SCORES of parents were left disappointed after 45 per cent were denied their first choice of Redbridge secondary school for their child.

Early figures show that almost 20 per cent also failed to bag a place in any of their top three schools, and more than two per cent were left with only their sixth choice or lower.

The figures leave Redbridge 26th in the admissions league table out of London's 33 boroughs, while the neighbouring boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Waltham Forest offered parents their first choice schools in more than 70 per cent of cases.

Pan London, the company which collated the data across the capital, has insisted that admission issues traverse borough boundaries, so some authorities can appear to do worse as they may be giving more first-place choices to families in different boroughs, who live closer to the school.

Redbridge Council has also insisted the data is distorted by the large number of applicants for the two selective grammar schools, without which it says the number of first preferences met would stand at 72 per cent, above the London average of 64 percent.

Michael Stark, Cabinet member for education, said: "In Redbridge our successful and popular schools mean we are oversubscribed.

A large number of parents apply for the places in our two grammar schools through the selective school testing process, but for each place available there are approximately eight applicants - so this is going to affect the raw data, and it will mean that a lot of parents just won't get their first choice."