4,000 denied first choice for school places

MORE than a quarter of families were disappointed when Birmingham pupils discovered whether they had won places at their first choice secondary school.

Around 4,000 ten and eleven-yearolds failed to get their top selection when the placements were revealed last Thursday. More than 200 city pupils failed to gain a place at any of their six preferences.

However, more than 71 per cent of children were offered their first choice – a rise of more than two per cent on last year.

More than 14,700 Birmingham youngsters applied to transfer to secondary school.

Nationally, secondary schools have been seeing an increase in numbers prompted by a spike in the birth rate in the early 2000s.

The Department for Education said 735,000 places had been created across secondary and primary schools since 2010.

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said that providing enough places was a complex issue.

He said that, in areas where there were not enough places, it was a “mathematical certainty” that families would miss out on their top choice.

“Unless there’s the provision of suffi- cient supply to meet the additional demand then people are going get less first choices,” he said. “That’s a mathematical certainty.” Official figures showed that pupil numbers in England’s secondary schools are expected to grow by half a million over the next eight years, Mr Trobe said, with around 65,000 more youngsters expected to join secondary schools this autumn alone.

He said the Department for Education had done a “reasonable job” in working with councils to increase places, but there were still issues.

Demand was not spread equally across the country, with enough places in some areas and a squeeze in others.

“The biggest difficulty is that it is patchy,” Mr Trobe said. “Some areas are not going to have any problems, they have enough schools and they are not full, others are seeing a huge increase (in numbers) and not enough places.”

Last year, 16.5 per cent of 11-yearolds did not get their first preference of secondary school, up from 15.9 per cent in 2016.

Justine Roberts, chief executive of Mumsnet, said: “Many parents believe getting into the right school has a big impact on their children’s life chances and happiness, so it’s a much-discussed topic.

“In a survey of Mumsnet users, 56 per cent reported not having a ‘real’ choice when it came to schools their children had a realistic chance of getting into.”