Frequently asked questions

A funded place is pre-school education in your child’s final pre-school year, paid for through the Department of Education. Places are offered in statutory nursery schools and nursery units in primary schools, and in voluntary and private settings that take part in the Pre-School Education Programme. Parents do not pay a fee for the funded sessions.

For September 2027 entry, children born between 2 July 2023 and 1 July 2024 are target age. Children born between 2 July 2024 and 1 July 2025 are underage and can only be offered a place if one remains after target-age children have been placed. Use the age group checker for other dates.

Stage 1 applications open on 6 January 2027 and close at noon on 20 January 2027. The criteria for each setting are due on 9 December 2026. Always confirm dates on the Education Authority timetable.

No. This is an independent planning tool. Applications are made only through the Education Authority. Nothing you do here changes an application.

There is no single right number. List the settings you would genuinely accept, in your real order of preference. If your first choice was oversubscribed in recent years, also include settings that had places left. Check each setting’s criteria, because a few give extra priority to children who list them first.

In that intake, some target-age children who listed the setting as their first choice were not offered a place there. “Filled” means every target-age first choice was placed but no places were left at the end of Stage 2. “Places left” means places were still unfilled at the end of Stage 2.

No. Offers depend on each setting’s criteria, such as siblings, distance or circumstances. The published figures do not show where applicants ranked under those criteria. Past demand helps you judge how competitive a setting has been, but it is not a prediction.

Generally no. Primary school admission is a separate application with its own criteria. Read the primary school’s criteria if this matters to you.

From the Education Authority’s published “Analysis of Preference” workbooks for the 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 intakes, counted at the end of Stage 2. The site checks for new workbooks automatically. See About the data for every source file and how it is processed.

Criteria documents sometimes report totals for a different date or group of children. This site keeps to the end-of-Stage-2 workbooks so that every setting is counted in the same way.

Yes. Your shortlist, notes and any date of birth you enter are stored only in this browser on this device. There is no account. A share link contains only the setting reference numbers in your list.

Target-age children without a place after Stage 1 are considered at Stage 2 for places that remain. Use the “Places left” filter to find settings that had spare places in previous years, and contact the Education Authority admissions team for current advice.