Dozens of preoccupied parents rushed to register their children’s first choice of school at the last minute – with some missing the deadline.

Brighton and Hove City Council confirmed its received 60 online applications last Wednesday on the last day for applications for primary, junior and infant school places.

The last-minute dash was despite parents being given more than four months’ notice of the deadline of January 15.

Unfortunately, eight applications were received after the 3pm cut-off on deadline day and a further three were received the morning after.

Eight parents cut fine by submitting their application within the last hour, with one application winging its way to officers with just 22 minutes to spare.

The council will now begin working through the forms to allocate school places with every eligible applicant offered a place at a school in the city.

Late applicants will be processed after those submitted on deadline, putting them at the back of the queue, meaning they are less likely to get a place at one of their three preferred schools if they are oversubscribed.

Parents will learn in mid-April which schools their children will be heading to.

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said: “In terms of publicity, the process has been advertised on our website since September 1 and there was a press release at this point advertising that the service had opened.

“Additionally, we are very fortunate here in Brighton and Hove in that the health authority provides us with address data for children due to start school, so we sent a leaflet to all of these in October.

“Posters advertising the online service and the closing date were sent out to all schools and nurseries at around the same time.

“There were press releases before and after Christmas, and also weekly tweets and Facebook updates.”

An East Sussex County Council spokeswoman said it had received 19 applications submitted on the deadline day and four the day after.