Around 80 per cent of pupils will get their first preference. Tens of thousands of children across the country were today finding out which school they will be going to in September.

The number of pupils being offered their top choice school in Sandwell has increased slightly from 74 per cent last year to 78.91 per cent this year.

For the 2013 year there were 4,503 secondary applications that included a Sandwell school as a preference.

Of those, a total of 3,476 applications listed a Sandwell school as a first preference and of those, 2,743 were offered.

This compares to 4,543 applications for the September 2012 year that included Sandwell school as a preference. Of those, there were 3,699 first preferences for a place in a Sandwell school and out of those, 2,731 were offered – 73.83 per cent.

Sandwell’s education councillor Bob Badham has welcomed the increase.

He said: “I am pleased that the percentage of pupils getting their first choice preference has increased this year and that is almost certainly because virtually all of our schools are showing big improvements in the Government’s league tables.

“That means pupils now have a bigger choice of a good school that they can go to,” he added.

Figures released in October last year revealed that more than 3,000 parents in the Black Country and Staffordshire lodged appeals with councils after their children failed to get into their top choice schools, with just nine per cent successful.

The data released by the Department for Education, which related to infant, primary and secondary schools, showed that parents in Sandwell submitted 1,259 appeals.

There were 505 appeals in Dudley, 574 in Staffordshire, 468 in Wolverhampton and 430 in Walsall.

Figures related to the 2010/11 academic year.

Nationally 46,905 appeals were lodged for admission to state primary schools in 2010/11 – an 11.5 per cent rise on the year before.