In spite of their proximity, they may not be within the catchment area set down by the local education authority or the school's governing body. And if it is a popular school, they face an uphill struggle getting a place there.

Some parents will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure they can secure a place for their child at the school of their choice, further complicating the picture.

A couple living in the Home Counties recently spent �65,000 buying a flat which, to a casual observer, might appear rather small for a family with two children. But they have no intention of living there - they bought the property so they could have an address within the catchment area of an academically successful local school. The flat is now rented out and the family remain in their house several miles away.

This scenario is apparently being repeated across the country. Tales abound of bedsits being rented, but not lived in, by families anxious for their children to attend a particular school which is not in their immediate locality.

Hilary Wade, of London estate agents Winkworths, said, "People are frantically trying to find property within the catchment areas of the right schools."

The scramble for places begins at primary level

Do they need to? It is popularly believed that education laws passed by the previous government abolished rigid catchment areas and gave parents the right to choose where their children go to school.

In reality, parents are allowed to express a preference for a school but children within the catchment area are usually given priority in the allocation of places, assuming the school is non-selective. Only if there are spare places after local demand has been satisfied does a child from outside the catchment area have a chance of getting in.

If a child is refused a place at a school by a local education authority or school governing body, parents do have a right to a formal appeals procedure, usually established by the authority. The Department for Education and Employment advises parents who are unhappy with the way the appeal was conducted to take up the matter with the local government ombudsman.

If they are still dissatisfied, they can appeal to the relevant Secretary of State - the Education Secretary or, in Wales, the Welsh Secretary, but he can intervene only if he believes the local authority acted illegally or unreasonably; in Scotland, such cases are handled by the local sheriff's court.

Lesley Bello took the appeal option when her daughter Lydia was refused a place at Milton Road Junior School in Cambridge on the grounds that the family lived a quarter of a mile outside the catchment area, in spite of the fact that Lydia had attended Milton Road Infant School on the same site.

Although she appeared to have a good case, the appeals panel upheld the decision not to award her a place.

"The whole thing is just like a lottery," said her mother.

Events in Rotherham, South Yorkshire are likely to have legal implications for schools across England and Wales. In November of last year, the Court of Appeal ruled that the local education authority had acted unlawfully by automatically allocating school places to children living in a catchment area, because it did not give sufficient choice to parents from outside the area.

Admissions policy changes are often well advertised in local media

The consequences are that parents who live within a school's catchment area and intend to send their children there, but do not explicitly state that they want their child to attend the school, could lose out to parents from outside the area who do express a preference for a place there.

Many authorities - including Rotherham - are attempting to reduce the risk of this happening by sending forms to the parents of all children who are either about to start primary school or move up to secondary school.

David Hill, senior education officer for Rotherham council, said this had created an administrative headache for officials.

"It's complicated the handling of admissions procedures enormously. Before, we allocated places on the basis of catchment areas and only dealt with parents who wanted places at other schools. Now we are dealing with four or five times as many forms.

"Most of the parents want a place at a school within the catchment area, but if they neglect to apply they may lose out. We are now dealing with appeals from parents whose children did not get a place at their local school because they failed to return the form."

An earlier judgement against Greenwich council in south west London had already established that local education authorities could not stop children travelling to their schools from outside their boundaries, increasing the squeeze on places at popular schools.

Dr Vincent Cable MP: "Parental frustration"

The issue of school choice was the subject of a House of Commons adjournment debate on May 20.

Dr Vincent Cable, Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, said schools within the London borough of Richmond-upon-Thames were being flooded by children from other authorities. He called for a change in the law to reverse the Greenwich judgement.

Dr Vincent Cable MP: "There is a problem of physical overcrowding"

"During the past couple of years, more than 100 parents in the primary sector, which is the least affected, were unable to get their first choice, and most of them appealed," said Dr Cable. "There were many more such cases in the secondary sector."

Stephen Byers, the Schools Standards Minister, rejected such a change in the law, saying that many parents had welcomed the removal of what they saw as an artificial restriction on their choice.

"On balance, it is preferable to have an open system in which all school applications are considered on an equal basis, rather than one that depends critically on residence within a particular local authority area," he said. "To put it bluntly, local authority boundaries should not be given preference over the interests of parents and their children."

Code of practice

The government's School Standards and Framework Bill, currently making its way through Parliament and due to pass into law later this year, envisages the Education Secretary issuing a code of practice on school admissions for governing bodies, local education authorities and reformed appeals panels.

It also reaffirms the right of parents to express a preference. However, governing bodies and local education authorities do not have to meet their wishes "if compliance with the preference would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources."

But the Advisory Centre for Education (ACE), an independent charity which offers advice to parents, says the Bill will not improve the situation. In particular, it has criticised proposals which would allow denominational and opted-out schools to continue deciding on who they admit; ACE had wanted to see each local education authority having the final say.

Proposed limits on infant class sizes, also part of the Bill, are likely to make it even more difficult for parents to win places at some over-subscribed schools. A maximum of 30 children will be allowed within each class, leaving little room for discretionary decisions on admissions.