School Admission Register and Pupil Transfer Procedure

This procedure is for maintained and academy primary and secondary schools in England. It applies when a pupil is added to the admission register, a change of address or other-school attendance is notified, a pupil transfers school, or a deletion from the admission register is being considered.

Responsibilities

The [admission register owner] is responsible for ensuring that the admission register is updated promptly, that required returns are made, and that the relevant records are retained in the school’s register and transfer systems.

The [relevant school lead] must check the circumstances and any applicable exception before a pupil is added, amended, transferred or deleted.

Adding a pupil and making the New Pupil Return

When a pupil’s name is added to the admission register, record the information held about the pupil in the admission register and make a New Pupil Return to the local authority within 5 days of adding the name.

The New Pupil Return must provide the local authority with all the information held within the admission register about the pupil.

The 5-day New Pupil Return requirement does not apply where the pupil is added at the start of the school’s most junior year, unless the local authority has requested the information. For example, this can include pupils registered at a secondary school at the start of Year 7.

Where the most-junior-year exception is relied upon, record the basis for relying on it and respond if the local authority requests the information.

Updating address and other-school information

When a parent informs the school that the pupil will live at another address, whether in addition to or instead of the current address, update the admission register as soon as possible to include the address, the full name of each parent with whom the pupil will normally live, and the date when the pupil will start normally living there.

When a person with control of the pupil’s attendance informs the school that the pupil is or will be attending another school, update the admission register as soon as possible to include the name of the other school and the date when the pupil began or will begin attending that school.

Apply the same admission-register update process where the school itself requires the pupil to attend another school, including an off-site direction.

Encourage parents to inform the school whenever relevant changes occur, and amend the admission register as soon as possible after receiving the information.

Maintaining contemporaneous records

Keep the admission register and attendance register accurate records of who is a registered pupil and their attendance at any given time.

Do not retrospectively delete a pupil’s name from either register. Record attendance up to and including the date on which the pupil’s name is deleted from the admission register.

Where a register entry is amended or a pupil is deleted, retain the relevant dates, reason and register history in accordance with the school’s record system.

Transfers to another school

For a pupil transferring to another school, establish the agreed or notified first day that the pupil will attend the receiving school.

The receiving school must enter the pupil’s name on its admission register on the first day that it has agreed or been told the pupil will attend.

The original school must record the pupil’s attendance and absence up to and including the day before the transfer, and must delete the pupil’s name from its admission register as soon as the pupil is entered on the new school’s admission register.

Transfer the appropriate pupil information through the S2S system. The original and receiving schools must coordinate the register dates so that the records accurately reflect the transfer.

Deletion in sixth-form cases

Before considering deletion under Ground L, confirm that the pupil will be over compulsory school age by the time the school next meets.

For this purpose, a pupil ceases to be of compulsory school age on the last Friday in June of the school year in which the pupil reaches 16.

Deletion under Ground L may be considered only where the school does not have reasonable grounds to believe that the pupil will attend the school again, or where the pupil does not meet the academic entry requirements to be transferred to the school’s sixth form.

Record the pupil’s age, the relevant school-calendar date, the intended progression or sixth-form position, the applicable reason and the resulting admission-register decision before making the deletion.

Local implementation

Use the school’s approved admission-register system, attendance system, local-authority return route and S2S arrangements. Where a local process or system requires a site-specific value, use [site specific process value].