A TEACHER has forced her local education authority to change its controversial pupil admissions policy which meant some families did not have a hope of sending a child to their local school.

The Schools Adjudicator, a national body set up to resolve admissions’ disputes, has ordered Darlington Borough Council to devise a fairer way of allocating school places to primary school children following Sarah McAdam’s yearlong fight.

The council has said it had recognised the inadequacies of its current system and was working on an alternative before the adjudicator’s ruling.

Mrs McAdam, and her husband, Mark, who is also a teacher, live in Merrybent, a village near Darlington.

They applied for a place at the schools nearest their home – High Coniscliffe, Abbey or Mowden primary schools – for their four-yearold son, George.

But because schools in Darlington prioritise pupils who live nearest the school and the schools were already oversubscribed, they were only offered a place at Northwood Primary, the 13th nearest school to them in the borough.

Those who do not live within a certain radius of a popular school, such as in the McAdam family’s case, get allocated the nearest school with places available.

However, the adjudicator says this prejudices against people living in rural areas of Darlington and the council must find a new way to allocate places.

The ruling could have implications for other local authorities with similar policies to Darlington.

Mrs McAdam said: “I was devastated when I found out that he had been offered Northwood, absolutely horrified.

“The system seemed wrong, it was the whole idea of how you can live in Darlington Borough Council and have no choice in your nearest three schools.”

In his ruling, the adjudicator, Dr Bryan Slater, said the way the admissions process in Darlington was organised, parents living in some rural areas “can never hope to obtain a place at any nearby school”.

His report adds: “What is needed is a means for ensuring that this situation is rectified for the parents in question, by giving them some priority for access to a nearby school without displacing children who would themselves then have no realistic nearby alternative.”

Other criteria for which Darlington Borough Council prioritises placements include if the child is being looked after by the authority, if there are medical reasons or siblings are already at the school.

County Durham operates similar criteria, whereas some authorities in Teesside have an additional criteria of admission zones – or catchment areas – for individual schools.

Darlington Borough Council has said it has resisted catchment areas because it feels this system would disadvantage areas of the town The council has until 2012 to implement an alternative system, which is too late for the McAdam family, who have sent George to Gainford Primary School, in neighbouring County Durham.

Although this involves an 11-mile round trip, Mrs McAdam said it ws more practical than travelling through Darlington to Northwood.

However, when George turns 11, the family may face further problems, because his classmates will go to secondary schools in County Durham, which he may not be eligible to attend.

Mrs McAdam said: “The whole thing has been quite traumatic. It’s too late for us, but there’s another little boy down the road. Hopefully they won’t have to go through it all.”

Councillor Cyndi Hughes said: “The adjudicator’s decision calls for parents in rural settings to be given priority for access to nearby schools.

“The result of this, if we are not careful, is that children who would ordinarily have gained places at these ‘nearby’ schools will, in turn, be displaced.”