For September 2026 secondary school entry in England, most families will find out their school place on National Offer Day, which is 1–2 March 2026, depending on the local authority.

Key dates for 2026 places

  • National guidance and many councils work to an early March offer date for secondary places, typically on or around 1 March each year.
  • Some councils explicitly state 2 March 2026 as the online outcome date for on‑time applications (for example, Cambridgeshire and several others).
  • If you applied late (after 31 October 2025), your offer may come later in March or from April onwards, again depending on your local authority’s timetable.

Local authority variations

  • Councils like Cambridgeshire say you can log into your admissions portal on 2 March 2026 to see your secondary allocation for September 2026.
  • Other areas (for example, BCP Council, Kent, Reading) align with the same early‑March National Offer Day even if they phrase it slightly differently on their sites.

What this means for you

  • If you applied on time (by 31 October 2025), plan to hear on or just after 1–2 March 2026, usually by email and via the online portal.
  • If you applied late, check your council’s admissions page: many list specific “late allocation” dates (for example, 25 March 2026 for some councils) and then rolling offers from April.

Forum and “latest news” angle

  • In UK parent forums, threads around “secondary school offer day” typically become very active in the last week of February and the first days of March, with people sharing nerves, outcomes and appeal experiences.
  • Recent government updates stress that the majority of pupils still receive one of their preferred schools, and over four‑fifths get their first choice for recent intakes, which should also broadly apply to the 2026 cohort.

In short: for “when do you find out secondary school places 2026”, the key answer is early March 2026 (National Offer Day), with 1–2 March 2026 being the crucial window depending on your local council.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.