Linda Tanner: Education matters

Choosing a primary school is not too difficult when there's only one within three miles – and it's next door.

So my experience 20 years ago (eek, can it really be two decades?) of applying for a place for the first of my three daughters was pretty painless.

But we did have a taste of some of the ups and downs of "parental preference" seven years later when the nearest secondary school did not have enough spaces for children from our village.

We must have looked at around a dozen schools. We went through the anxiety of an appeal, which was unsuccessful, and then our girl finally got a place at her second-choice school… and the siblings followed.

Over the years, things have got even more complicated, especially at secondary level, where there are faith schools, trust schools, foundation schools and academies to be considered – oh yes, and local authority comprehensives too.

I feel for parents going through the applications process at the moment – but my heart goes out even more to those families in built-up areas of Bristol who have no guarantee of getting their four-year-olds into any one of the schools within walking distance of their homes. This has been a growing problem, with pockets of the city being hit hard two years ago and huge swathes affected by last year's debacle.

I hear there are families now running up debts to pay £10,000 a year for a five-year-old to attend Year 1 at private school because there are no state places available near home or the parents' workplace.

Similarly, there are families on income support forking out a huge proportion of their budget in bus fares to get their children to secondary school. Others with younger children, including many newly arrived in England, receive free transport but still face major upheaval daily to get children to different schools.

The city council has promised it will handle things better this year than last – but it has not been pro-active enough so far.

It has spent nearly £25,000 producing information booklets and leaflets, but these have proved hard to come by.

And when you do get to see them, they are fiendish to understand. I find them hard and I read "council speak" every day – so what chance does an asylum seeker have?

The primary booklet has been redesigned, with schools grouped in "extended school partnership areas". These have nothing to do with catchment areas, but many readers will assume they have.

Bristol is not alone here: the new look of the South Gloucestershire booklets is also unhelpful.

The full primary school booklet is available in schools for reference, we are told. How is a parent who may have no experience of that school expected to go along and get their head round the detail with two or three pre-schoolers in tow?

Why not a clear letter to parents of all children at nurseries, pre-schools and children's centres explaining what has gone wrong in the past and how the council, schools, nurseries and parents can work together in the future?

Let's hope it doesn't take another 20 years for things to improve.