THIS year's secondary school transfer crisis has prompted Hertfordshire County Council to reconsider its rules and look at taking into account the traditional community links of outlying villages.

The county council's education access manager Nick Powley, agreed to meet Redbourn Junior School's governing body this month amid growing fears the village's youngsters were being discriminated against.

Governors have already expressed concern at the sharp reduction in pupil numbers over the last two terms.

And they fear that the trend could continue as many parents with children in the lower years have said that they would move home to be near the "right school" for their child rather than risk playing the "secondary transfer lottery".

Even after the second round of continued interest, only 11 out of 47 children from the Long Cutt school have received a place at any of their three chosen schools, and staff are worried about the stress being placed on the shoulders of children aged ten and 11.

Governor and Redbourn's Secondary Transfer Action Group (STAG) spokesman Robert Jones said: "The current rules, being based on distance, ultimately discriminate against children from village communities such as Redbourn.

"This is because children from villages will always be on the fringes of the selection process, being furthest from the schools in local towns.

"The upshot of which, is that their best chance of attending an over-subscribed school of their choice is reduced to hoping to get in through the appeals process.

"At worst, they receive no school of their choice and are allocated a place at their nearest under-subscribed school."

Mr Jones said that although the transfer rules worked for 95 per cent of children in the region, youngsters in villages such as Redbourn and Markyate would continue to fall into the five per cent who could get places.

He said: "We want to see the county council look again at using catchment areas to allocate secondary school places, as well as providing better information for parents in the middle of the appeals process so that they can see how far down their child lies in the pecking order."