PARENTS in Prestwood are appealing moves to place their daughters at the mixed grammar school, Chesham High School, in September because they want them to go to the all-girls Dr Challoner's High School instead.

And their local county councillor, Mike Colston, has asked if this is fair. At the last meeting of Buckinghamshire County Council he said that in his area there were 180 places for boys at single sex schools and only 150 for girls.

Girls were therefore being denied single-sex education while boys were not, he told Marion Clayton, Bucking-hamshire County Council's schools cabinet member. He said a number of parents whose daughters had passed the 11-plus had come to him saying their first choice had been for the single sex curriculum offered by Dr Challoner's High School.

Parts of Prestwood were relatively deprived and bright girls from these areas would benefit from single sex schools, he said.

He drew attention to a House of Lords judgement against Birmingham City Council. The Lords said that the city council was discriminating against girls by only providing 360 grammar school places for them, but 540 for boys.

Cllr Clayton said the county council could do nothing about numbers as school sites were an historical accident and children living closest to a school were given priority. The council had no legal requirement to provide an equal number of places for boys and girls. She said the Birmingham case was different. The Lords' ruling was based on the fact that because there were fewer places for girls they needed higher marks. The girls were being discriminated against, she said. In Buckingham-shire, she said, all children needed the same mark and there were enough places for everyone. Parents had the right to appeal if they did not like allocated schools and the LEA had to abide by the appeal panel's decision.

Of the 14 grammar schools in Buckinghamshire, four are all-girls schools Dr Challoner's High in Little Chalfont, Wycombe High, Beaconsfield High and Aylesbury High and four, The Royal Grammar School and John Hampden Grammar School in High Wycombe, Aylesbury Grammar School and Dr Challoner's Grammar School in Amersham, are all-boys schools.

Children who do not go to a grammar school have no choice.

None of the county's 21 upper schools is single sex.

On Thursday, May 19, Peter Hardy, member for Bulstrode, will hand an 800-signature petition calling for children who have passed the 11 plus to be allocated a place in a grammar school in the catchment area of which they live.