Thousands of children to attend their first preference secondary school in Leeds

Families applying for their child’s secondary school place have been finding out which school their child has been allocated for September 2017.

Over 7170 Leeds children (85 per cent) will be attending their first preference school in September, which is an increase from 82.4 per cent last year, and overall, 96.7 per cent will attend one of their top five preferred schools. This year Leeds City Council has allocated 8455 year seven places, which is 154 more than last year.

The number of children not getting a place at any of their five preferred secondary schools was only 3.3 per cent (279), down from 4.6% last year. The council’s admissions team has made alternative offers for all of these young people.

Families are recommended to always include their nearest school as one of their preferences and to make sure they use all five preferences to get the best chance of being offered a preferred school.

Councillor Lisa Mulherin, executive member for children and families said:

“For parents and carers, choosing a secondary school for their children is an incredibly important decision and I am pleased that we have been able to offer the majority of young people their first preference school”.

Parents need to accept their offer of a school place as soon as possible. They can also request to be added to the waiting lists at schools where they have not been offered a place and should do this by the 17 March 2017 to be included in the first allocation of places from the waiting lists.

7178 children were given their 1^st preference (85%) (6858 or 82.4% last year)

689 children were given their 2^nd preference (8%) (763 or 9% last year)

209 children were given their 3^rd preference (2.5%) (241 or 2.9% last year)

75 children were given their 4^th preference (72 last year)

25 children were given their 5^th preference (25 last year)