The North East areas your child has the best chance of landing an offer from your first choice primary school

There’s not long to go now until this year’s new primary school starters enter reception - an exciting and often nerve-wracking time for parents and children alike.

But while they will hopefully grow to love their new school and its community, for some North East families who didn’t get offered a place at a school they had hoped for, the experienced may be tinged with disappointment.

Last week, the Government released its latest figures on state school applications and offers for the upcoming 2025/25 school year, which show how many children across England received an offer from their family’s first choice of state-funded primary or secondary school - as well as how many missed out on any of their back-up options.

Nationwide, some 92.6% of children got an offer from their family’s first choice of primary school this September. While this might initially seem great, with 550,270 families applying for a primary place in 2025 that equates to more than 38 thousand children missing out on that top pick.

If your child didn’t get a place at your first choice of school, it’s likely through no fault of your own. The Government says that there can be all sorts of reasons behind this, including local school quality, travel patterns, and the demand for school places in your area. All of these, of course, will vary depending on where you live.

To create a clearer picture of what school acceptance rates look like across the North East, we’ve broken this data down by local authority area. Each council area has been ranked based on the percentage of new starters offered a spot in their family’s first choice of school - and we’ve included the percentage of children offered a place in at least one of their chosen options for each area too.

Here they are, from those with the highest first-choice offer rates, to those with the lowest: