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:

First preference: 1548 offers, which is 92% of the total offers 

Second preference: 88 offers, which is 5.2% of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 97%

Third preference: 18 offers, which is 1.06% of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 98.1%

This year saw a very slight decrease in the numbers of parents getting a school in one of their three preferences (98.1% compared to 98.5% in 2025).

The remaining 32 places offered (1.9%), 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.

As of today’s date there are 6 Herefordshire secondary schools with waiting lists and 8 have available spaces.

10 known pupils who did not apply for a school place 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% applied online compared to 94.1% last year.