Parents show education anger

The full extent of parents' dissatisfaction with their children's education has been revealed.

The latest figures come as MPs are set to warn schools they are failing to ensure a fair admissions process.

Critics have accused headteachers of cherry-picking the best children in a bid to improve placings in league tables.

Next month members of the powerful education select committee will warn the Government that headteachers are " running rings" around a code of practice intended to ensure pupil admissions are fair. They will blame schools for contributing to the growing gulf between those at the top and bottom of exam league tables. And they will expose how schools are ignoring guidelines by continuing a series of banned practices, including:

Parents who are on benefits and children who are in care are massively under-represented at the best comprehensives, the MPs discovered.

The code of practice on admissions says they should be given priority but heads told the committee frankly that after " noting" what the code says, they ignored it.

The select committee will say that failure to tackle "social selection" is fatally undermining the Government's ambition of "inclusion" in education.

The rise in dissatisfaction with secondary school admissions also continued last year, with 69,210 parents across England appealing - up by one per cent.

But the rate of appeals in London still far outstrips national levels at one in five of the total.

In the past year, 18,972 parents across London appealed against decisions with only one in six succeeding - a far lower proportion than the rest of England. In one borough as few as one in 20 appeals was upheld.

Crucially, London parents' success rate is far lower - just 17 per cent in primary schools and 18 per cent in secondaries compared with 34 per cent and 32 per cent nationally.