March 1, 2016 6.44 pm This story is over 101 months old

Over 90% of Lincolnshire children get first secondary school choice despite rise in applications

Wait over: 92% of children in the county have received their first choice of secondary school today.

Despite the number of applications for places at secondary schools in Lincolnshire rising by 153, 92% of children in the county have received their first choice today.

Of the 7,660 offers made to secondary schools (up from 7,507 last year), 7,029 are heading to their preferred school in September.

The figure for second preference offers is 6% (459), while third preference offers is 0.8% (58).

A total of 114 children will be offered a local school that isn’t one of their preferences.

All those children who haven’t got their preferred school will be offered a place at another school so there will be no-one without an offer.

Lincolnshire County Council said because of appeals and movement on the reserve list, it is normal for the percentage of first preferences to increase by the time children start in September.

Parents have until the end of March to lodge an appeal if they are unhappy with the offered school.

If they return the appeal form by the deadline it will be heard before the end of term – if it is received late it will still be heard but this may be in the last week of term or even in September.

Some 95% of parents (6,915) applied using the online application system and they can log on to see the offered school from today.

For admissions into schools in September 2015 there are 53 secondary schools in Lincolnshire, including 51 which are their own admissions authority and determine their own admissions policy. The other two have the local authority admissions policy.

Councillor Mrs Patricia Bradwell, Executive Councillor for Children’s Services, said: “Yet again, it’s good to see so many children getting their first school of preference and this should be even better by September.

“It is always our intention to support as many parents as possible with their choice of school.

“There are many stories about how stressful the admissions process can be but every year the overwhelming majority of parents have no problems in gaining admission to the school of their choice.”