Education chiefs are warning that they will penalise parents who lie about their circumstances as the district's biggest ever scramble for school places gets underway.

The final phase of the Bradford schools shake-up means that three year-groups are all applying for secondary school places at the same time. And with hundreds of parents expected to be disappointed, education chiefs say they will take action against any who resort to giving false information, such as addresses, to try to get their children into their favoured school.

A Council education spokesman confirmed desperate parents have lied to obtain a place for their children. She said: "Where it has been brought to the education authority's attention there might have been fraudulent information we will investigate and the place can be withdrawn."

The authority has had to draft in a second independent panel to deal with the sheer volume of appeals from parents unhappy with the school their children have been allocated.

There are usually between 150-200 appeals but this year more than 500 are expected.

Assistant education director Dennis Williams said: "This is a one-off situation while we make the transition from a three tier to a two-tier system of schools. About 90 per cent of parents get a place for their child at their first preference school and about 96 per cent get a place at one of the three preferences they list."

Those applying for the most popular schools may not be so lucky. Hanson School in Bradford, is the district's largest and most oversubscribed local authority school. In 1999 there were 640 applications for only 380 places, leading to 140 appeals of which 12 were successful. This year the number of places in each year group has been reduced to 300.

With Immanuel Community College and the Challenge College opening next year, the pressure has been reduced with 450 applications for each year group. Nevertheless, the panel met for four days just to deal with Hanson appeals and many parents were disappointed. They include Janine Wilkinson whose 12-year-old daughter Danielle has fallen foul of the policy of giving priority to pupils from its three feeder middle schools.

Because Danielle goes to Undercliffe Middle School, Mrs Wilkinson, of Brisbane Avenue, has failed while parents who live much further away from Hanson have succeeded.

"There is no other local secondary school," she said. "I feel that it is very, very unfair."

Hanson head teacher, Tony Thorne, said: "Our governors' admissions policy is designed to maintain links with feeder schools."

Primary school appeals will run until early July and secondary appeals until July 21.

e-mail: william.stewart@bradford.newsquest.co.uk