School Admission for a Kinship Child in England: In-Year Applications and Enrolment

Who Counts as a "Parent" for School Admissions

Section 576 of the Education Act 1996 defines "parent" broadly enough to include anyone who has care of a child — not just biological parents and not just people with parental responsibility. A grandparent, aunt, uncle or any other relative who is actually looking after a child day to day qualifies as a parent for education law purposes.

That means a kinship carer in England can apply for a school place, attend parents' evenings, receive reports and handle routine school communications without needing a court order or formal legal authority.

How In-Year Admissions Work

Children in kinship care often arrive mid-term, after a family crisis. That rules out the normal September admissions round and pushes the carer into the in-year admissions process.

An in-year application is submitted either to the local authority or directly to the school's admission authority, depending on whether the council operates a coordinated in-year system. Academies, foundation schools and voluntary-aided schools sometimes manage their own in-year applications.

The process is straightforward on paper: fill in the application form, name the preferred school, and provide proof that the child lives at the stated address. The complication for kinship carers is that the child may have moved suddenly, and the standard proof-of-address documents take time to arrive.

Proving the Child's Address

Admission authorities use the child's home address to apply oversubscription criteria — catchment area, distance to school, sibling links. They need evidence that the address is genuine, not a convenience arrangement to secure a particular school place.

Standard acceptable evidence includes:

• A Child Benefit notification letter showing the child's name and the carer's address
• NHS correspondence addressed to the child at the carer's home
• Council Tax bill or tenancy agreement showing the carer's address
• A utility bill in the carer's name

When none of these are available yet — which is common when a child has moved in suddenly — ask the admission authority what evidence it accepts. The School Admissions Code does not set one national alternative-document list; a statutory declaration or a letter from a GP, social worker or health visitor may support the application, but acceptance is not automatic.

The admission authority's published arrangements determine how it treats a child who lives at more than one address. If the child splits time between the parent's home and the kinship carer's home, ask the authority which address rule and evidence it applies before submitting the application.

Admissions Priority: What Kinship Carers Should Know

The School Admissions Code gives highest priority (Overcriterion 1) to looked-after children and previously looked-after children who left care through adoption, a Special Guardianship Order or a Child Arrangements Order.

Children living in informal kinship care are not classified as looked-after or previously looked-after. A kinship carer applying for a school place will be assessed under the school's standard oversubscription criteria — typically catchment area, distance and sibling links.

That can feel frustrating when a child has been displaced by a crisis and is competing for places on pure distance. But there is a safety net: the Fair Access Protocol.

The Fair Access Protocol

Every local authority in England must operate a Fair Access Protocol (FAP) to ensure that unplaced, vulnerable children are allocated a school place quickly, even when all nearby schools are full.

Formal kinship care is an express FAP eligibility category. An informal kinship move alone does not qualify a child for that category, though the child may meet another category in the local protocol. Ask the local authority admissions team whether the child qualifies; once it agrees the child will be considered under the FAP, a school place must be allocated within 20 school days.

If the child has moved across local authority boundaries, a new in-year application goes to the receiving council, and the previous council should be notified of the address change.

What the Virtual School Head Can Do

Virtual School Heads have had a non-statutory strategic role supporting children in kinship care since September 2024. Section 6 of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 provides for an expanded statutory duty, but it is not yet in force as of 25 October 2026 and does not require action in an individual child's case.

For a kinship carer struggling with admissions, contact the local authority's Virtual School to ask what strategic support is available and how schools can support the child.

If the School Refuses

If an in-year application is refused, the admission authority must give the reason in writing and explain the right to appeal. The carer can appeal to an independent appeal panel.

For a child who urgently needs a place and has no school at all, escalating through the Fair Access Protocol is usually faster than waiting for an appeal hearing. The two routes are not mutually exclusive — a carer can request FAP referral and lodge an appeal at the same time.

The complete guide for kinship carers in England covers the full admissions process with template letters for approaching schools and local authorities.

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