Press Release

Sharp Rise In School Admission Appeals Revealed By Paice

The number of parents appealing against the non-admission of their children to a state school in Cambridgeshire has risen sharply over recent years, according Jim Paice MP.

Mr Paice has obtained official figures which reveal a 30% increase in appeals against primary school places in the county in the last two year for which figures are available, of which less than half last year were successful. 

Since 2003/04 there was also a rise in appeals by parents against secondary school admissions with the success rate again below 50% last year. 

Mr Paice sought the figures after an increasing number of constituency cases involving parents whose children had been refused a place at their first choice local school.

Comment on the figures, he said: “Getting children into their first choice school is becoming an increasingly fraught process and I know a number of worried parents who are really pulling their hair out. 

“The county council has done its best but in a considerably growing county these problems will not go away.

“Parents simply want the best for their children and shouldn’t have to go through a stressful appeals process to get it.”