BBC News, South East
Getty ImagesThe comedian Romesh Ranganathan has hit out at his local council after his youngest son did not get offered any of his preferred choices in his secondary school placement.
Mr Ranganathan said he had emailed West Sussex County Council six times after his son had been placed in a school “on the other side of town”, and not at the same school as his elder two brothers.
He said he had received no response and his local MP, who agreed to investigate, had been told the council “can’t do anything about it”.
A council spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on individual matters, but we acknowledge the disappointment when students cannot be placed at their first choice.”
Mr Ranganathan, who hosts A League of Their Own and a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2, said he was particularly angry as his elder sons were already at the school the family had selected as his youngest son’s first choice.
Taking to social media, he said he had emailed the council six times but had had no response, even though other parents had received replies.
‘More than disappointing’
Describing what happened after he took the family’s case to his MP, Mr Ranganathan said: “I wait two weeks, they come back and say, ‘West Sussex has looked into it. They can’t do anything. They have conducted an investigation of their placement procedure and they found it to be satisfactory’.
“I bet they have. Then he said to me, ‘I’m sure it’s disappointing’. It’s more than disappointing. It’s not the football, it’s my son’s school placement.”
Mr Ranganathan told the BBC: “They didn’t give us any of our preferred schools. Instead they put us in a school that wasn’t any of our preferences and is the other side of town.”
He said it was not feasible for them to accept the allocated place because they would be unable to get their children to different schools so far apart each day.
“We’ve got two kids who are being educated on one side of town, and another who is being educated at the other,” he said.
“Short of putting one of them in a cab, I don’t know how it works.”
He said the family had the right to appeal, and would now have to go on the waiting list for an alternative school place.
The council spokesperson said: “We will always work with families to ensure a suitable school placement can be found.”
The council said 87.1% of pupils had been offered their first preference secondary school and 96.9% of all applicants were offered a place at one of their three preferences.