The number of parents around the county applying for school places are increasing.

Numbers of applications for secondary school places have risen again this year.

Cambridgeshire County Council has received almost 6,700 applications for secondary school places - an increase of 148 compared to the last academic year.

A total of 6,698 applications were received by the deadline of October 31, 2019. Of these, 6,060 (90.5 per cent) resulted in children being offered a place at their first preference school compared to 5,859 last year.

A further 440 (6.5 per cent) children have received the offer of a place at their second or third preference school.

Jonathan Lewis, service director for education for Cambridgeshire County Council said: "Once again we dealt with more applications for secondary school places in the county this year and we expect this trend to continue for the coming years. We also had a higher number of 'on time' applications which is very encouraging.

"We are planning for this growing demand for places by working with existing schools to increase their capacity and to plan for new secondary schools in the areas where demand is greatest.

"We advise all applicants to use all three of their preferences when applying for a secondary school place and to ensure that they include their catchment school as one of their preferences to give themselves the best chance of securing a place."

Parents are legally entitled to appeal against the admission authority's decision to refuse a place at their preferred school(s).

Accepting a place at an alternative school does not affect their child's place on the reserve list for their preferred school(s), or right of appeal.

For more information go to: www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/children-and-families/schools.