Councillor Pat Hawkes is right to point out no admissions system is perfect (Letters, December 8).

However, only a high level of irony would enable her to write this of a system which causes so much distress to hundreds of parents and children in Brighton and Hove every year.

Coun Hawkes uses the term "choice" in her letter, which is misleading as this is not a system of choice but of preference.

For choice or preference to be meaningful, a good proportion of the schools would need to have spare capacity each year.

In addition, the catchment areas would be fully defined at the outset - unlike the current system - and there would be an agreed proportion of children from other areas allocated places in all schools.

This would reduce the social engineering that takes place every year with parents moving home or taking part in virtual moves.

For about a decade, each autumn has witnessed the beginning of a cycle which leads to year 6 children and their families spending the following spring challenging the outcome of the process when their preference has been denied for reasons of capacity or "bad preference".

The fact they may have also selected a second preference is irrelevant as the only places left are at a school that few have selected as their first preference. This school then becomes the negative focus of the campaigns that have in some cases involved solicitors taking part in meetings.

That the school most frequently seen in this context is East Brighton College of Media Arts (Comart), provides a salutary reflection on the current problems publicised in these pages in recent weeks.

I challenge Coun Hawkes to suspend the decision on Comart while a meaningful review of the parental preference scheme is carried out and then to fully reconsider the future of Comart in the light of any changes to the preference system.

-Ian Chisnall, Brighton