Yesterday was a hugely important day for many parents across the district because they learned whether their child had been allocated a place at their first-choice secondary school.

Sadly, more than one in five will have been disappointed in this regard and will now be worried that their offspring will suffer as a result of a system they have little influence over.

And how must their children feel knowing they have to attend a less popular and probably less-effective school? It may well feel as if they have been branded a failure through no fault of their own.

All of this would be entirely avoidable, of course, if all schools were of broadly the same, high standard.

Then parental choice would be unnecessary as children could just be allocated a place at their nearest local school.

This would stop the emergence of popular but grossly oversized schools, with all the problems that entails, as well as cutting the number of school-run car journeys across the district to get to them.

However, raising standards across the board, while obviously the best option, is hard to achieve.

It is far easier for politicians to talk about giving parents more choice, even though the truth of that is that many end up with none.

And until we have elected representatives brave enough to acknowledge that fact, this annual farce will continue causing misery for families.