Banbury news - most parents and children offered their first choice of secondary school for this September

Education bosses say a total of 89.99 per cent (6,371) of applications have been awarded their first choice. A total of 97.27 per cent (6,909) have been offered one of the four choices they listed on their application.

This first choice figure represents a slight improvement on last year’s figures and is comfortably ahead of national averages in all recent previous years. This year’s national average will not be published until later in the year.

The figures for this year compare favourably with last year's, where 80.9 per cent were allocated to their first choice school. Comparative figures for previous years are 82.1 per cent (2018/19), 83.5 per cent (2017/18), 84.1 per cent (2016/17) and 84.2 per cent for 2015/16.

Councillor Lorraine Lindsay-Gale, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education and Cultural Services, said: “Our school admissions team have done an excellent job in ensuring that so many parents and children have been offered their first choice. I am grateful to them for the hard work they’ve done. Our aim as a council is to give every child a good start in life and our school admissions team play their part in that year in, year out.”