School places
Who gets the school they want?
Loading school admissions figures from Leeds City Council…
The bulge has moved to secondary
First-choice applications for each September entry. Primary applications track the birth rate five years earlier and are falling; the larger cohorts born in the early 2010s are now arriving at secondary school instead.
The hardest reception classes to get into
First-choice applications for every reception place at council-run primaries. Academies, free schools and most faith schools set their own admissions and don't publish these numbers, so they can't be ranked here.
Empty desks at the front of school
Reception places offered versus places actually filled on offer day at council-run primaries. Falling rolls leave a widening gap — and because funding follows pupils, empty places squeeze school budgets.
More schools left with spare places
The share of council-run primaries that didn't fill their reception class on offer day. A school under-filled year after year eventually faces shrinking or closing.
Sources: Primary preferences, primary allocations, secondary preferences and secondary allocations on Datamillnorth, published by Leeds City Council. Last updated —.
Preference counts cover every state school parents can apply to through Leeds. Admission numbers and places filled are only published for community and voluntary-controlled schools — academies and free schools run their own admissions — so the per-school and fill charts describe council-run schools only, and secondary equivalents can't be built (nearly all Leeds secondaries are now academies). "First choice" means ranked first on the application; it is not the same as the offer a family eventually received.