Over 700 in Shropshire missing out on first choice school places

A total of 309 youngsters in Shropshire district and 392 in Telford & Wrekin failed to secure places at their preferred choice of schools.

In Shropshire district, 183 youngsters missed out on their preferred choice of primary school, accounting for 6.6 per cent of children starting school for the first time. This compares to just 4.6 per cent missing out last year.

However, the number of children going to their preferred secondary school showed a slight improvement, with 2,494 youngsters winning a place at their first choice of school – 95.2 per cent, compared to 95.05 per cent last year.

In Telford & Wrekin, nine per cent of children starting primary school – a total of 213 youngsters missed out on their first choice. For those starting secondary school, 305 pupils – 14.5 per cent – failed to get a place at their first choice. Both figures show an increase in the number of pupils missing out compared to last year, when 8.2 per of youngsters starting primary school and 12.4 per cent of youngsters starting secondary school failed to get a place at their preferred choice.

Both authorities managed to find places for all children in their schools.

Telford & Wrekin Council spokesman Russell Griffin said: "As a largely urban authority families living in Telford & Wrekin have a wider choice of school preferences, rather than those who live in more rural authorities.

"The 2015 allocations show 91 per cent of reception children gained their first preference school and 85.5 per cent gained their first secondary school preference."

The figures for both councils are better than the national average, though, which show a year-on-year- increase of 8,000 families in England missing out. One in seven pupils in England now fails to get their first choice school.

Around the country, 52,800 applicants missed out on one of their top three preferred schools — 2,500 more than in 2014-15. A chronic shortage of places in London meant almost a third of parents in the capital did not get their first choice secondary school and one in nine got none of their top three choices.

Across the country 4,678 applications did not receive any offer of a school place for September.

Acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, said: "David Cameron said parental choice was one of his priorities. But far too many parents are missing out on getting their child into their first-choice school and this number is rising.

"This is yet more evidence that the Tories' education reforms are failing to deliver, and are letting children and parents down."

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The government's approach to school place planning is nonsensical. Having been stripped of their powers to open new schools and with extremely limited funding for additional places, local authorities now no longer have adequate tools to meet the demand of rising pupil numbers."

A Tory spokesman said: "The Conservatives have created over 400,000 school places. There are fewer children in overcrowded primary schools and, most importantly, 1m more children in good or outstanding schools since 2010."