Eleven Bristol schools have so far agreed to take extra reception class pupils next year to help ease a chronic shortfall.

The city council says this will create 236 places. Talks are continuing to try to secure more in areas of particular need, specifically Henleaze and Bishopston, and the authority says it is confident that every child will be allocated a place somewhere.

But with 295 families yet to receive any offer of a primary school for their four-year-old, the prospect of some of them having to travel several miles to school remains very real.

The parents are due to receive their offer letters by Monday, three months after on-time applicants should have been allocated places.

In a report to the Liberal Democrat-run council's cabinet next week, senior council officer Kate Campion said the delay had created a lot of understandable anxiety for a significant number of families.

The additional places are mainly in the north, east and centre of the city. The schools are: Cabot, 30; Glenfrome, 30; St Barnabas, 26; Sefton Park, 30; Hannah More, 30; Millpond, 30; Badock's Wood, 15; Filton Avenue, 15; Little Mead, 10; Stoke Bishop, 15; and Ashton Vale, 5.

As reported in the Post on Tuesday, the council also hopes to secure 30 places at Bishop Road or Henleaze to meet demand in that area.

Officers have already ordered temporary classrooms and estimate the cost of providing them and adapting existing buildings at the 11 schools will be £1.3 million.

Governors and parents at some of the schools taking extra pupils have expressed concern about overcrowding and other possible detrimental impact for existing pupils.

At Sefton Park, the governors have secured a deal with the council and have committed to no further expansion of the school for six years.

Chairwoman Janet Bremner said in a statement: "Whilst the governors are aware that there are considerable overcrowding issues in the halls and corridors with 90 children in a year, it was felt the improvements we have negotiated counterbalance the negatives.

"Governors are obliged to consider the needs of the local community as well as those of children in the school and are acutely aware of the shortage of reception places in the locality."

If Bishop Road or Henleaze took an extra class, it would become the first school in Bristol to have 120 children in a year group.