Families have repeated a call for changes to be made to school admission policies after more youngsters were denied places at a South Gloucestershire primary.

Parents in the rural areas near Acton Turville are pressing for action because they have been caught by a rule that has led to brothers and sisters being split up.

At present priority for places in the district's schools is given to siblings of existing pupils if they live within a two-mile radius, followed by other local children and then youngsters living further away.

But because homes in the countryside are more spread out than in towns, many families fall just outside the zone and despite having a child at what they consider their local school, there is no guarantee their other children will be accepted.

It could end up with them having to take children to different schools miles apart.

Trinity Primary parents had already sent a 150-name petition to South Gloucestershire Council asking for changes, but now the rule has affected even more of them.

Decisions over places for the September 2010 intake resulted in four families with a total of six children at the school being told their other youngsters could not go there.

Northavon MP Steve Webb, who has taken up the parents' complaints, said: "I have repeatedly told the council that the rules are simply not working. It is quite wrong to split up families in this way, especially when you are talking about children as young as four."