don't have a confirmed home address in the area yet.

If you have more than one child needing a place, be aware that you may need to look slightly further afield to find a school that can take all of them together, since Kent will try to avoid separating siblings across different schools where possible. If you're moving to Kent from outside the UK, email Kent's in-year admissions team to discuss your application before you arrive if you can, since foreign national children generally need either right of abode or an immigration status that permits them to study in the UK, and it's the parents' responsibility to check this before applying.

Before you commit to a school through the in-year process, think about how your child would actually get there. Transport help is only provided in line with Kent's normal transport rules, which are based on your child attending their nearest suitable school, not necessarily the one you've chosen through an in-year move. Our [guide to free school transport in Kent](/guides/free-school-transport-kent) explains exactly how those distance rules work, so it's worth checking before you accept a place somewhere further from home.