Parents could face new heartache over their children's education as Bradford Council looks to impose catchment areas for schools.

As parents struggle to come to terms with the current reorganisation, they could face even tighter restrictions over where they can send their children to school.

The Council is set to review the way children are allocated school places - including looking at a system of catchment areas for schools for the academic year starting in September 2002.

Another option is introducing 'feeder' schools - so primary schools will automatically send their youngsters to chosen secondary schools.

Today one head teacher said parents were already facing a reduction in their choice of schools.

A new policy could also look at introducing different systems across the district to meet local conditions.

The admission arrangements for September 2002 and beyond are to be examined in the review, if the proposal to start the detailed scrutiny is given the go-ahead at a meeting of Bradford Council's Executive Committee tomorrow.

Councillor Susanne Rooney, executive member for education, said: "The admission policies were last examined in 1994 but the time is now right to look at them again following our change to a two-tier system of primary and secondary schools.

"We want to make sure the criteria used to decide which pupils should go to which school are appropriate and fair. A review will give us a chance to make any changes that are necessary or even look at adopting a completely new admissions system if that is what is needed."

But Ian Murch, of the Bradford branch of the National Union of Teachers, said the way the reorganisation has been designed would always have meant cutting parental choice of schools.

"One of the things that wasn't very logical was to cut the number of school places in the way they were cut. The Government recommendation is to maintain a margin of surplus places to allow for population movement of between five and ten per cent. Bradford's was 11 per cent and they reduced it to five per cent. The lower you went, the more you would have to turn parents down for choice.

"People who have expected to get into certain schools because children in the area have always been there won't get places and they won't ever get in again."

The news comes as parents whose children are either starting or changing school in September are receiving details of where they will be educated.

Mum Mandy Woodhead, of Fagley, is set to appeal after her son Daniel was allocated a place at Carlton Bolling College, which had not featured in her three choices for him.

She had hoped he would go to Hanson School, where older sister Denise is a pupil but will leave in July.

And she was shocked to find that Daniel's cousin David Metcalfe, who lives two doors away around the corner, has been offered a place at Hanson.

"It all seems so random. It's pointless filling the forms in. You might as well send your child's name on a piece of paper and have it pulled out of a hat and be allocated to a school."

Daniel, 13, is currently in Year Eight and would have moved to upper school after middle school this year. David, 11, is in Year Seven.

Mrs Woodhead, a 32-year-old foster carer, said many parents in the Fagley area had not been allocated any of the schools of their choice.

"The thing that has got me is that I haven't got one of my choices," she said.

Tony Thorne, head teacher at Hanson School, said this year was unusual because three new years would enter the school together and the same admission criteria as usual had been applied.

The school is a foundation school - a former grant maintained school - and can set its own admission criteria but Mr Thorne said the admission criteria were like those in LEA schools. A total of 450 children had put Hanson first although the school only had 300 places, and so 150 children had had to be turned away.

Each year group had been looked at individually, and depending on numbers, children in one street might gain admission one year but not the next.

Mr Thorne said he was the foundation schools' representative with the LEA and he expected foundation schools would take part in the Council's review of admission policies.

In Bradford, LEA schools which have more children applying than they have places for, prioritise children with brothers or sisters already in the school, and then draw up a catchment area and admit children who live in it. It takes into account distance from school, availability of alternative schools, areas from where children have traditionally attended the school, transport and obstacles such as major roads.

For Ilkley and Keighley upper schools, a "pyramid" system has operated, where children from certain middle schools went on to certain upper schools.

Church schools set their own criteria which include membership of the church.

A DFEE spokesman said that admissions policies were a local matter for each education authority to decide. "If Bradford is proposing new admission arrangements, they must consult with parents and neighbouring education authorities and involve them in the decision making process," the spokesman said. "If there's a dispute parents can complain to the Schools Adjudicator."

The spokesman added: "The Government wants as many parents as possible to obtain places for their children at their preferred school."

MP Gerry Sutcliffe (Labour, Bradford South) said he agreed a new system was needed.

"The last system wasn't working, and although it was about parental choice, there wasn't really any choice," he said.

"But I hope it's not rushed, something like this needs a lot of careful planning.

"To make it fair we have to encourage all schools to take part, and of course we have to ensure it's equal throughout the district with schools being equally funded."

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