Nine out of 10 Surrey pupils clueless over school placement

More than 24,000 pupils are today unable to find out where they will be spending their next five years in education.

The Surrey County Council website, informing parents and children which secondary school they are to attend, has crashed.

With a total of 27,000 applications handled each year, nine out of 10 applications were made online.

This is the second year the county council has provided the online service.

The surge in users this morning forced the site to display a 'cannot display' page, suggesting the site was unable to cope with the demand.

A warning or apology to parents and pupils has yet to appear on the council's own website.

Reports of the site not working were received by the Surrey Mirror at 7.51am today. The site had been running from 7am. The site was still not working at 11.15am today.

Last year the county had just 6,200 applications online.

In a press release sent to media organisations in 2008 as the system was launched, Councillor Peter Martin, Surrey County Council's executive member for schools, children and youth services said: "This is a great way to take some of the stress out of the schools admission process."

- Link to the site here

- Are you still waiting to hear about your placement? Did you get the place you wanted? Call the Surrey Mirror on 01737 732088 or the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser on 01306 886750.