Almost two thirds of Newham’s Year Six pupils will be heading to their first choice of secondary school in September.

Parents were contacted today (Friday) outlining which school their child had been allocated a place for Year Seven.

The borough received 4,518 applications ahead of the October 31 closing date, with 2,957 of these - or 65.45 per cent - offered the school at the top of the list.

This was a slight decrease from last year, where 69.8pc were offered their first choice, but in line with the London average.

The borough was able to offer 4,022 pupils, or 89.03pc, a place at one of their top three preferred schools, and 4,220 pupils, or 93.4pc, a place at any one of the up to six schools on their list.

Cllr Julianne Marriott, cabinet member for education, said: “More children than ever have applied for a secondary school place in Newham this year.

“By working closely with our local schools we have been able to provide an extra 200 places for our children in local schools.

“We have a great family of schools in Newham and I am really pleased that for the vast majority of our families we have been able to offer a place at one of their top preference schools.”

She added: “We are anticipating the demand for secondary schools to continue to grow.

“That’s why Newham’s ‘Places for All” strategy, passed at January’s cabinet meeting, allocated £24m to increase the number of secondary places through expansions of existing schools.”

The numbers include 246 pupils at all-through schools who will be moving from the primary to the secondary phase in September.

There were 298 pupils who could not be offered a place at any of their preferred schools and were instead allocated a place at the closest school to their home which still had space.

There were 222 children living in Newham who were given places at schools outside of the borough and 297 who live outside of the borough who were offered a place at a Newham school. Of these, 61 have a sibling at the school who is expected to still be there in September.

Across the capital, there was a 3pc increase in the number of pupils applying for places compared to last year, with more than 95,000 young Londoners set to make the transition to secondary school.