The change, they said, had been forced on them by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator, set up in 1998 to police admissions.

ECONOMIST: Grammar schools

The report also recommends school data on admissions to be made widely available and analysed by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) to identify any segregation.

BBC: Academies could 'fuel social segregation'

The Department for Education and Skills said that, now the co-ordinated admissions scheme had been finalised, the Office of the Schools Adjudicator would decide whether or not schools could use those criteria in the coming year.

BBC: Getting a school place is a fraught issue for many families