A BALLOT system is set to be used for the first time to allocate pupil places in a Scottish school.
Parents wanting to send their children to Mearns Primary, in Newton Mearns, near Glasgow, face going through a "lottery" system under plans being drawn up by council chiefs.
The local authority is under pressure because of a Scottish Government
drive to limit class sizes in primary schools to 18 for the first three years.
Only those families who live inside the school's normal catchment area will be guaranteed a place.
Places in primary schools for pupils from outwith normal catchment areas are usually allocated to those who live closest.
However, East Renfrewshire Council is considering introducing the ballot system for Mearns Primary to decide the primary-one intake for August this year.
Schools in the county are among the most popular in Scotland. The Scotsman revealed earlier this year how the council had been forced to introduce new security checks to prevent parents from fraudulently gaining access to school places.
Parents now have to bring both a council-tax bill as well as a utility bill, to demonstrate their eligibility to enrol their children.
Brighton and Hove Council triggered controversy this year by becoming the first UK local authority to fully adopt a lottery system, partly in response to excessive demand for the best schools and a lack of interest in the worst.
Catchment areas are stricter in Scotland than in England, where it is easier for parents to choose a school if they do not live nearby. Campaigners in England say parents should be given more freedom to choose whichever school they want for their child.
In Scotland, priority must go to those who live in a school's catchment area.
A spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council said: "We are under extreme pressure from rising school rolls because of the quality of education we offer. The problem has been made more acute by the class-size commitments we have to meet."
Judith Gillespie, policy development officer with the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, described the council's proposed system as "a nightmare scenario where there is a lot of unfairness because it relies on luck".
It emerged last week that the least popular primary schools in Edinburgh attract fewer than half the pupils in their catchment area. However, Marilyne MacLaren, education leader in the capital, said she was aware of the system used in Brighton, but had "no plans" at looking at its introduction in Edinburgh.
The number of requests from parents to have their child placed in a school of their choice fell by five per cent last year.
The full article contains 448 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
