One in ten children failed to get into first choice secondary school

New tables from the Department for Education reveal that almost 5,000 applications were not allocated their top choice of school in the region for this September.

Parents face a postcode lottery within the region with applications in most of West Yorkshire less likely to be successful than elsewhere.

Bradford had the highest level of parents missing out on their first choice school at 21.5 per cent – more than one in five applications. In Kirklees 15 per cent did not get their first choice, in Calderdale the figure was 12.7 per cent and in Leeds it was 12.4 per cent.

The 11 other council areas in the region all saw less than ten per cent missing out on their top choice. East Riding had the highest success rate with 97.9 per cent of pupils getting into their first choice secondary followed by Barnsley at 97 per cent and Rotherham where it was 96.4 and in York where it was 96 per cent.

Across Yorkshire 98.2 per cent of parents got into one of their preferences which means around 950 pupils are being sent to a school they did not choose.

The overall picture in Yorkshire was better than the national situation which showed around one in seven youngsters failed to get a place at their first preference.

About 3.5 per cent did not get an offer from any of their top three choices.

Yorkshire had the lowest level of any region in England of parents applying online – at 55.8 per cent.

Schools Minister David Laws said the Government wants every parent to have the choice of a good local state school.

“That is why we have made it easier for the best schools to expand and take on more pupils,” he added. “We are also opening hundreds of academies and free schools every year.”