Watchdog urges heads to ignore middle-class school lottery protests

Dr Philip Hunter said sought-after state schools must be prevented from "creaming off" the brightest pupils.

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He urged councils, heads and governors to prevent "articulate" families from monopolising the best performing schools.

Measures to do this could include lotteries for places, ability banding - taking a quota of pupils of each ability - and redrawing catchment areas.

Critics say lotteries are immoral, however, because they remove parents' rights to choose their children's education.

It is also thought many parents unwilling to leave their children's secondary schooling to chance will send them to a private school.

Brighton is already introducing a city-wide system of lotteries while Hertfordshire is considering one for its single-sex schools.

Several schools, for example Lady Margaret in West London, are also launching their own lottery schemes.

Dr Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, is responsible for ensuring schools follow the Government's new admissions code, which supports lotteries as one option for allocating places at over-subscribed schools.

Parents could raise objections with the adjudicators' office if their local school plans a lottery but it is likely to reject their complaint if the scheme complies with the code.

Earlier this year, Dr Hunter dismissed objections to a lottery system proposed for a school in Derby.

In his annual report, he said: "Some schools are situated in areas with a high proportion of privileged families. These schools may produce very good results and become popular.

"They can 'cream off' children from neighbouring areas, sometimes leaving schools in those areas with a disproportionate number of children from deprived families.

"Clearly, the best way to enhance parental choice is to improve unpopular schools. In many areas, however, other strategies must also be employed.

"They are likely to be highly contentious, many of them deeply unpopular with groups of articulate parents.

'It will be important to maintain pressure on authorities and forums to address these issues but unreasonable to expect easy solutions."

He said this could mean "catchment areas, lotteries and all the rest".

"Lotteries have their uses," he added. "They are usually used as a tiebreaker. They are useful in this respect."

Another option could be ability banding, which involves testing pupils at 11 and placing them in bands on the basis of their results. Schools take a quota of children from each ability grouping.

However, banding systems are controversial because children could be forced to travel miles from their preferred school if it has filled its quotas.

Dr Hunter said local forums, made up of representatives from schools, as well as parents, the local council and churches, should review admissions and draw up proposals for alternative systems if necessary.

The forums were handed new powers in February aimed at banning "backdoor selection". They can refer any school refusing to consider alternative systems to Dr Hunter's office.

But he said some schools had "still not properly understood" the rules.

Some were continuing to ask for the marriage certificates of applicants' parents even though this was outlawed, while others were asking about pupils' hobbies and interests.