ON TUESDAY, the anxious wait by many parents and children across the borough ended when the council announced details of secondary school places for September 2016. I am delighted to report that yet again we have had a very high success rate in matching pupils to schools.

Full credit goes to our small but effective school admissions team and the leadership of Coun Fionuala Foley, the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, for their efforts.

Out of the 2,293 applications for places that we received on time, we were able to give children a place at their most preferred school in almost 19 cases out of 20.

I accept that our success rate was down slightly on last year at 94.8 per cent instead of 95.6 per cent, but even so this is still a phenomenal achievement.

Even in cases where we couldn’t allocate a child a place at their most preferred school, we still managed to get nearly all pupils a place at their second or third choices. Swindon performs exceptionally well when compared to other local authorities across the country when it comes to providing school places. If you look at the reports to Cabinet over the years, you will see that we try to keep a keen eye on the trends so that we can anticipate parents’ and pupils’ needs.

That means we are always looking at where we might need new or expanded schools two or three years ahead.

Not only have we been successful in allocating places, but the variety of good secondary schools from which parents can choose continues to expand.

Along with the academies, we also have the University Technical College, so we already cater for a range of academic and vocational specialisms.

I am still hopeful that we will have a grammar stream at the Swindon Academy.

This will mean we can offer the most intellectually stimulating opportunities to our most gifted children. We’re not resting on our laurels, which is why there is an explicit pledge as part of the council’s vision saying the council will “in addition to the two new Free Secondary schools, build one secondary and 12 primary schools to meet the needs of our increasing population.”

To make this happen, we will not follow the example of the administration we replaced in May 2003, which thought it better to keep money in the bank than to fix cold, leaking, barely habitable classrooms.

I am proud of the fact that this council has spent tens of millions on providing modern school buildings so that all our young people have the chance to learn and develop in a quality environment.