Completing the secondary school common application form (CAF)

The common application form, usually called the CAF, is the single form you use to apply for a secondary school place in England. You complete it through your home local authority, list your preferred schools in order, and submit it before the national deadline. National offer day is the same date across England, so every family finds out at the same time.

Most of the form is straightforward. The bit that trips parents up is how preferences are processed: How many to list, in what order, and what the council does with that order. The mechanics aren't intuitive, and a few common mistakes can quietly cost you your first-choice place.

The CAF is the form your local council uses to allocate Year 7 places. Every state-funded secondary school in England, including academies, free schools, grammar schools, and faith schools, takes pupils through this single process.

You apply through the council where your child lives, not the council where the school sits. So if you live in Bromley and want a place at a school in Bexley, you submit your Bromley CAF, list the Bexley school, and Bromley shares the application with Bexley behind the scenes. You don't fill in two forms.

One CAF covers all your preferences. Listing a school anywhere on the form is your formal application to that school.

The dates are set nationally and don't change between councils.

The form opens in early September of the year before your child starts secondary school (so September 2025 for September 2026 entry). The national closing date is 31 October. National offer day, when you find out which school your child has been allocated, is 1 March, or the next working day if 1 March falls on a weekend. For the 2026 cycle, 1 March 2026 is a Sunday, so offers land on Monday 2 March 2026.

Separate from the CAF, some grammar and selective schools require you to register for their entrance test in the summer before Year 6, with deadlines as early as late June or early July. Missing the test registration deadline means missing the chance to be ranked at that school, even if you list it on your CAF.

Every local authority in England uses what's called the equal preference scheme. It's been mandatory since 2007. The key thing to understand is that schools don't see where you've ranked them. They don't know whether they're your first choice or your sixth.

Here's what happens behind the scenes. The council sends every school the list of pupils who've named it anywhere on their CAF. Each school ranks those pupils against its own admissions criteria (catchment, siblings, faith, distance, test score, etc.) and tells the council where each child sits in that ranking.

The council then looks at each child and works out which of the schools the family applied to would offer them a place. If more than one school would, the council uses your preference order as the tiebreaker, and you get the highest-ranked school on your list that's willing to offer.

Two things follow from this that aren't always obvious.

First, you can't damage your chances at a school by ranking it lower. Put your local academy sixth and a competitive grammar first, and the academy ranks you against its criteria regardless. Use your top spot for the school you most want, not the one you think you're most likely to get.

Second, your preference order only matters if more than one of your listed schools would offer you a place. If only one would, you get that school whether it was first or last. If none would, the council allocates from elsewhere.

First-preference-first used to work the opposite way: Schools could prioritise pupils who'd named them as their first choice. It was banned for state school admissions in England in 2007 because it punished families for being honest.

You won't encounter it in the main CAF process. Independent schools set their own admissions and may informally favour first-choice families, and Welsh and Scottish councils run slightly different schemes. For mainstream English secondary entry through the CAF, equal preference is the rule.

The School Admissions Code requires every council in England to allow at least three preferences. In practice most councils allow more: six preferences are common across London Boroughs, while three or four preferences is more typical outside London. The minimum useful number is three: One school you'd love your child to attend, one realistic option you'd be happy with, and one safety net where your child clearly meets the admissions criteria.

Leaving slots blank is a common mistake. The council doesn't view a shorter list as showing commitment, and an incomplete form just means a higher risk of being allocated somewhere you didn't choose.

The safety net school is the one many parents skip. It's the school your child is very likely to be offered because they meet a clear criterion: In-catchment, or with a sibling already there. If none of your higher preferences come through, the safety net is what stands between you and an allocation you didn't ask for.

A few recurring problems trip families up in most years.

On national offer day (1 March, or the next working day if 1 March is a weekend; Monday 2 March 2026 for the 2026 cycle), every family in England finds out which school their child has been offered. Most councils release results through their online admissions portal from early morning, with email confirmation the same day.

You'll be offered one school: The highest on your preference list that was willing to offer a place. If none of your listed schools would offer, you're allocated to the nearest school with space, which may not be local.

You usually have about two weeks to accept. Even if you intend to appeal or join a waiting list, accept the offered place. It guarantees you a school in September. You can stay on as many waiting lists as you like at the same time.

If you're not offered your first-choice school, you have two options that run in parallel: Joining the waiting list and lodging an appeal. They're independent, and you can pursue both.

Waiting lists for oversubscribed schools must be kept open until at least 31 December of the year of entry. Your child's position on the waiting list isn't first-come-first-served; it's ranked using the same admissions criteria as the original allocation. So a child in catchment with a sibling at the school can leapfrog children added earlier.

Appeals go to an independent appeal panel. You usually have about 20 school days from offer day to submit an appeal, with the hearing held within 40 school days. Appeals succeed most often when there's a clear error in how criteria were applied or when the panel agrees the school can take an extra pupil without prejudice to other children. Pure "this would be better for my child" cases are harder to win.