Children only get one chance at education, and for parents the stress of trying to get their son or daughter into the right school can be incredible.

When, as has happened for over 300 sets of parents this year, they are told they have missed out, it must seem a devastating blow.

This issue is becoming increasingly a problem for Bradford, with the number missing out for this school year 12.7 per cent up on last year. It is fair to say there has also been an increase in the total number of pupils being allocated places, but that has only increased by around 2.5 per cent, so there are obviously other factors coming into play.

Pressure is undoubtedly increasing on the district’s more popular schools and that situation is likely to get worse if the huge amount of housing proposed in the Local Development Framework comes to fruition.

The real issue, though, is parents’ understandable desire to get their children into what are perceived to be the best schools.

It would be great if we could return to the days when all children from one community attended their nearest schools.

One way to try to move closer to that would be to look at ways of levelling the playing field for primary schools. If all were equally funded, resourced and staffed, then theoretically they should all be at the same achievement level, and parental choice would become redundant. It might seem idealised, but something has to be done to try to tackle this problem.

It is patently unfair to put parents through such a stressful scheme, and even more unfair for those who are then told they cannot get their child into the school of their choice.

And as things stand, it would seem that the number who end up in that position is only going to carry on increasing.