Essex: More than one in ten miss out on first-choice secondary school
Ipswich MP Gummer led renewed calls for Suffolk County Council to overhaul education standards on the day the authority was criticised by Ofsted as ineffective in its leadership and weak in its support to schools. - Credit: PA
More than one in ten secondary school children will not be attending their first-choice school.
Figures released today by Essex County Council show that 85.27% of parents have been offered their first preference of secondary school for their children starting in September.
This is slightly down on last year’s figure of 86.91%.
And nearly 7% of children will not go to their first or second-choice school, as 7.78% have been offered their second preference.
This brings the total for pupils starting in September 2014 to 93.5%, which is lower than 2013’s total.
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In 2013, 94.02% of pupils went to their first or second-choice school.
Also, 2.42% of parents will not have their children go to any of their six preferred schools, a 0.73% increase on last year.
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Overall, Essex County Council received a total of 14,451 applications for secondary school places with 13,105 of parents applying online.
However, Ray Gooding, education and lifelong learning leader, was positive on the results.
He said: “It is promising to see that 93.05% of parents have been offered their first or second preference.
“We have some fantastic secondary schools in Essex and we will continue to work closely with them to strive to provide young people with a world-class education system.
“I would like to wish all pupils and parents every success in their new chapter of learning.”
