Best Schools - The proportion of pupils getting a place at their first-choice state primary school may have fallen

Early indications from the Press Association survey also suggest that local authorities have seen a slight rise in the number of applications.

Of the 45 authorities that replied to the survey, there were 191,427 applications for primary school places, up from 191,154 last year.

About 175,000 (91 per cent) gained places at their first choice, down from 92 per cent last year.

A further 5 per cent secured their second choice, while 1 per cent got their third choice.

More than 4,000 children (2 per cent) missed out on a place at any of their top three schools.

London's most competitive borough was Kensington & Chelsea, where only 66 per cent of children bagged a place at their first-choice primary school.

England’s largest teaching union will lobby the government to make teaching about LGBT+ relationships compulsory in all schools

The National Education Union has today voted to campaign for a strengthening of new government guidance on relationships and sex education to force all primary and secondary schools to teach LGBT+ education.

The union will also demand that the government provides additional funded ring-fenced resources to councils to “enable them to develop a common approach and engage with parents and local communities”.

Although government reforms to relationships and sex education will make it compulsory for schools to teach pupils about relationships more generally from primary level, the guidance offers schools flexibility on when LGBT+ issues can be covered, meaning primary schools don’t have to cover the issues if their leaders don’t want to.

Following this morning’s vote, the NEU will also issue advice to schools to “empower them to positively teach an inclusive curriculum and develop a whole school approach to embed equality”, and will work with partners to “support increasing the scope of RSE in schools” and share good practice.

The union has also pledged to support members in schools where opposition to inclusive education is raised by parents, including by offering advice on how to engage parents in supporting inclusive education.

The urgent motion to NEU’s annual conference was submitted by members in the wake of a bitter dispute about the teaching of LGBT relationships at schools in Birmingham.