The number of children securing a place at their first-choice secondary school is set to hit a record low this week as catchment areas for top state schools shrink to a few hundred yards.
Canny middle-class parents will have rigged this lottery years ago, moving house to be close to a favoured school. It is a smart move: forget a nearby Waitrose, nothing protects house prices quite like having a desirable school on the doorstep.
These parents might once have considered paying school fees but the cost of a private school place in relation to earnings has doubled in a generation.
Despite this, traditional private schools are booming, with a record number of pupils attending a fee-paying school last year.
