By Angela Harrison BBC News education reporter

Some parents will go to any lengths to get the school of their choice

Panicking over schools is not only limited to parents of 10-year-olds though, parents of three and four-year-olds suffer too.

Finding what you think will be the right school for your child is one of the big hurdles to be crossed as a parent.

But how far would you - or could you - go to achieve your goal?

Some parents seem to stop at nothing.

In many parts of England, particularly rural areas, there might be little choice - children generally go to the nearest school.

But as ministers have found, in city areas, where there are lots of schools and at least an appearance of choice, competition for the "best schools" can be intense.

Spot checks

Not even senior school staff are immune. Last year deputy head teacher Margaret Gillespie, from London, was given a formal written warning after being found to have lied on a secondary school application for her daughter.

She gave the family address as the caretaker's lodge at her place of work - the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Primary School in Fulham - when in reality she lived several miles away in Brentford.

She had been trying to secure a place for her daughter at a popular, very over-subscribed Church of England secondary school, but was found out during spot checks on applicants' addresses.

Mrs Gillespie is definitely not alone. Last year a survey by YouGov said one in four people would be prepared to lie to get their child a place at a coveted school.

Applicants are usually asked to show proof that they live where they say they do - in the form of council tax forms or power bills - or they may get a "home visit" from the school, but such checks are no guarantee of catching the cheats.

Good exam results bring high applications

Tales of parents "shopping" others who they think have cheated the system are common and if the claims are proved, the child is usually made to leave the school.

For those who can afford to play the system, there is always the house-move, which fuels the price of homes near the favoured school.

Researchers have estimated that top schools can raise house prices in an area by one third.

Other families move temporarily into rented properties in the catchment area of a favoured school, often renting out their own homes.

One family, from Hertfordshire, have rented out their �750,000 detached house and have spent almost �200,000 on a small flat which they have moved into - to get into the catchment area of the local school they want for their 11-year-old daughter. They are still waiting to be offered a place there.

Another, in west London, have rented out their large home and moved into a smaller one a few minutes' walk from a popular school. The two eldest children had got places there from their original home, but the school's growing popularity had meant the couple could not get places for their two younger children.

The mother told the BBC News website: "It does seem like desperate measures but we waited several years for a place to come up without success.

"We felt strongly we wanted our children to go to school together, so it has been worth the hassle."

Middle-class hold

The government seems keen to break what it sees as a middle-class strangle-hold on some of the best schools.

A recent study from the Sutton Trust claimed top schools were admitting too few children from poorer backgrounds - and that the intake of these schools was dominated by middle-class families.

The Sutton Trust said the government should invest in school transport so that poorer families can afford to let their children travel to better schools.

The White Paper on secondary education is expected to endorse such a scheme.

Other ideas being touted as favourable include admitting pupils on a banding system - that is, taking a mix of all abilities - and the drawing of catchment areas so that they take in a representative group of pupils from a whole area rather than just pupils living nearest the school.

The use of a lottery - as at the Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College Academy in South London - has also been backed by the government.

About a quarter of the school's places were awarded to children selected at random from within the school's three mile catchment area, rather than on the basis of pure proximity.