Choice - what choice?

Well it's the dreaded beginning of March, and my grand-daughter, like I suspect many other children, has learned that she has not got a place at the secondary school she most wanted to go to. So now her parents are faced with deciding whether to accept second best, or go through the appeals procedure. She seems to have taken it quite well really, but I know she is very disappointed. This isn't the first time we've been through this - five years ago the same thing happened to her brother, who eventually ended up at a school very much not of his, or his parents' choice. Not that he hasn't made a good go of it, but the whole procedure seems to be designed to create the maximum worry and stress for children and parents, and you can't help but feel that it badly needs sorting. A mother on television described it as "a gamble", and that's just what it is - you as a parent have little say, and no control over the outcome. Quite apart from the question of whether it is right to put children of such a tender age through such an emotional wringer, the government's own aim of providing to every child "the choice of an excellent secondary school" seems far removed from what actually happens.