Parents in Herefordshire join those across England today (Thursday 16 April) with finding out which primary school their child will be attending in September 2020.

Herefordshire Council has made 1680 offers of places in primary schools across the county with the following parental preference success rates:

First preference: 1608 offers, which is 95.7% of the total offers

Second preference: 55 offers, which is 3.3% of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 99%

Third preference: 4 offers, which is 0.2% of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 99.2%

The balance of places offered, which is 13 or 0.8%, were to parents whose preferences could not be met and their offer was for the nearest school to their home address with available spaces.

In comparison to last year, the same number of parents got their first school preference (96%) or a place in one of their three preferences (99.2% compared to 99% in 2019).

As in previous years, Herefordshire schools continue to be a net importer of pupils, with more pupils from neighbouring counties requesting places in the county’s schools than Herefordshire pupils requesting places in other counties.

There are currently 15 Herefordshire primary schools with waiting lists and 60 have available spaces.

The council has continued to promote its online application service this year, which was used by 98.6% of families compared to 92.6% last year, which is an increase of 6%.