PARENTS have been handed the opportunity to press for a change in the rules that govern the allocation of grammar school places.

A public meeting has been called by school's adjudicator Dr Bryan Slater to hear complaints about the system.

Each year scores of children from the Sevenoaks area are left without an offer from a grammar school, despite passing the 11-plus.

Amherst Primary School chairman of governors David Hale, who welcomed the meeting, said: "I think it's positive they're trying to gauge parents' views.

"If the grammar schools don't understand prior to the meeting where we're coming from, hopefully they will afterwards, both in terms of the social impact of their admissions' criteria and also understanding what we're suggesting as a remedy to that."

Parents, teachers and school governors have been arguing for changes to the system for years.

They claim it unfairly disadvantages children from the Sevenoaks area and puts them through unnecessary stress, as many are forced to appeal education authority Kent County Council's first decision on which schools they are offered.

Three grammars in particular – Judd, Skinners and Tonbridge Grammar School – have been criticised for their policy of super-selection, whereby places are offered to children who pass the 11-plus with the highest scores, regardless of where they live.

Last year this led to 300 west Kent grammar school places being offered to children outside Kent.

This left 118 children from the Sevenoaks area without an offer from their nearest grammar schools in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

Mr Hale believes the situation is reaching crisis point, which is why in excess of 100 separate letters of objection were sent to the adjudicator from people connected with Amherst alone.

He said one solution could be for these schools to change their policy and offer places to children from Kent first.

In theory the adjudicator can force schools to change their selection criteria, although it is unclear whether preference can be given to children who live in the catchment area.

A ruling in 1989 known as the Greenwich Judgement prevents education authorities from following this practice, although Mr Hales claimed a test case had subsequently overturned this, something he intends to put to the adjudicator at the meeting.

The meeting will be held at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys on Wednesday between 6pm and 7.30pm.

It is open to parents, children, school staff, governors, local authority representatives and anyone else with an interest.

According to the Independent Adjudicator's office, more than 200 separate complaints have been filed by people about the schools selection process in the west Kent area.