Primary school admission deadlines are looming. Applications close at midnight tonight (Wednesday January 15) and any amended forms must be re-submitted otherwise they won’t be considered.
National Primary School Offers Day is on Wednesday April 16 and Birmingham City Council will be emailing out primary school places to parents to let them know if they have been successful in getting their child into their chosen school for September 2025.
With this in mind, our data team has researched which primary schools in Birmingham are the toughest to get into. The 20 schools listed below were the most oversubscribed in 2024.
Read more: Birmingham parents warned ‘double check’ to avoid missing important deadline
Read next: The three questions all parents should ask when choosing child’s school according to a headteacher
The hardest one to get into was The Olive School in Tyseley where only 36% of of first choice applicants were offered a place. This was closely followed by The Olive School in Small Heath where the number was still less than half of those who put it as their first choice, with just 44% being successful.
Next was St Catherine of Siena Catholic Primary School in central Birmingham where only 30 children were offered a place after 56 requested it as their first choice (54%). Just over half (56%) of those who put Lea Forest Primary Academy in Kitts Green got a place – just 60 out of 107 kids.
And it was a similar story at Moseley Church of England Primary School, where only 58% (30 out of 52 applicants) secured a place in the September 2024 intake class.
Birmingham headmaster Adam Ames shared his tips for choosing the right school for your child on the Brummie Mummies Podcast here:
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Birmingham’s 20 most oversubscribed primary schools
Here are the primary schools that were the hardest to get a place in 2024:
School name – Times put as a first choice – Places offered to first choice – % of first choice offered a place
- The Olive School, Birmingham – 234 – 84 – 36%
- The Olive School, Small Heath – 130 – 57 – 44%
- St Catherine of Siena Catholic Primary School – 56 – 30 – 54%
- Lea Forest Primary Academy – 107 – 60 – 56%
- Moseley Church of England Primary School – 52 – 30 – 58%
- Al-Furqan Primary School – 123 – 73 – 59%
- St Thomas CofE Academy – 47 – 28 – 60%
- The Shirestone Academy – 46 – 30 – 65%
- Nishkam Primary School Birmingham – 89 – 59 – 66%
- Acocks Green Primary School – 79 – 53 – 67%
- St Peter’s Catholic Primary School – 44 – 30 – 68%
- Grendon Primary School – 43 – 30 – 70%
- Cofton Primary School – 80 – 57 – 71%
- Harborne Primary School – 165 – 119 – 72%
- Barr View Primary & Nursery Academy – 77 – 58 – 75%
- West Heath Primary School – 69 – 52 – 75%
- Chilcote Primary School – 77 – 59 – 77%
- Four Oaks Primary School – 77 – 59 – 77%
- Christ The King Catholic Primary School – 60 – 46 – 77%
- Colebourne Primary School – 78 – 60 – 77%
- Topcliffe Primary School – 39 – 30 – 77%
- St Nicholas Catholic Primary School – 39 – 30 – 77%
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “The proportion of primary school applicants who received an offer of their first preference school rose by 0.7 percentage points to 93.2%.
“This was based on a 2.3% drop in the number of applicants for a place at primary school, to around 555,600. Applications have been falling since 2020, although the reduction in on-time applications in 2021 may have been pandemic related. This is likely to be a result of the continued drop in births seen from 2016 onwards.”