AS the father of a child attending Lammack Primary School, Blackburn, and currently fighting for a place at Pleckgate High School, I feel I must respond to Mark Pattison, Director of Education and Training for Blackburn with Darwen Council (Letters, April 22).

Mr Pattison referred to your editorials (LET, March 31 and April 9), which mentioned "social engineering" and "directing children from middle class areas to working class schools" and stated that you had misled readers and these comments did nothing to help disappointed parents and children.

Well, I for one totally agree with the editorials as these were my immediate thoughts and I am thoroughly disappointed with the education department for failing to provide a secondary school place for my child at the school of our choice.

Since Mr Pattison has decided to react, perhaps he could explain several things to me:

Why, of all the children at Lammack who applied for a place at Pleckgate, it appears that only the children with siblings already there have been admitted (the rest of the children have been allocated to schools which are not performing as well as Pleckgate - this stinks of social engineering to me)?

Why were we only allowed six days to appeal for a place?

Why the admissions officer originally told me that there were 404 first preferences for Pleckgate and now it's changed to 342, who do I believe?

Why, if the admissions criteria have not been changed, has this happened, as it has not happened to this extent previously?

Why he should think that the Evening Telegraph is fuelling rumours by printing articles about the problem when the problem should not be there in the first place - local children should be going to the local school, end of argument.

Rumours have started because of the unfair way in which the local children have been treated and by the lack of explanation from the education department when challenged. They always refer back to the admissions procedure having been followed correctly. Rubbish: I know of several cases where their procedure obviously has not been applied correctly or fairly and, if necessary, I will take my evidence, at a later date, to the Ombudsman whom, I believe, is also not happy that the admissions criteria has been followed correctly.

I was also interested in the article concerning the council giving the public a greater say in its decision-making process (LET, April 21).

Apparently, the council's executive director Steve Gallagher believes that "effective decision-making will be enhanced by the involvement of others."

Yippee, let me apply, and the first thing to change will be the school admissions policy.

Name and address received.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.