PARENTS in Herefordshire join those across England in finding out this week which secondary school their child will be attending in September 2026. Herefordshire Council has made 1686 offers of places in schools across the county compared to 1763 in 2025, with the following parental preference success rates: The council states that there were 1548 first preference offers, which is 92 per cent of the total offers.

There were 88 second preference offers, which equates to being 5.2 per cent of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 97 per cent.

Third preference offers totalled 18, which is 1.06 per cent of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 98.1 per cent. The council has analysed the statistics and this year saw a very slight decrease in the numbers of parents getting a school in one of their three preferences (98.1 per cent compared to 98.5 per cent in 2025).

The remaining 32 places offered were to parents whose preferences could not be met and their offer was for the nearest school to their home address with available spaces.

In previous years, Herefordshire schools were a net importer of pupils, with more pupils from neighbouring counties requesting places in the county’s schools than Herefordshire pupils requesting places in other counties.

This year Herefordshire offered 133 places to out of county children and neighbouring counties offered 115 places to Herefordshire children. Currently there are six Herefordshire secondary schools with waiting lists and eight have available spaces.

There are ten pupils whose parent’s did not apply for a school place and these children will be allocated a place at the nearest school to their home address with spaces at the end of March. The council has continued to promote its online application service to parents and 94 per cent applied online compared to last year’s 94.1 per cent.