MORE help is being provided for parents in West Devon who are faced with applying for a secondary school place for their children. Devon County Council has appointed a team of six choice advisers as part of a prestigious national project. They will be working across the county to augment the information and advice that is provided by the county council's admissions team and secondary schools themselves. Their job will be to advise parents and carers how they can make the best and most realistic choice of secondary school for their child following up recommendations from schools and local authority staff. Their work will be targeted on those who find it difficult to engage with their current primary school, experience problems with reading or writing, are parents of children in care, have English as an additional language or are frequent movers or new arrivals to Devon. They will offer impartial advice but they will not promote particular schools or advise parents which school they should choose or play any part in an appeals process. In recent years Devon county council has striven to make the admissions' procedure as simple as possible for parents. This year nearly 60 per cent of parents applied for a secondary school place on-line and almost 94 per cent of parents received their first choice of school and four per cent their second.
