SURREY County Council has offered 85 per cent of pupils their first preference secondary school after processing a record number of applications.

On secondary school ‘national offer day’ last Tuesday, the proportion of Surrey applicants given one of their top three preferred schools rose to 95 per cent.

Figures from Surrey County Council also show that the number of secondary school applications topped 11,000 for the first time.

However, figures for individual schools and areas such as Farnham have not yet been made available.

A total of 11,132 Surrey pupils applied for places for September 2016 – an increase of more than 200 on last year.

With 96 per cent of Surrey secondary schools now rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, the figures highlight the growing demand for secondary education in the county.

The figures show:

• 84.5 per cent of Surrey applicants were offered their first preference school – up from 82.4 per cent last year.

• 94.6 per cent of Surrey applicants were offered one of their top three preferences – up from 93.3 per cent last year.

• 11,132 Surrey residents applied for secondary school places – up 1.9 per cent from 10,929 last year.

Linda Kemeny, Surrey’s cabinet member for schools, said: “I’m pleased we’ve been able to offer the vast majority of Surrey pupils a school of their choice and this in a year when more than 11,000 applicants are seeking places – the highest ever number.

“With 94 per cent now rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, Surrey secondary schools are increasingly popular and we make every effort to provide extra places where they are most wanted.

“But applications to primary schools have been rising steadily and these pupils are beginning to transfer to secondary schools so demand for secondary places in many parts of the county will continue to grow strongly in future.

“We need to create more than 11,000 extra school places across our primaries and secondaries over the next five years but it is becoming harder and harder to pay for the places we need because demand is not being matched by extra funding from the Government, leaving us with a shortfall of £30 million in each of the next two years alone.”