Starting school in Dorset: Reception 2027
Apply by Friday 15 January 2027 · offers on Friday 16 April 2027 · 118 primary schools
How likely is a first choice here?
For September 2026 entry, 93.9% of families living in Dorset were offered their first-choice primary school, against 92.4% across England. 28 families (1.0%) were offered none of the schools they named. Dorset ranks 88 of 150 councils in England, hardest first (see every council).
25 of its 118 primary schools had more first-choice applications than places.
The most sought-after, by first-choice applications per place offered: Rushcombe First School (1.4 per place), The Prince of Wales School (1.3 per place), St Nicholas and St Laurence Church of England Primary School (1.3 per place), Trent Young's CofE Primary School (1.2 per place), Henbury View First School (1.2 per place).
Before you apply
- Apply to Dorset if you live here, even for a school in another council. You apply to your home council, online, by Friday 15 January 2027. Children born between 1 September 2022 and 31 August 2023 start Reception in September 2027.
- Use every preference you're given. A council can only offer a school you named. If none of them has room, it offers a place at a school that does, which may be one you would never have picked.
- Rank schools in your true order. Schools rank applicants by their own rules without seeing where you placed them, and you are offered the highest school on your list that can take your child. Putting a popular school first does not cost you a place at your second.
- Name at least one school you are likely to get. The table below shows how many families put each school first.
- Check for a supplementary form. Many faith schools and some academies ask for one as well as the council application. Without it a child can't be ranked on faith grounds.
- Apply on time. Late applications are usually looked at only after every on-time one.
Summer-born children (born 1 April to 31 August) can ask to start Reception a year later instead of joining Year 1; the admission authority decides. Ask Dorset before the deadline.
How Dorset decides places
Catchment area is an explicit high-priority criterion, ranked before out-of-catchment sibling applications.
This covers the schools Dorset sets the rules for. Academies, free schools and faith schools set their own; check each school's admission arrangements. Dorset admissions.
Every primary school: demand for 2026 entry
Sorted by first-choice applications per place, the most contested first.
Places offered is the number of offers made on national offer day, and first choices offered the share of families who put the school first and got it (Department for Education, September 2026 entry).
Appeals in Dorset
Most Reception appeals are infant class size appeals. Classes of five- to seven-year-olds are limited to 30 by law, so a panel can uphold one only if the admission rules were unlawful or wrongly applied, or the refusal was one no reasonable authority would make. That is why so few succeed.
| Year | Appeals lodged | Heard by a panel | Upheld | Share of heard appeals upheld |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 35 | 27 | 6 | 22.2% |
| 2024/25 | 28 | 20 | 3 | 15.0% |
| 2023/24 | 48 | 26 | 3 | 11.5% |
Primary school appeals across all of Dorset, from the Department for Education. Appeals are not published school by school. Across England in 2025/26, 15.0% of 7,627 primary appeals heard were upheld. With fewer than 30 appeals heard in a year, one year's rate says little on its own. How appeal odds differ between councils.
More for Dorset
- Every school in Dorset, with catchment areas and Ofsted
- Secondary school offers in Dorset
- Map of schools near your home, with your chance of a place where we have the data
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