Hundreds of parents in Walsall are facing having to change their children’s secondary school admission forms after a last-minute change in the rules.

The town’s Shire Oak Science College has been told it can no longer give priority to its ten primary partner schools by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator.

It follows a complaint made by St Peter’s School in Stonnall over the Shire Oak admissions criteria.

The change, which was made public to parents this week, means they have had just a couple of days to resubmit their application forms before tomorrow’sdeadline.

The reason for St Peter’s School’s complaint has not yet been made public.

No one from the school was available for comment this afternoon.

Today a spokesman for the borough’s education department said that Shire Oak had an unusually high number of partner schools which may be the reason for the complaint.

“Others have just three or four,” he said. “Even so the adjudicator’s decision is very unusual.”

The last-minute decision was today labelled “bewildering and upsetting” in a furious statement.

The partner schools are Castlefort, Holy Trinity, Leighswood, Millfield, Pelsall Village, Ryders Hayes, St James’s, St John’s, St Michael’s and Walsall Wood.

The statement said: “Shire Oak School is appalled by the decision of the adjudicator.

“Choosing a secondary school for any child is invariably an anxious time for parents and children alike.

“For many it is a process which takes many months of deliberation.

“To then be informed by the adjudicator only a matter of days before the deadline for the submission of secondary school preferences that there is a change of admission criteria is obviously bewildering and upsetting.

“Especially bewildering is that Shire Oak School was not attempting to introduce any new admissions criteria, they were the same criteria as for the previous year.

“To suddenly force a change on parents at this late stage is patently unfair.”

Chairman of governors Rick Gamble added: “The governing body was very disappointed with this change to the criteria which had originally been made in the best interests of pupils from the partner primary schools who attend the school on a regular basis.”

Jayne Howarth, whose child goes to one of the primary school partners, St Michael’s in Pelsall, and had been hoping for a place at Shire Oak, said she was unhappy.

“With us being in a partner school, it gave us a little more chance of getting our children into the school, not much more, but enough for us to consider it,” she said.