Parents' choice far from a 'snub'

To say that parents are "snubbing" local schools is just untrue. There are many reasons why parents do not choose to send their child to the local school.

In the last two years placing requests have dropped by 14 per cent for the primary one intake and 16 per cent for the first year of secondary school.

Edinburgh is a city with a high percentage of working parents who have complex childcare arrangements. Parents may request for their child to attend a school near their place of work or near to whoever is responsible for looking after the child after school.

If families move house and already have one child settled in their previous local school, they may prefer to keep siblings together.

There are occasions when the catchment school is not the closest school, which is why we are undertaking a catchment review.

It is our intention that the ongoing work to continually improve the educational estate through our Smart Schools programme will also reduce placing requests in the future.

We are striving to raise standards in all of our schools as I firmly believe that parents should do all that they can to support their local primary and secondary but I also appreciate that this can be difficult for the reasons I have outlined above.

Councillor Rev Ewan Aitken,

Executive Member for Children and Families, City Chambers