THE situation that the Suffolk family of Worcester's Warndon Villages has faced in the past 18 months has been a desperate one.

At its heart has been two issues - on the one hand, a family's quest to do its best for its children; on the other, the right of parents to choose the school their child attends.

No one can quibble with the first, but the second has proved a nightmare for families throughout the country for this reason - what happens when their child cannot attend the school they've picked?

In this paper's opinion, the national parental choice policy has been running out of control for many months.

The fact that parents can pick and choose, rather than sending youngsters automatically to the school nearest their home, is a reminder of the attitudes of the 1980s.

In essence, every time a parent expresses a determination to keep a child away from a certain school and insist they go to another, the view is based on their fears about the quality of education their youngster will receive.

Such fears can, of course, be misplaced. Many people now accept that choices should not be based on information contained in "crude" league tables. In other words, parents can find themselves misled over the quality of education a school can provide.

And, let's face it, many schools can become impoverished if all the high-fliers end up in one or two establishments.

Clearly, this is a situation that will not go away. Those charged with providing the best quality education for each and every one of our children need to come up with some radical solutions.