School pupils decided by lottery

A school is choosing its pupils by drawing their names out of a hat, it has emerged.

A spokesman for St Peter's Catholic School in Gloucester said it was the only fair way of awarding places, under new government guidelines.

The problem arose because the admission criteria is faith-based and applicants now have to be put in order of rank.

The spokesman said the school was restricted to 227 places and always had applications in excess of that.

Head teacher Lawrence Montagu said: "Even where somebody is in our first criteria, which might amount to 210 out of 227, we still have to rank all of them.

"So we had no option other than to say well if they are all the first category how do we rank order? So the only way we can do it is by a ballot."