Admissions to School – FAQs Annual Notice

Under Section 63 of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act a school is required to prepare and publish an annual admission notice. This notice provides information and details about admission to schools.

A school may start to publish its notice after 1 October in respect of the intake group and/or special class for the 2025/2026 school year.

Schools should note that the notice must be published at least one week prior to the school commencing its annual admission process.  For example if a school publishes its notice on 12 November 2025, it cannot commence its admission process until 19 November 2025

The notice must be published on a publicly available website i.e. the school’s website.

The notice must provide the following information:

• The date on which the school is commencing and ceasing the acceptance of applications for admission to the school for the school year concerned. Schools should note that there must be a minimum period of 3 weeks for this process.
• The date by which applicants will be notified of the decision in relation to their application. The notifying of applicants must be within 3 weeks of the closing date, or within 3 weeks of the application date for late applications.
• The date/period by which the applicant shall confirm acceptance of the offer of admission.
• The number of school places available in the intake group.
• In the case of a boarding school, the number of residential and the number of non-residential places available.
• In the case of a school with a special class the number of school places available in the special class concerned.
• In the case of a school where the intake group or special class was oversubscribed in the year prior to the year for which admission is sought, the admission notice must include a statement setting out the number of applications received and the number and order of offers made in that school year in respect of each of the school’s selection criteria

The notice should also contain a statement that the offer may be withdrawn if the applicant does not accept the offer of admission within the timeframe set out in the annual admissions notice.

In addition, the notice should also contain information about how to obtain a copy of the school’s admission policy and application form for admission.

The timeframe for the process for the intake group and the special class does not have to be the same. However, the timeframes for each process should be clearly specified in the Annual Admissions Notice.

Circular 0039/2025 states that it is aim of the Department and the NCSE that the majority of new special classes for the 2026/2027 school year will be sanctioned by 31 December 2025.

Depending on when the special class or classes are opening may mean that the timeframe for the process of the intake group an special class group may be different.

There is a template Annual Admission Notice which may be utilised in drafting the notice. This is available under DEY Resources on the School Admissions tab on the INTO website.

Tá sampla fogra maidir le ligean isteach ar fáil as Gaeilge.

Of course, members are most welcome to raise any further queries with INTO. Members should email their queries to info@into.ie and a member of the LIR team will be in contact as soon as possible.