Frustrated parents have been left high and dry waiting for their child's school place - after email notifications failed to arrive or showed blank.

Scores of families throughout Kent and Medway who had chosen to be notified

of their child's secondary school allocation by email ended up going to bed not knowing if their child had gained their all-important first choice.

In Kent County Council's area around one in 10 pupils were sent a blank email, and Medway's computer system was said to have crashed at around 5pm.

Angry families have been telling us how annoyed they were that the email system failed.

Joanna Hillas-Smith posted on KentOnline yesterday: "Yes, 4pm came and the anxious wait for the all important email was over - but no, the email came through at 4:03pm with a blank space where a school should be listed.

Audio: Parent Trisha McAllister speaks to kmfm reporter Jamie Stephens about her problems in Medway

"I rang the admissions people who had had about 20 or so calls telling them the same. They just said another email will be out in a minute. Now 4.34pm and still no news! Great! Love 'em!"

Susan Rowe said at almost 10pm last night that her son was going to bed miserable, because all his friends knew what school they were going to but they hadn't heard.

She added: "Typical council, why did we bother to apply online? We probably wont now hear until we get the letter."

A statement from Kent County Council said: "Some parents (approximately 10 per cent) who signed up for an email alert have received an email about their child's secondary school offer that does not contain the name of the school.

"Kent County Council was made aware of this and has worked with the company that provides this service to rectify the error.

"A new email containing all the details is now being sent to those parents who had received this message. This will not affect the school places offered and we apologise for any inconvenience.

"Offer letters have already been posted."

In a later statement, the council said it used an external organisation to send out the emails, and realised there was a problem with blank emails by 5pm.

It understood that this was rectified by 6pm, by which time everyone had got a correct email.

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