I felt compelled to respond to the numerous letters written by a small clique of people all from the CauseEB campaign to change secondary school admissions in Brighton and Hove.

Their campaign is to adopt "virtual" nodes of measurement adopted for Blatchington Mill and Dorothy Stringer schools. This would mean children from Queens Park and Hanover having exclusive access to these schools.

They fail to, or do not want to, understand the real facts of this issue and they portray parents in many different parts of Brighton (Preston Park, Stanford, Fiveways, Withdean, Westdene, West Hove, Hangleton and South Portslade) as the "privileged few".

Recent letters published in The Argus from a small number of people, namely Mick Landmann, Diane Kirkland (Mr Landmann's partner) and Paul Grivell, all members of CauseEB, claim their cause is supported by "thousands of parents, councillors etc". They say the issue is solely about fairness and equality of choice.

The facts: The current system allocates 95 per cent of children to their first choice of secondary school. Given there are approximately 2,500 places each year in the eight council-controlled secondary schools, this means that some 125 children in the whole city are not receiving their first choice.

This means that most children in east Brighton are receiving their first choice school, unless Cause4EB are saying there are only 125 secondary school children in east Brighton. Indeed, some children from "east Brighton" are already enrolled at Dorothy Stringer.

This shows how CauseEB are seeking exclusive access to two good schools for a small number of dissatisfied parents in Hanover and Queens Park. If the Cause4EB campaign really was about east Brighton, maybe one of their number would explain why the proposals they support do not in any way benefit the children of Whitehawk, the main disadvantaged group in east Brighton?

The Argus in its editorial on December 10 commended the children at Westdene School for questioning the council's admissions proposals. It said politicians should be wary of messing with children's education.

This is the bottom line. Why risk changing a system which delivers 95 per cent success, especially when the Government White Paper threatens more upheaval at the very time these proposals would come into effect?

-Mark Bannister, Westdene