School Admissions Policy (next academic year)
Admission Authorities (2026-2027)
2.1 For Community and Voluntary Controlled Schools
In the case of Community and Voluntary Controlled schools within Pembrokeshire, the Admission Authority is Pembrokeshire County Council (the LA). The contact details for Pembrokeshire County Council are as follows:
Admissions Team
Education Directorate
County Hall
Haverfordwest
Pembrokeshire
SA61 1TP
Tel: 01437 764551
Email: admissions@pembrokeshire.gov.uk
Applications should be made using the online admission form.
2.2 For Voluntary Aided Schools
For Voluntary Aided schools (Church in Wales or Catholic) the Admission Authority is the School Governing Body. Applications are made online in the same way as above, and will be passed from the Local Authority to the relevant school.
2.3 For schools in neighbouring Authorities
Pembrokeshire shares its borders with Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion local authorities. Should you wish your child to attend a school in either of these authorities, then you should contact that Authority directly.
2.4 Co-ordinated scheme (2027 intake)
The Welsh Government has published new requirements which have been imposed by the Education (Co-ordination of School Admission Arrangements and Miscellaneous Amendments) (Wales) Regulations 2024 and came into force on 28 June 2024.
The scheme is for local authorities to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, that every parent of a child living in the local authority area who applies for a school place within the normal primary and secondary admission rounds, receives an offer on one, and only one school place on the common offer day for these school places.
Pembrokeshire County Council already operates a successful co-ordinated scheme, and so this will continue with some minor changes to take place beginning in the 2027 primary and secondary intakes. The changes will include amended deadline dates for admissions applications to be submitted (31st October for Secondary applications and 15th January for Primary applications) and a shorter period for parents to accept offers of places (two weeks).
Parents will continue to submit an application for a primary and secondary school place via the Pembrokeshire Council website. An application for a VA School will continue to be forwarded to the Governing Body who will make the decisions in line with their school’s own admissions arrangements. A response to all applications will be sent to parents directly from Pembrokeshire County Council’s admissions service.
There will be no change to the way that in-year applications are processed.
As we do not have the ability in Pembrokeshire for parents to apply via our common application form for schools outside of our local authority, parents will remain advised to submit any such applications to the local authority in which the school is located. We will continue to share information on cross-border applications with our neighbouring authorities to assist with the co-ordinated scheme.