A seven-year-old boy has been allocated a place at a school more than 12 miles away after being the only child in his class to miss out on attending the school nearest him.

Ben Hoy was the only pupil at Lee Common CofE School not to be given a place at the Great Missenden CofE Combined School, out of the 15 whose parents selected it as their preferred option.

Instead Ben will have to travel more than 12 miles to the Chalfont Valley E-ACT Academy, if his mother Susan fails in an appeal against the placement.

Mrs Hoy said children were continually missing out on getting a place at Great Missenden because funding for two new classrooms - replacing a single temporary structure - hadn't become available.

She said: "Every second year such as this year, Great Missenden have to reduce their intake to just two classes instead of three because of a lack of one extra classroom. This will happen again in 2017, 2019 and so on, and children currently at Lee Common School and other feeder schools will be in exactly the same situation as my son.

"This has gone on for 11 years - how utterly crazy is this when it is such a good school?"

Mrs Hoy added: "Ben has built up strong friendships with the local children at both nursery and Lee Common School, which is even more important to him as he is an only child.

"He is a sensitive child that has blossomed at Lee Common School, and I do not wish for all this good work to be undone. "I understand that I still might not know what school he is going to until as late as September 2 - surely anyone can see the stress this is putting my son under."

Zahir Mohammed, Buckinghamshire County Council's cabinet member for education and skills, said: "We always do our best to help parents through the admissions process, and we do understand the disappointment at not being allocated a preferred school.

"We work very hard to ensure there are sufficient school places. However, we can't guarantee a perfect match outcome for all parents and the Admissions Code does make this clear."

He explained that the code doesn't allow admissions authorities - of which Great Missenden is one - to guarantee a school place to parents living in a catchment area in case the pattern of preferences expressed doesn't allow this to be met, or because of variations in cohort sizes.

Mrs Hoy put Great Missenden as her first choice school for Ben to attend but did not select any alternatives. She was entitled to choose up to four schools.

The admissions guide states that selecting just one school doesn’t give a better chance of getting in, and more preferences expressed gives the council more placement options to consider.

The next round of school placements will be announced on June 26, and in the meantime Ben has been put onto Great Missenden's waiting list while his mother appeals his placement at Chalfont Valley.

Cllr Mohammed said: "If parents provide us with all four preferences on their initial form, it gives us a better chance of getting a child into a preferred school, possibly nearer home."