Adoption bid for school place

Popular schools are usually over-subscribed

Parents say that they might have their daughter adopted by an aunt, as a way of seeking a place at a popular school.

The parents of 11-year-old Meera Ghai want her to attend Kings Norton Girls School in Birmingham.

Admissions factors

Brother or sister at the school

Distance from the school

Ease of access by public transport

Medical or social grounds

Parental preference

Attending a 'feeder' primary school

Maximum infant class sizes

But so far they have been unable to gain an offer of a place and are on a waiting list.

In an attempt to get a better chance of securing a place, the parents are considering allowing their daughter to be adopted by her aunt, who already has a child at the school.

Priority is given to those who already have a brother or sister at the school, with this "siblings rule" often more important than living in a catchment area.

The Ghai family would hope that if their daughter became a sister through adoption, this would increase her chances of a place.

Both families share a home - so there would not be an advantage in terms of living nearer to the school.

But since many places are already taken by siblings, the Ghai's proposal would allow them to move ahead of those allocated places because they lived close to the school.

Anxious

Finding a place in a secondary school has become an anxious process for many families, with the most popular schools usually heavily oversubscribed.

There are often dozens of applications for each place in a successful school - and those turned down then face a scramble for their second and third choice places.

Some parents have lied about their address to improve their chances - and there have been reports of parents renting an address near the school during the applications process.

Many schools now have strict checks on the authenticity of parents' addresses, including home visits and the production of four or five forms of identity.