Hundreds of families are deciding this weekend whether to go to appeal after their children missed out on the secondary school places they wanted.

Many parents have been offered a place for their child at their top-choice school, but a significant number have been turned down by all three of their preferred options.

The good news is that all 11-year-olds in the four council areas of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath & North East Somerset have been allocated a school place somewhere.

This is unlike the primary school situation in Bristol, where 300 households are still waiting to hear where their four-year-olds will go to school.

Families now have to decide by March 16 whether to accept the secondary place offered or to refuse it. They can ask about the availability of places at other schools and can have their child's name put on a waiting list for their preferred school. They also have the right to appeal to an independent panel against the decision to refuse a place.

Last year in Bristol, 333 appeals were lodged over secondary school places, with 166 being heard and 53 upheld.

The advice to parents is not to panic, as the situation changes regularly in the period between the first round of allocations and the start of the new school year.

Firstly, there will be a number of parents who do not take up a local authority place because they have chosen to send their child to an independent, fee-charging school.

Other people will move house or their family circumstances may change, leading to different school requirements.

Late applications – made since the original October deadline – also have to be taken into consideration.

All types of state school – faith- based, academy, foundation, trust and community – are dealt with by co-ordinated admissions arrangements. But the criteria for allocating places varies considerably.

The two new academies that were formerly in the independent sector, Bristol Cathedral Choir School and Colston's Girls' School, take some pupils from across the area, as does the John Cabot Academy.

St Mary Redcliffe and Temple, which is run by the Church of England, takes children from faith communities across Avon and the Catholic schools, St Bede's and St Bernadette's each serve several Catholic parishes.

Some schools, including CGS, BCCS, John Cabot, and City Academy, select a proportion of pupils by aptitude in the academy's specialism.

But other academies and all local authority, trust and foundation schools give priority to those from their immediate neighbourhood.

Some very popular schools, such as Redland Green in Bristol, and Bradley Stoke, are so oversubscribed that only those living within a close radius will get in.