The Kent school admissions calendar 2026/27: every deadline, month by month

Before you use the calendar, work out which strand you are on. Most families are on one, some are on two, and a few are on three at once.

If your child is in Year 6 in the 2026/27 school year, you are applying for a secondary (Year 7) place starting September 2027. If your child was born between 1 September 2022 and 31 August 2023, you are applying for a Reception place starting September 2027. If your child is in Year 6 and you are considering a grammar school, you are also on the Kent Test strand, which runs earlier than everything else. And if you are moving into Kent partway through the year, you are on the in-year strand, which does not follow this calendar at all.

One important warning about geography. Medway is a separate local authority from Kent County Council. If you live in Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester, Strood, Rainham or the rest of the Medway towns, you apply through Medway Council, on Medway's timetable, and Medway's selective test is not the Kent Test. Everything below is the Kent County Council process.

Kent Test registration for the September 2026 test opened on Monday 1 June 2026 and closed on Wednesday 1 July 2026. That window has passed, and Kent County Council does not normally accept late registrations.

The 1 July 2026 date was also the deadline for requesting access arrangements or special consideration for children with special educational needs or a disability. If you registered on time and need to update the arrangements, contact the Kent admissions team directly rather than waiting.

If you missed registration entirely, you have not lost the chance of a grammar place altogether. You can still name grammar schools on your secondary application and ask for a headteacher assessment, and separately you can appeal. Both routes are harder than sitting the test on time, so speak to your child's primary school as early as you can.

This is the busiest month of the whole year, and two completely separate things are happening in it.

The Kent Test is on Thursday 10 September 2026 for children attending a Kent primary school, who sit it at their own school. Children at schools outside Kent, and children educated at home, sit it over the weekend of 12 and 13 September 2026 at a designated test centre. Kent County Council writes to you beforehand with the venue.

The test itself is two multiple-choice papers plus a writing exercise: an English and maths paper of about an hour, a reasoning paper of about an hour covering verbal and non-verbal reasoning, and a 40 minute writing exercise that is not marked as part of the main score but can be used at the headteacher assessment stage.

At the same time, the secondary application for September 2027 entry opens in early September 2026 through the Kent County Council online admissions system. You do not have to wait for Kent Test results to start the form. Fill in your details, save it, and come back to finalise your preferences in October once you know the outcome.

September and October are also the peak months for secondary open evenings. Book them now, because the popular ones fill up and most schools run only one or two.

Kent Test results are released to parents on Thursday 15 October 2026. You will be told whether your child has been assessed as suitable for grammar school education. That is an eligibility judgement, not an offer of a place.

This is deliberately timed. You get the result sixteen days before the application deadline, so you can finalise your preference list knowing where you stand. Use those sixteen days properly.

The secondary application deadline is Saturday 31 October 2026. This is the national closing date and it does not move. Applications submitted after it are treated as late, which means they are only considered once every on-time application has been dealt with. In practice a late application at an oversubscribed Kent school is very unlikely to succeed.

You can name up to four schools on the Kent secondary form. Name four. There is no penalty for using all of them, because the system works on equal preference: schools are not told where you ranked them, they simply apply their own criteria, and if more than one would offer, you get the highest-ranked of those. Leaving preferences blank only reduces your own options.

The single most common mistake is a list of four schools that are all a long shot. Make at least one of your four a school where you have a realistic chance on distance or sibling grounds. If none of your four can offer a place, Kent allocates you to the nearest school with a vacancy, which may be nowhere near where you wanted.

The Reception application for September 2027 entry opens in November 2026. For the previous cycle KCC opened it on 7 November, and it is normally early in the month; check the KCC primary school places page for the confirmed 2027 date.

Your child is due to start Reception in September 2027 if they were born between 1 September 2022 and 31 August 2023. You must apply even if your child already attends the school's own nursery. A nursery place carries no right to a Reception place at the same school, and every year families in Kent are caught out by this.

On the secondary side, nothing visible happens for a while. Kent County Council processes applications from 1 November through to offer day the following March, matching children to schools against each school's published oversubscription criteria. You will not hear anything during this period, and there is no queue to jump.

Late secondary applications submitted now will still be accepted, but they go to the back of the queue behind every on-time application.

December is quiet on deadlines and useful for visits. Most Kent primaries run open mornings across the autumn and into January, and unlike secondary open evenings they are often small enough to book at short notice.

If any of your primary preferences is a faith school, this is the month to sort out supplementary paperwork. Voluntary aided church schools frequently ask for a separate supplementary information form, sometimes with a signed reference from a member of clergy confirming attendance at worship. These forms go to the school, not to Kent County Council, and they have their own deadlines that can fall before the main January closing date.

Missing a supplementary form does not invalidate your application, but it does mean the school has to place your child in a lower criterion band, which at an oversubscribed faith school is usually decisive.

The Reception application deadline is Friday 15 January 2027. Like 31 October for secondary, this is a national closing date and it does not move.

Apply online through Kent County Council. You will get an email confirmation with a reference number; keep it. If you do not receive one, your application has not gone through.

As with secondary, list your preferences in genuine order and include at least one realistic option. Kent does not operate rigid catchment areas for most community primaries. Distance from home to school is one criterion among several, alongside looked-after status, an EHCP naming the school, siblings already on roll and, at faith schools, religious criteria. Distance alone guarantees nothing.

If you are applying for a Year 3 junior school place, that follows the same January deadline. An infant school place does not automatically transfer to the linked junior school unless they are formally an all-through primary, so check with the school if you are unsure.

Nothing is due in February, which makes it a good month to prepare rather than wait.

Read up on the appeals process before you need it, not after. Understanding how an appeal works while you are calm is far easier than trying to learn it in the fortnight after a disappointing offer.

If your circumstances have changed since you applied, tell Kent County Council now. A house move, a change of contact details or a new sibling attending one of your preferred schools can all affect which criteria your child falls under, but only if the admissions team knows about it before places are allocated. Address changes in particular need supporting evidence and are checked.

National Offer Day for secondary places is Monday 1 March 2027. Kent County Council emails offers to families who applied online, usually during the evening, with the outcome also visible in your online account.

One offer is made: the highest-ranked school on your list that could offer your child a place. If none of your four could, you will be allocated a place at the nearest school with a vacancy.

You should accept the offered place even if you intend to appeal or go on a waiting list. Accepting does not weaken an appeal and it does not remove you from any waiting list. Refusing it simply leaves your child without a guaranteed school place.

Waiting lists open immediately and are the most under-used route in the whole system. Kent keeps secondary waiting lists ranked by the school's oversubscription criteria, not by when you joined, so a late addition can go straight to the top. Movement is common over the spring and summer as families accept independent or out-of-county places.

Appeal deadlines are set shortly after offer day. For the 2026 cycle, secondary appeals had to be lodged by 30 March and were heard by mid June. Expect a comparable pattern in 2027, and check the exact 2027 date on the KCC appeals page as soon as your offer arrives.

Primary offers for September 2027 entry are released on Friday 16 April 2027. Kent County Council emails offers, typically in the late afternoon, with the online account updating shortly after.

The same rules apply as for secondary. Accept the place, join waiting lists for anywhere you would rather be, and lodge an appeal separately if you want one. Doing all three at once is normal and none of them cancels out the others.

Infant class size rules make Reception appeals different and considerably harder. Because the law caps infant classes at 30 pupils per teacher, an appeal panel can usually only allow a Reception appeal if the admission arrangements were applied incorrectly, if they were unlawful, or if the decision was one no reasonable authority would have made. This is a much narrower test than at secondary, and it is worth understanding before you invest emotional energy in an appeal.

For the 2026 cycle, primary appeals had to be lodged by 18 May and were heard by 20 July. Again, confirm the 2027 dates with KCC.

Appeals are heard by an independent panel, normally three people, which is separate from both the school and Kent County Council. You will be told the hearing date at least 14 calendar days beforehand and receive the paperwork at least seven calendar days before it.

Appeals lodged after the deadline are still heard, but later: within 40 school days of the deadline, or within 30 school days of lodging where that is reasonably possible.

Meanwhile the waiting lists keep moving. This is the period when families who held both a state and an independent offer make their final decision, and when relocations get confirmed. Places do come free. Ring the school office rather than waiting to be contacted, and make sure they have a phone number that reaches you during the working day.

Kent County Council maintains waiting lists until at least the end of the autumn term of the year of entry. Being third on a list in May is a genuinely realistic position, not a consolation prize.

1 June to 1 July 2026: Kent Test registration window (closed).

10 September 2026: Kent Test for Kent primary school pupils. 12 and 13 September 2026 for out-of-county and home-educated children.

Early September 2026: secondary application for September 2027 entry opens.

15 October 2026: Kent Test results released to parents.

31 October 2026: secondary application deadline. National, and fixed.

November 2026: Reception application for September 2027 entry opens.

15 January 2027: primary and junior application deadline. National, and fixed.

1 March 2027: secondary National Offer Day.

Late March 2027: secondary appeal deadline, confirmed by KCC after offer day.

16 April 2027: primary National Offer Day.

May 2027: primary appeal deadline, confirmed by KCC after offer day.

May to July 2027: appeal hearings and waiting list movement.

None of the above applies if you are moving into Kent partway through the school year, or if your child needs to change schools mid-year. That is an in-year application, and it runs continuously rather than to a timetable.

In-year applications go to Kent County Council for community and voluntary controlled schools, and directly to the school for most academies, free schools and voluntary aided schools. Check which applies before you send anything, because sending it to the wrong place costs weeks.

You cannot normally apply for an in-year place until you have a confirmed address in the area. Schools are entitled to ask for evidence, typically a tenancy agreement or completed purchase. Applying with an intended address rather than a confirmed one is the most common reason in-year applications stall.

Schools must normally respond within 15 school days. If a school is full you can join its waiting list and appeal in the usual way, and the same infant class size restrictions apply to Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.

Kent County Council is the only authoritative source for Kent admissions dates, and it is the source every date on this page was checked against. Where KCC has not yet published a confirmed date for the 2027 cycle, we have said 'early September' or 'November' rather than inventing a specific day.

The pages worth bookmarking are the Kent Test page, the secondary school places page, the primary school places page and the appeals page, all on kent.gov.uk. Between them they carry every official deadline, and KCC updates them as each cycle is confirmed.

If you spot a date on this site that has drifted out of line with KCC, tell us and we will fix it. KCC is the source of truth, always.