Parents' Experiences of the Process of Choosing a Secondary School

where parents are asked to express multiple preferences and each preference is treated as if
it is equal and parents would be happy for their child to attend any of the schools on the
list. LEAs then allocate one of those preferred schools in accordance with their admission
criteria often taking into account the distance a child may have to travel to a school.
Just under 10% of LEAs use a single preference system where parents are invited, initially,
to express a preference for just one school and if this is unsuccessful they are able to apply
for an alternative school(s) at further stages of the process.
LEAs do have some discretion over how places are allocated when parents are asked to
express more than one preference and a school is over-subscribed. How preferences should
be used by admission authorities to allocate school places is the subject of differing legal
interpretations. In general there are different views about whether the preference(s) a parent
expresses should be considered in a rank order or treated as if they are equal. The
implications of this can be very important for parents. If preferences are dealt with in the
strict order of priority as expressed by parents it may mean that a parent who is
unsuccessful in obtaining a place at their first preference school is unable to obtain a place
at their second preference school even if the school is close to where the parent lives. Some
LEAs avoid this problem by ensuring that, if a parent does not obtain a place at their first
preference school, a place is available at the local school as long as they have put it as their
second choice.
11. The London effect
In London, there is often a shortage of school places and this creates additional tensions in
managing demand. A significant feature of admissions in London is the extent of cross
border traffic with some 60,000 pupils crossing from their 'home' LEA to attend school in
another LEA on a daily basis. Not surprisingly, London parents reported the highest levels
of knowledge of how places are allocated at popular schools. As outlined above, after other
variables had been controlled, parents living in London were the most likely to have
applied to a school outside their own LEA. Further analysis showed that, holding other
variables constant, London parents were two and a half times more likely not to apply to
their nearest school than parents living in Shire authorities; there were similar but weaker
contrasts between parents living in London and parents living in Unitary and Metropolitan
authorities. Parents in London were also found to be the most likely to have made
applications to more than one admission authority.
The greater number of schools within reasonable travelling distance may mean that the
impact of not being able to attend a school in the ‘home’ LEA is not necessarily as great as
it would be in other less densely populated parts of the country where schools are more
sparsely distributed.
Competition for places in London schools appears to be more intense than elsewhere.
London parents were the least likely to be offered a place for their child in the school they
would most like - nearly 70% compared with 85% nationally. In an analysis which
controlled for the possible effect of other variables, parents living in London were 3 times
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