The parents of 25 pupils at an outstanding primary school plan to educate them en masse at home with a private tutor after a third of this year’s 92 school leavers failed to secure a place at any of their preferred secondaries.

Most were rejected by the local secondary school because they live just outside its 1.08-mile catchment area, even though it is their nearest one.

Catherine Roberts, whose son Alexander Lindfield was among them, was at a meeting of 25 families from Madginford Park Junior School, near Maidstone, Kent, at which home tutoring was discussed.

Ms Roberts said: “We have been allocated, along with about 22 others, a place at the second-worst-performing school in the Kent league tables.

“Unless you were selected for one of the grammar schools or had a sibling link to a non-selective school, virtually no one from Madginford Park Junior School gained a place at any of the schools on their selection list.”

She added: “The children in my area have been failed in their desire for, and right to, a decent education at secondary level and after such a promising start at junior school are now being let down by the local authority. You wonder why there is a preference system if you are not able to gain a place at your nearest school which is also your first choice.”

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