Primary school pupils and their parents will find out on Wednesday afternoon which secondary school they have been offered for September just hours before teachers in Kent go on strike for the second time.

Known as National Secondary School Offer Day - families across England are facing an anxious wait to learn about the next stage in their child's education.

Offers will be sent to households by local authorities less than 24 hours before hundreds of teachers in southern England, along with those in Wales, will walk out of their classrooms on Thursday for the second time this year in an ongoing dispute with the government over pay and working conditions.

Strikes in the Midlands are taking place today (Wednesday) while teachers in north and north-west England, Yorkshire and Humber downed tools on Tuesday in their regional day of action.

Last March in England, 94.4% of applicants for a secondary school place received an offer from one of their top three choices, says the Department for Education, while 83.3% were offered their first-choice secondary school.

In Kent, in 2022, 14,574 children, or almost 80%, were offered a place at their number one school with more than 95% of pupils receiving an offer from one of their four preferred options.

Families applying to Kent County Council, who added an email address to their application form, will receive an email after 4pm on Wednesday telling them which school they have been offered.

Offers will also be available to view online on Wednesday via the login and password used to submit a KCC application.

Households in Medway will also receive an email after 4pm on Wednesday, if they too applied online to the council, while postal offers will be sent on the same date.

Those families who live outside of Medway but requested a Medway school should expect, says the council on its website, to hear from their own local authority with details of the place they've been given.

Pupils who sat and passed either the Kent or Medway Test will also discover tomorrow whether their application to a grammar school in the county was successful, as meeting the required pass mark does not automatically guarantee entry as schools operate their own admissions policies.

For families who find themselves unhappy with the school they have been allocated, both Kent County Council and Medway Council, and the schools themselves offer opportunities to appeal, while you can also join a school's waiting list in the hope that places become available before the start of the new school year as people's final choices and circumstances change. Details about what to do next will be included with offer information.

Graham Jones, a solicitor and director at Whitehead Monkton, which has offices across Kent and specialises among other things in education-related advice, said the most important thing parents can do if they don't get an offer from the school they were hoping for is to be positive around their child before then establishing what the next available options might be.

He explained: "Be positive with your child.

"You have to accept that the school you put as first place may not be the one you actually get into so you need to take all reasonable steps."

Mr Jones advises parents to accept the place they're offered to guarantee their child a secondary school start somewhere for September before then trying to either learn more about the school they've been allocated, including arranging a visit to view it again alongside perhaps understanding more about appeal avenues that might be open to them.

"The transition from primary to secondary is a huge jump for a child" added Mr Jones.

Families in Kent will need to accept or refuse their offer directly with their allocated school by Wednesday, March 15 while in Medway, according to details published on the council's website, offers made on March 1 must be accepted or refused by March 29.