Relocating to the UK Mid-Cycle: Sitting the 11+ and In-Year Admissions

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Relocating to the UK mid-cycle means arriving after the annual admissions timetable has started, so a family applies outside the main round: the School Admissions Code 2021 says a parent can apply at any school, at any time. For Year 7 entry in September 2027, Buckinghamshire's main-round closing date is 31 October 2026 and Kent's is Monday 2 November 2026; what a child who missed the 2026 grammar tests is offered depends on the area.

How Does In-Year School Admissions Work for a Family Relocating to England?

England's school admissions system runs two tracks. The annual round takes Year 7 applications in the autumn before the child starts: GOV.UK says applications usually open on 1 September and must be made by 31 October, and councils publish their own closing dates (31 October 2026 on Buckinghamshire's page, Monday 2 November 2026 on Kent's). Secondary offers go out on 1 March or the next working day, which is Monday 1 March 2027 in Kent. GOV.UK tells a family applying from another country to contact the local council in the area where they are going to live, and our guide to applying for a Year 7 place from abroad sets out where the Common Application Form goes and what proof of a return councils accept.

Two kinds of application sit outside that round, and the School Admissions Code 2021 defines both in footnotes. A late application is one for entry in a relevant age group (the age group to which pupils are normally admitted to the school) that is submitted before the first day of the first term in the admission year but too late for the council to offer a place on National Offer Day (footnote 58). An in-year application is one submitted on or after that first day, or one for an age group other than a relevant age group (footnote 60). The Code is permissive about in-year applications: paragraph 2.23 says a parent can apply for a place at any school, at any time. Councils are not required to co-ordinate in-year applications for schools they are not the admission authority for, but they must publish on their website by 31 August each year how in-year applications can be made, including which schools they co-ordinate and which manage their own. Kent shows how this plays out: its in-year page says it cannot make the offer on a parent's behalf, so parents apply to the schools they want.

Under paragraph 2.28 a maintained school or academy with places must offer one to every child who has applied, without conditions or oversubscription criteria, unless admitting the child would prejudice the efficient provision of education or use of resources; designated grammar schools are excepted. Under paragraph 2.9 an admission authority must not refuse a child solely because the family applied later than other applicants, followed a different curriculum at the previous school, or because information has not been received from that school; the same paragraph adds missed entrance tests for selective places. Grammar schools follow footnote 62 for timing: within 15 school days of an in-year application, the school notifies the parent in writing of either the date for the assessment of ability or, where it chooses not to assess because admitting an additional child would prejudice the provision of efficient education or efficient use of resources, the reason for refusal.

On timing, paragraph 2.30 says the admission authority, or the council where it co-ordinates, should aim to notify parents of the outcome in writing within 10 school days and must do so within 15 school days, a rule that footnote 62 says does not apply to grammar schools. If no place is offered, the routes differ: in the main round GOV.UK says the council must provide a place at another school, usually the nearest with places still available, while for in-year applications Kent says that where there are no places within a reasonable distance of home it will work with schools to make a local alternative available.

What Is the Fair Access Protocol, and When Does It Apply to Relocating Families?

The Fair Access Protocol sits in Section 3 (Ensuring Fairness and Resolving Issues) of the School Admissions Code 2021. Paragraph 3.14 requires each local authority to have one "to ensure that unplaced and vulnerable children, and those who are having difficulty in securing a school place in-year, are allocated a school place as quickly as possible", and paragraph 3.15 says that once the Protocol has been agreed by the majority of schools in its area, all admission authorities must take part, including by admitting pupils when asked to, even when the school is full.

Paragraph 3.17 says Protocols may only be used for the groups it lists, where a child is having difficulty securing a place in-year and reasonable measures have been taken to secure one through the usual in-year procedures; footnote 80 gives as examples an application made to at least one school and refused, or the council confirming that no school within a reasonable distance has a place. No entry on the list is defined by arrival from abroad as such, though paragraph 3.17(k) covers children for whom a place has not been sought due to exceptional circumstances, and the Code leaves it to the local authority to decide whether a child qualifies on that basis. The entries closest to a relocating family are children who are homeless; children of, or who are, Gypsies, Roma, Travellers, refugees and asylum seekers; and children who have been out of education for four or more weeks where it can be demonstrated that there are no places available at any school within a reasonable distance of their home, which does not include circumstances where a suitable place has been offered to a child and this has not been accepted.

Paragraph 3.18 says eligibility for the Protocol does not limit a parent's right to make an in-year application, and admission authorities must not refuse a child because they may be eligible to be placed through it. For most relocating families the ordinary in-year application is therefore the first step, and the Protocol matters only if that application is refused or no school within a reasonable distance has a place.

What Do Grammar Schools Require From a Child Sitting the 11+ Mid-Cycle?

Whether a child can sit the same 11+ as everyone else depends on the area's registration window, and the windows differ. Kent puts its own cohort at children born between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016, who are in Year 6 during 2026-27 and start Year 7 in September 2027.

For the 2026 tests, for entry in September 2027, a family that arrives after a window has closed finds the area's own pages handling the gap in different ways. The table sets out each window and what each source says.

Read the table as a spread of published positions, not a rule. Kent and Buckinghamshire each name a route for a child who has not been tested: assessment through the grammar school in Kent, and late testing in Buckinghamshire, but only once the child is back in the UK and, for a family moving in, by 18 June 2027. The other three sources say late registrations will not be accepted, and Redbridge's late testing is for children who registered on time. Every row is for September 2027 entry, so the dates will move for the next cycle: check the council and the school before relying on any of them.

A child who arrives after the autumn meets the grammar school's own in-year process. Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells says it keeps a Year 7 waiting list until the end of the academic year, after which parents complete the Kent In Year Application Form and applicants are invited to attend a CAT4 assessment; the minimum mean score it requires is 120. Weald of Kent Grammar School's admissions policy for 2027/2028 says, without giving a year, that after 31 December a student applying for a place in Year 7 who did not sit the Kent Test before then will have to be CAT tested. The Skinners' figure is one school's published rule, not a Kent-wide threshold: Kent's page says the Kent Test is used until the end of the first term and that the school's own assessment process applies after that.

Buckinghamshire runs a separate late transfer test (12+ and 13+) for pupils who are in Years 7 and 8 when they register or apply and want a grammar school place in Year 8 or 9. Its page names two circumstances. A child who has moved into Buckinghamshire from outside the county or abroad makes an in-year application, and the council says it will contact the family to arrange a test date. A child who has already taken the transfer test registers between 5 October and 23 October 2026 for a place starting in September 2027; the council's timeline has registered children sitting the Late Transfer Test on Saturday 6 February 2027, with results released on 27 March 2027. The page also says places are extremely limited and most pupils do not get one: for September 2026 entry, no places were offered for either Year 8 or Year 9 in the first round of allocations in March.

Address timing matters more at some schools than others. Kent says some of its grammar schools, particularly those most likely to offer places to children from outside Kent, give priority to those with the highest scores. Buckinghamshire says that for most grammar schools 1 September 2026 is the cut-off date for the home address used in the main allocation, and that a later move means the previous address is used until a later allocation round.

We cover the in-year tests by region in our in-year grammar school admissions guide, and if moving address within England is part of the plan, our guide to moving house for grammar school catchment explains how distance-based criteria work. A family that is not yet in the UK and has a longer lead time can plan around the registration windows instead: our guide for families returning to or relocating to the UK for grammar school sets out that route, and the area-by-area rules for a child still abroad are in our guide to the 11 Plus from overseas for 2027 entry.

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Is UKiset a More Flexible Route Into the Independent School Sector?

For a family that needs a school place quickly and is open to the independent sector, UKiset (the UK Independent Schools' Entry Test) is one route to investigate, because it can be sat before the family arrives. UKiset describes itself as "an adaptive online entry test in English designed to support admission into the UK independent education system". It was founded in 2013 by Gabbitas and developed in partnership with Cambridge University Press & Assessment; it says it can be taken anywhere in the world through online invigilation. Results are valid for one year and the test can be retaken after 3 months.

The second part of UKiset, Reading & Listening, is the Cambridge English test, which the Welcome Guide describes as an online multiple-choice test that assesses receptive language skills, and UKiset says it assesses English with the Cambridge English Linguaskill test, which provides the candidate's current CEFR level. UKiset's own pages describe admission to independent schools and to British curriculum international schools, so it leads into a different sector from a state grammar school, whose route for a late arrival, where one exists, is the one the council or school publishes, as the table above shows. Our UKiset explained guide covers the format, scoring and preparation in full.

Does Visa Status Affect Proof of Address and the Right to a School Place?

Immigration status does not decide whether a state school may process an application, but for a child coming from overseas it can decide whether they are able to enter the UK and attend a school at all. The Department for Education's guidance on school applications for foreign national children, last updated on 28 March 2024, says the admission authorities for state-funded schools must not check the immigration or nationality status of foreign national children as a pre-condition for admission, must not refuse to admit a child on the basis of their nationality or immigration status, and must not ask to see passports or other immigration information as a condition of admission.

The same guidance puts the responsibility on parents. Foreign national children resident outside the UK will normally need either a right of abode or an immigration status that otherwise permits them to enter the UK to study at a school, and it is for parents to check that before applying. Under its heading for children whose immigration status gives them no right to enter the UK to access schools, the guidance names unaccompanied children on a Child Student or Student visa, who cannot lawfully study at a state-funded school and must study at the independent school, sixth form college or further education college that is a licensed student sponsor and has offered them an unconditional place on a course; and children on the visitor route or the 11-month Short-term Study (English language) visa, who are not permitted to enter the UK to enrol as a pupil at a state-funded school.

Children under 18 can usually enter as dependants of a foreign national parent with settled status in the UK or on a work or student visa, although the right of dependants to join family members is not automatic and an application must normally be made. The guidance also names routes for Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) and their dependants who have applied at the same time, Ukrainian families, eligible Afghan citizens and eligible people of Chagossian descent, and says children recognised as refugees, and asylum-seeking children awaiting a decision, are entitled to school-based education. Our guide to BNO visa family tutoring in the UK covers GCSE and A-level support for Hong Kong students settling in England, and our answer on whether foreign national children can attend UK grammar schools covers what these rules mean for a state grammar school place.

What an admission authority can ask for is evidence of where the family will live. The DfE guidance says authorities can decide what evidence they require, which might include a mortgage or rental agreement, deeds, a letter from an employer showing a transfer date, or registration with a local GP; GOV.UK adds that a family applying from another country may need to prove it will live in the area before the start of the next school term, and Buckinghamshire's late-test page lists a Council Tax bill and current utility bill (gas or electric but not water) no more than 3 months old as examples of proof of residence. An application should be processed whether or not the family can provide a permanent address, though without evidence of a return an overseas address might give lower priority where there is a catchment area or a tie for the final place.

English Language Support for a Newly Arrived Child

Tell the school which language your child speaks at home. The DfE's school census guidance for 2026 to 2027 requires language data for all pupils, labels it as used for funding, and says the information must come from the parent or guardian or the pupil: the school must not ascribe a specific language to the pupil.

Paragraph 2.9 of the Code says a child must not be refused solely because information has not been received from the previous school, so previous school reports or transcripts are worth bringing, but a delay in receiving them is not a reason for refusal on its own. Parents may also seek a place outside the child's normal age group (paragraph 2.18).

A Practical Checklist for Families Relocating to the UK Mid-Cycle

Bringing the sources together, this is the order of operations that follows from them:

Reviewed October 2026: in-year rules, the Fair Access Protocol, visa conditions, 11+ late-arrival routes and UKiset checked against the School Admissions Code 2021, DfE and GOV.UK guidance, council and school admissions pages, and UKiset's own site.

Frequently Asked Questions about Relocating to the UK Mid-Cycle