Hundreds miss out on top Wolverhampton secondary school choice
Nearly half of secondary schools in Wolverhampton were oversubscribed for this year's entry, leaving 784 pupils having to settle for one of their second or third choices.
A total of 10 of the 21 schools in the city which take secondary age youngsters were unable to cater for the demand for places, new figures from a Freedom of Information request have revealed.
It comes after council bosses announced that hundreds of new secondary school places are needed over the next six years due to a baby boom and a rise in parents from outside the city choosing Wolverhampton schools.
Julien Kramer, Wolverhampton council's director of education, said: "We estimate that demand for secondary places may outstrip supply by September 2018 and are taking decisive action to introduce additional capacity to the estate to ensure that every child in the city can continue to have a place at one of the city's secondary schools."
The official figures were compiled from statistics relating to National Offer Day in March, which is when children across the country find out the school they have been allocated to attend in September.
The most popular school in the city was Highfields, where 447 youngsters applied for 252 places. This means 195 pupils had to be given one of their second or third preference school.
Heath Park was the second most popular. It was oversubscribed by 98, with 298 youngsters each looking to take one of 200 spaces.
South Wolverhampton and Bilston Academy saw an extra 93 pupils apply for places than it had space for, while St Edmund's Catholic Academy had to turn away 83 children.
Eight of the 10 most popular schools in Wolverhampton were academies.
The only council-run secondary in the list was Coppice Performing Arts School, which had 252 applications for 180 spaces.
School places are allocated using a number of criteria, including the distance from the applicants home, whether children have other family members at the school, entrance exam performance and attendance at a particular primary school.
Other over subscribed city secondaries were Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Sports College, St Peter's Collegiate CofE, Smestow, Wednesfield High Specialist Engineering Academy and Wolverhampton Girls' High.
