Schools - Transactions

P1 and S1 school allocations for August 2022

We completed the first round of allocations for the new P1 & S1 intakes last week. Decisions have been made on placing requests and requests for Roman Catholic schools received up to 24 December 2021. Parents are notified by letter, and advise if the request is successful or turned down. We expect delivery of these letters to be completed by Friday 18 March.

Waiting lists are now live - as always any pupils remaining on the waiting list by the start of term will be passed to you in August.

Those turned down RC catchment schools are allocated a place in their non-denominational catchment school, and the allocations for the children we've turned down have been transferred accordingly on SEEMiS.

A new webpage has gone live with information on the allocations, including next steps and listing schools with available places - www.edinburgh.gov.uk/schoolplaces2022

Parents turned down may request a second choice by choosing one of the schools listed on page 2.

P1 registration has now closed. The Transactions team will continue to deal with applications from families moving to or within the Edinburgh area.

Viewing Primary 1 allocations

Your allocated pupils appear in Admissions & Leavers > Admissions > Intake Process > Intake Registration Details.

We did not receive registration forms for a number of children - we have checked addresses for these children and registered them, so please be aware you may not have registration forms for some of your registered children.

This screen will now include any placing requests we've granted, and children turned down their RC catchment school who have been transferred to their ND catchment school.

Viewing Secondary 1 allocations

Your allocated pupils appear in Admissions & Leavers > Allocations > Provisional Allocations Report 

• Primary schools - change Report Type to ‘Allocated From Report’
• Secondary schools - change this to 'Allocated To Report'
• click 'Get report Data'. This will generate a list of pupils.

Under the heading 'Allocation Type' the categories are as follows: 

Accepted by Parent - these are non-catchment requests we have granted, or children granted specialist provision within your school (i.e. performance schools, Enhanced Support Base or Inclusion Resource)
Allocated by Authority - these are catchment pupils.
Withdrawn - these are pupils previously allocated places but are now withdrawn and should not be counted in your figures.

Note - children who are attending a non-CEC primary school appear as current school ‘Unknown’ on the report. Please contact us if you'd like to know where these children are coming from.

What if a place is no longer required?

If parents contact you advising they no longer require a place, please use the contact form to let us know. However you don't need to tell us about:

• Places in special schools and classes - these are allocated by the Parent & Pupil Support Manager (Additional Support for Learning). We withdraw these places as and when the ASL team confirm these to us. If you believe a pupil has been allocated a place in a special school or class and they still show on your provisional intake, contact us and we'll check.
• Nursery deferrals - these are notified to us by Early Years. The closing date is 31 March 2022 so the majority of decisions will be made in April.

If a family is moving to a new address within Edinburgh, please advise the parent to complete the change of address form.

Important information about your intake

The data on Click+Go is subject to significant change between now and the start of term. If a change is made to either P1 or S1 intakes you will be notified by email.

You may notice that there are more children allocated places than the agreed intake limit for your school. This is because we guarantee places for all children at their non-denominational catchment school if they applied by 24 December 2021. We always start with higher numbers and experience from past years shows these numbers do drop. The figures will be carefully monitored and appropriate action taken if necessary.

Next steps

A second allocation will take place in early April once the initial nursery deferrals are known. Until then we will be keeping a log of any changes, i.e. families moving address, late requests etc.

A third allocation will take place towards the end of April / early May and we'll answer the second choice requests at this time.

We plan to have everything as up-to-date as possible before the appeals begin.  At this time we'll ask you to contact parents to confirm their acceptance of the places allocated, and you can then mark your leavers on SEEMiS.

We'll post the next update once the second allocation has been completed.

Free school meals - Easter Payment

We will soon be making the next holiday payments for children currently in receipt of free school meals.

At the budget meeting on 24 February 2022, Councillors agreed that families with an income-based eligibility to Free School Meals will receive a one-off payment of £100 per child to help meet rising household costs.

This will be paid alongside the Easter School Holiday Free School Meals payment and the Spring Scottish Child Bridging Payment.

Parents of children in receipt of income-based free school meals will therefore receive a payment of £255 per child before the Easter holiday.

This payment includes
•    £25 free school meals Easter holiday payment
•    £130 Easter bridging payment
•    £100 one-off low-income household payment.

Payments will be made to parents' bank account on Monday 28 March 2022. Paypoint payments will be made between 14 March 2022 and 1 April 2022.

Duplicate applications on the increase

We are noticing an increase of duplicate applications from families whose children are already in receipt of free school meals.  Parents we've contacted are under the impression they must apply before each holiday to receive these payments.

Holiday payments and the bridging payments are paid automatically to parents who have been awarded so there is no need for parents to apply each time. It causes a lot of unnecessary work as we must respond to every application.

It is also important to note that these payments are only paid to parents with an 'income-based' entitlement to free school meals. Therefore it is not paid to all parents of P1-P5 children.

Next update

We'll post another update in April.

If you have any enquiries in the meantime, please continue to use our contact form.