aine’s letter in Monday’s Oxford Mail, I would like to know whether he even read my letter before plucking decent looking figures out of the air and throwing catchment area nonsense back at me?

If he did, then he would indeed realise that actually the main focus of it was the percentage of children who didn’t get a place at any of their three preferred schools, children within the catchment area not getting a place, and the sheer volume of children on some continued interest lists.

I feel, as with the £63,000 bill of education conferences and intended closures of Elms Road Nursery and Culham Primary School, public opinion is being swept under the carpet.

He stated that if these families had put their catchment area school on their list they would have got a place, then said: “some schools are over-subscribed for their catchment areas”.

So which is it? How can you guarantee a child a place at a catchment area school when the catchment area has too many children in it for the capacity of the school?

We lived in the catchment area of the school of our children when they started but moved recently to a mile away. So does that mean we are no longer entitled to stay at the school we have been attending for seven years?

Also, if your catchment school is desperately underachieving, do you not have a right to look for better education for your children? Or does it all come down to a postcode lottery?

It seems he is disgusted by parents requesting a place just outside their catchment area, yet finds it perfectly acceptable for the council to put our children in schools two-and-a-half miles away.

My whole point was, and still is, what happens to that 13 per cent of children who didn’t get a place they wanted?

If you like, Mr Waine, I can send you a long list of all the families which didn’t get a place at any of their three preferred schools or their catchment area school – and you can start drafting your reasons as to why this happened.

K Steptoe, Abingdon