THE majority of parents in North Yorkshire are seeing their children educated in the schools of their choice, new figures show.

Nearly nine out of ten parents in the county – some 89 per cent - secured their first secondary school preference for their child, continuing the high percentages of recent years.

The figure is slightly below last year’s 92 per cent but this year’s total of 6,733 pupils is the highest number of pupils transferring to secondary school since 2008 and more than two per cent higher than last year.

And 93.5 per cent of all North Yorkshire children that requested a school place have received an offer from one of their top three preferences of secondary school.

The county’s executive member for schools, Cllr Arthur Barker, said: “This is good news that so many of our families yet again have been able to gain their first preference from their choice of schools.

“As a local authority we work with schools across the county to make sure all of them deliver the highest standards of education so that families who are not given first preferences will nevertheless be able to send their children to good schools.”