PARENTS from Kent are to mount a legal challenge against admissions arrangements that force them to choose a secondary school before knowing if their child has passed the 11-plus.

The challenge will test whether the scheme imposed by the Government infringes parents’ human rights. Parents will argue that it does because it compels them to make choices about their child’s education without knowing the full facts.

The legal tussle is expected to centre on the Human Rights Act and is likely to be heard in Europe.

Parents are being backed by the pro-grammar group Support Kent Schools. Its chairman Eric Hammond said: “The admissions system in Kent has been in chaos for several years.

"We want to maximise the choices for parents and it is better to have testing before preference so they know whether the child is suitable for a grammar school or not. Parents are desperate and whatever you think of selection, we have it in Kent and it ought to be administered as fairly as possible.”

But supporters of a comprehensive system of education for Kent say that if such a challenge was to succeed, it could well infringe the rights of other parents.

Martin Frey of STEP, Stop The Eleven Plus, said: “One person’s human rights might well infringe another.

"The system these parents would like would do great damage to to the education of three-quarters of the children in Kent and the courts will have to balance their rights against hers.”

The new admissions scheme does not allow parents to apply after taking the 11-plus because of successive rulings by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. The adjudicator has ruled that it is unfair for parents of children who want a place at their local non-selective school to be displaced by parents of children who have failed the 11-plus.

That ruling has been incorporated into the Department for Education’s admissions code of practice that advises that parents should express preferences before testing. Some claim that as a result, more parents are opting for a saftey first approach and applying to the more popular high schools.

Diana Grant, one of the parents involved in the action and a classroom assistant in Broadstairs, Thanet, said the system was appalling.