Primary school places revealed amid squeeze
BBC News | Hannah Richardson | Education reporter | 16 April 2015
More than half a million families are discovering which primary schools their children will attend, amid a growing places squeeze in parts of England.
Early indications are of wide variations nationwide, with up to one in six missing out on their first choice of school in some areas.
While in other areas, almost all got their number one preference.
It comes days after council leaders said two in five local authorities would have too few places by 2016.
Pressure is growing, particularly in schools on London’s fringes and in cities such as Leicester, Nottingham, Reading and Peterborough.
However, in London, around 99,000 pupils or 95% received a place at one of their six preferred schools this year – up 1,100 and nearly five percentage points from last year.
Of those, 81% got into their first preference school, the same proportion as the two previous years. But there were wide local variations within the capital. In Kensington and Chelsea, only 59% got their first preference, while in Barking and Dagenham it was 91%.
This comes against a backdrop of an extra 900 applications in the capital this year.
