Last year, there were a number of schools that were oversubscribed, resulting in hundreds of youngsters not getting a place at their first choice – and across England 17 percent of secondary school applicants did not get their school of choice.
In Portsmouth, some schools saw roughly 40 per cent of applicants not getting into their first choice secondary school, and having to find alternative arrangements or settle with their second choice.
How competitive is it to get into your local secondary school? Here we reveal which Portsmouth schools were the hardest to get into as of last year.

1. St Edmund's Catholic School
341 pupils applied to St Edmund's Catholic School as first choice, with 121 being turned down. Photo: Google Maps

2. Mayfield School
146 pupils applied to Mayfield School as first choice, with 39 being turned down. Photo: Contributed

3. Priory School
276 pupils applied to Priory School as first choice, with 48 being turned down. Photo: Habibur Rahman

4. Trafalgar School
201 pupils applied to Trafalgar School as first choice, with 11 being turned down. Photo: Google Maps

