THE Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe has lost a second battle with the Buckinghamshire County Council over admission arran-gements for pupils.

School governors at RGS, in Amersham Road, want to change what happens when there are more pupils in the school's catchment area who have passed the 11-Plus than there are places available.

Instead it wants to take those with the best examination marks.

The council's new arrangements, applying to all schools, say that when a school is oversubscribed, children living closest take precedence. The RGS also wants to enlarge its catchment area.

Headteacher Tim Dingle said that he and the school governors were disappointed that the adjudicator had not taken into account key issues about fairness and having the appropriate mark-based system for entry into grammar schools.

But he said: "We will continue to work with all parties, including the LEA, to promote the best education for children in the Wycombe area."

Buckinghamshire County Council took its objection to the school's adjudicator, Dr Elizabeth Passmore, who backed the LEA.

She said there were too many boys in the school's existing catchment area, so it should not be made any bigger.

And she did not accept that the use of 11-Plus scores would be fairer or clearer for parents than the distance criterion.

This is the second time the school has fallen out with the LEA over the subject, the second time it has been taken to the adjudicator and the second time it has lost.

Paul Holmes, the LEA's schools organisation chief, said the system based on distance was fairer than that based on marks.

But over catchment areas he said there was a way forward. The catchment areas were new and once all the admissions for September had been sorted, there would be a review.

He said: "Then we will know what we might and might not do and we can think about improving the situation. We are committed to getting the best for parents, children and schools."

Mr Dingle said he hoped the review would be genuine.

The new system had disenfranchised parents, he said. It had introduced too many changes at once to catchment areas, admissions and the examination itself. And he claimed the LEA had got its numbers wrong about the number of children qualifying for grammar schools in each catchment area. RGS was oversubscribed this year, he said, and "not because of anything sensible".