Thursday’s Daily Standard reports that more than 28,000 London children will miss out on their first choice of secondary school this year. Last year, nearly 27,000 children were not given a place at their preferred school, and education specialists predict this number will rise by roughly 1,000 this year.

Tuesday next week is National Offer day where children are expected to find out which school they have been allocated. Those from London are the least likely in the country to get a place in their preferred school.

The crazy thing about the situation is that many schools which have been guaranteed for London for 2016, haven’t opened their doors yet – ‘some haven’t even found a site to build on’ reports Ms Hamlyn, the director of The Good Schools Guide’s Advice Service.

The demand is growing and the pressure on primary schools to transfer to secondary is being significantly felt.

Official application figures will be published on Tuesday, but the Good Schools Guide estimated that they had risen by 3% this year, which means  more than 85,000 children have applied for a secondary school place. Unfortunately, the number of places being created has not kept pace with the rise in the number of pupils.

Parents have taken to social media with their worries about getting a good place for their children. The frustrating part of the story is that some of these children live next door to highly sought after schools, but it doesn’t mean they are successful in getting a place!

A Department for Education spokes woman said : ‘Despite rising pupil numbers, 95% of parents received an offer at one of their three preferred schools last year. London has been allocated £960 million for school places up to 2018 and there are 56 mainstream free schools already in the pipeline. This will create tens of thousands of new school places in the capital’.