Enrolling your child for Primary One (P1) starting in August 2025
Enrolling your child for Primary One (P1) starting in August 2025
Arrangements are now in place to enrol pupils to primary one (P1) for August 2025 across East Lothian schools.
Any child whose fifth birthday falls between 1 March 2025 (born 1 March 2020) and the last day of February 2026 (born 28 February 2021) is eligible to start school in August 2025.
The online P1 enrolment period ended on 2 December 2024. After this date you should contact the catchment primary school directly, and complete a late enrolment with them.
P1 enrolment arrangements for starting P1 in August 2025
If your child is age-eligible to start school in August 2025 and you live in the East Lothian Council area you should enrol your child for P1 in your catchment primary school. If you did not complete a P1 online enrolment for your child before 2 December 2024, you will now need to contact the catchment primary school directly and complete a late enrolment with them.
If you previously deferred your child’s entry to P1 from August 2024 to August 2025, you should also enrol your child for P1 now.
The online P1 enrolment period was from 4 November 2024 to 2 December 2024.
- if your child attends a nursery class in an East Lothian primary school you must still submit a P1 enrolment form for the catchment primary school
- every home address is located in a school catchment area and for some areas there is also a local Roman Catholic school - check the catchment maps on our website
- if you can't check your address on the catchment maps - email schoolplacements@eastlothian.gov.uk for clarification on your catchment school
- you must be resident in East Lothian to enrol for a place in Primary 1 and be living at the address entered on the P1 enrolment form (proof of address is required). If you are moving address in the coming months - email schoolplacements@eastlothian.gov.uk for advice on the process to follow
Non-catchment placing requests
Although most children attend their catchment school, parents may make an application for any other school under the management of East Lothian Council. This is called a non-catchment placing request.
If you intend to make a placing request, you should still submit a P1 enrolment form for the catchment primary school - read about making a non-catchment placing request
Deferring
If you want to defer your child's entry to P1 for a year, you should still submit a P1 enrolment form for the catchment primary school at this point so that a place can be held for your child.
The process to defer entry to P1 takes place between December 2024 and March 2025. Application information will be distributed to early years’ settings in December 2024
Advice and more information
If you have any questions email schoolplacements@eastlothian.gov.uk for advice.
Read more information on school enrolment and non-catchment placing requests in the School Enrolment booklet