PARENTS of 10-year-olds and other children due to transfer schools should beware.

Worcestershire County Council has launched its admissions and transfer schedule for next year and is taking no prisoners.

Following the high profile of several unhappy parents, the council is keen to make sure these mistakes can be avoided.

It's been six months since the plight of David Suffolk and Dominic Price came to light.

Neither 11-year-old is in school after their parents lost appeals to get their children into Nunnery Wood High School.

The battle raged over the lack of parental choice with Nunnery Wood being oversubscribed and many families not getting into the school of their choice.

What many parents fail to realise though is that this policy is really parental preference.

You can indicate your preferred school, but it doesn't mean you are guaranteed a place on the register.

Nunnery Wood High School has hit the headlines in these two cases.

There's no doubt it's a good school. Headteacher Alan Brodrick has led the school through many challenges and is surely geared up for many more.

The school was purpose built in 1954, for up to 900 pupils. It's now 2001 and houses 1,350.

It has a reputation that many schools across the county would envy, built on standards introduced by its first head.

Its very success, however, means that some parents are now disappointed that there's no room for their youngsters.

Last year's admissions and transfers debacle fuelled calls for another school in the city, despite nine schools - four of them private, offering secondary education.

Mr Brodrick, branch secretary for the National Association for Headteachers (NAHT) explained:

"The impact of Warndon Villages is being felt now."

"What we've got is more children than places and in my view we've got an uneven playing field.

"Of the five secondary schools, the LEA has responsibility for putting children into three of them.

"The other two are aided schools and their governors make decisions on admissions.

"There are winners and losers. We win because we've an enviable reputation, and we're in the middle of expanding areas.

"The answer as to whether we need another school is probably not. We don't know what the turnover of housing is like."

Mr Brodrick compared the situation to that of Redditch when it rapidly expanded and became a New Town.

This summer there was a major re-organisation of the schools, with mergers and closures taking place.

"What happened in Redditch was that the people who moved in didn't move on and no young families came in. You could easily get that in Worcester," he said.

"There's quite a transient population in Worcester at the moment. There's a tremendous amount of property on the market in St Peter's and Warndon Villages.

"To build another school might not be cost effective and would put the cat among the pigeons."

Worcestershire County Council would tell any interested party that there are enough places in its schools to meet the current demand. But unfortunately the demand is uneven.

Nunnery Wood High School is always over-subscribed but Elgar Technology College is under-subscribed. There are plenty of places, enough for every child, but each year we see the same problems rearing their ugly heads.

Parents are now being given the chance to have their say on a Government consultation on school admissions in a bid to provide a framework for the future.

Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Estelle Morris, says that the Government department has been listening to parents, schools, and local education authorities but more views are welcome.

"We accept that more needs to be done to improve admissions outcomes and the admissions process for parents," she says.

"This consultation document asks for views on our ideas.

"It suggests admission systems should be co-ordinated, so that all parents in an area are offered a school place on the same day.

"It says we should make the law on parental preference clearer, to remove barriers to all local education authorities complying with as many parents' expressed preferences as possible.

"Parents want the best for their child. They want their child to go to a school that will suit their needs and develop them as an individual. It is only natural that parents will see choosing the right school for their child as one of the most important things they can do to help their child's education and give them the right start in life.

"We need to know your views so that we can make school admissions work well for more children and their parents in the future."

But until the policy changes parents must stick to the current rules and play their part in making the system work.

The deadline for transfer forms is Friday, November 23.

Make sure you've sent yours off.