Children's charity says privileged children are monopolising top state places and poorer families are losing out in a complex and unfair system. Barnardo's claims secondary school admissions fails to ensure a level playing field for pupils.

Impenetrable "clusters of privilege" are forming around the best state schools, Barnardo's, Britain's biggest children's charity, warns today. Poorer families are losing out to better-off neighbours who move house or attend church to get a better education.

Unfair admission practices result in schools with skewed intakes that do not reflect their neighbourhoods, Barnardo's says, citing research that indicates the top secondary schools in England take on average just 5% of pupils entitled to free school meals.

Schools should be encouraged to admit pupils in "bands" based on their academic ability in order to increase the social mix, the charity recommends. Government plans to expand the number of academies and create parent-led "free schools", which will control their own admissions, risk widening the gap.

Martin Narey, Barnardo's chief executive, said: "Secondary school admissions fail to ensure a level playing field for all children. Instead we are seeing impenetrable clusters of privilege forming around the most popular schools.

"Allowing such practice to persist - and almost certainly expand as increasing numbers of schools take control of their own admissions - will only sustain the achievement gap in education and undermine the prospects of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children."

Narey said school admissions had become a "complex game, one that many parents in poorer households are not aware is going on around them. "Even when conscious of a race for the best schools, some less confident and able parents are often overcome by a fatalism and are resigned to the fact that their son or daughter will be left with whatever school other parents don't want."

Although the school admissions code is meant to stop schools favouring better-off children, many parents from less well-educated backgrounds are still being deterred, the charity says.
Parents who lack confidence in their own writing skills find it hard to deal with complex forms. Voluntary-aided schools, which usually have a religious link, have forms that require detailed replies about religion.

The charity said its local services had advised increasing numbers of eastern European immigrants who struggled to get into faith schools, even though they are devout Catholics, because they have recently arrived or moved around a city and therefore fail to meet the church attendance criteria.
Anne Pinney, Barnardo's assistant director of policy and research, said: "There are parents who find the system so daunting they just don't engage with it."

Failure to get into the best schools tips the balance of children's lives for the worse, the charity warns.
Pinney said: "Children born into disadvantage do worse in school, they do worse at GCSE, they are more likely to leave early and more likely to be trapped in unemployment … we want to put the spotlight on the role that unfair admissions plays in sustaining the achievement gap in education."

Often inspections could be extended to look at whether schools have a mixed intake, the charity suggested. Barnardo's also suggests that schools should be required to report annually on the profile of their pupil intake to parents and governors.

Ministers share Barnardo's concern that disadvantaged children lose out in school admissions. The pupil premium, which will reward schools that accept poorer children, is an attempt to tackle this.
A Department for Education spokesman said: "The attainment gap in English schools is too wide and far too many students from disadvantaged backgrounds are in weaker schools.

That is why we are implementing a comprehensive programme to make opportunity more equal. We are introducing a pupil premium, reforming the admission system to make it simpler and fairer, and getting the best teachers in the most disadvantaged areas by increasing investment in Teach First."

The spokesman said many academies had adopted banding to help reflect their communities better.
Mossbourne, the high-profile academy in Hackney, east London, already admits pupils in bands according to ability as well as accepting children by geographical location.