Half of children missing out on first choice school

Intense competition for places at the most popular secondaries is leaving nearly 50 per cent of families disappointed in some areas.

Yet comprehensives have more than 27,000 unfilled places - many in towns and cities where parents are struggling to find a good school.

The first official picture of admissions to secondary school in September reveals how nearly one in five pupils was not offered their first choice - more than 100,000 of those transferring from primaries this year.

Seven per cent were not granted any of their preferences at all.

But the headline figures conceal wide variations across the country, starkly illustrating the limitations of parental choice over education.

In Southwark just 51 per cent of parents were allocated their first preference school on offers day in March, Wandsworth 52 per cent and Lewisham 58 per cent.

This compares to 100 per cent in Stockton and 98.4 per cent in Leicestershire.

Yet Southwark has 82 vacant places in its secondary schools and Lewisham 27.

The figures are based on information supplied to the Department for Children, Schools and Families by most local councils in March.

They emerged at a time of furious political rows over school admissions that is leading some to introduce lotteries to allocate over-subscribed places.

Councillors in Brighton became the first to propose an area-wide lottery system coupled with tightly defined catchment areas in a highly controversial scheme criticised for flying in the face of parental choice.

Yet Brighton's current system boasts an above-average parental satisfaction rate, at 83.6 per cent.

Campaigners against the Brighton system claim that the numbers failing to get their first choice will rocket once computer ballots are introduced.

Challenged in the Commons on whether he would put his own children through a lottery, Tony Blair insisted "the vast majority" of parents were happy with the schools they were allocated.

The figures reveal that parental disappointment is most acute in and around the capital, where parents are able to choose between many easily accessible schools.

In some areas, there are local concerns about the quality of schools.

Part-private academy schools, aimed at transforming failing inner-city education, are oversubscribed in many cases. A report claimed this week they simply transfer problems onto neighbouring schools, which become locked in a spiral of decline as they struggle to attract staff and pupils.

There are also problems in areas which have retained grammar schools.

Ministers promised earlier this year to grant children from poor homes free transport to popular schools in a bid to widen parental choice.

From September, the most disadvantaged pupils aged eight and over will get free bus passes to the "nearest suitable" primary school more than two miles from their home.

In 2008, secondary pupils will get the same right, winning free transport to the three nearest schools between two and six miles away.

But ministers have been warned schools could face an exodus of more affluent parents to private schools if they can no longer get their children into the school of their choice.

At the same time, the number of vacant places in schools has risen due to a declining birthrate.

DCSF officials said the proportion of parents allocated their first preference school was only a snapshot on March 1.

Others are likely to have won their first choices in the months following since some parents gave up places because they moved away or took their children to private schools.

They said 93 per cent of parents were offered at least one of their preference in March.

But Margaret Morrissey, spokeswoman for the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "Parental choice has always been a myth, and it still is.

"It would be naive for my organisation to say parents will always get the school they want but there is too much unevenness.

"In some areas you get some schools which are over-subscribed and others which are under-subscribed.

"More needs to be done to improve schools across the board. There are all sorts of initiatives which have actually not been that successful."