Eight in 10 children across Kent and Medway have been offered their first choice of secondary school today.

Thousands of parents across the county were anxiously waiting to find out which school their child will be going to in September after applying last November.

Emails were sent out by Kent County Council and Medway Council this afternoon, with letters set to arrive in the post from tomorrow.

KCC said 13,092 children out of 15,667 (or 83.5%) in Kent have been offered their first choice.

The figure was down slightly on 2013, when 84% of applicants got into their first choice of secondary school.

This year, as many as 97.4% of families have been offered one of the four preferences, with the others allocated an alternative school place by council bosses.

The total number of applicants was boosted to 17,658 with 1,991 from outside the county – 602 of whom were offered places.

In Medway, nearly 96% of primary-aged children in Medway have been offered one of their preferred places at secondary school for the 2014/15 academic year.

Of the 2,984 Medway children offered places, 82% got their first choice.

Roger Gough, KCC cabinet member for education, said: "I am pleased that KCC has been able to do such as a good job with secondary admissions again this year.

"When working with so many thousands of applications, giving 13,092 children their first choice school is a great outcome.

"It is a credit to our schools that parental confidence is such that so many have secured their preferred school.

"The excellent work in Kent schools coupled with KCC delivering on its school place planning provision, has meant 2014 will see the highest number of children securing their first preference school to date.

"While the vast majority of parents will be celebrating today, we must not lose sight of the fact that a small proportion of pupils were not offered a place at one of their preferred schools.

"This group of children and families will be disappointed, and I would like to reassure them that National Offer Day is the first stage of the school allocation process.

"There will be movement through waiting lists, reallocation on 23 April and appeals that will enable more children to secure one of their preferred schools before the start of the school year."

Parents have until March 21 to accept their offer, with appeals to be lodged by April 2.

A team is on hand to help parents with queries about school admissions by emailing kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk.

Stories you might have missed

Hospital injection farce 'put teacher's life in danger'

Four-year ban for £100k Bentley crash driver

Kent student tastes Oscars success with Gravity

Defendant 'arranged pressure to be put on witness'