Nearly a dozen Glasgow schools, including one in Knightswood, were forced to turn away children in their local catchment areas, according to the latest figures.

Education bosses say there has been a surge in demand. Some popular schools managed to increase capacity to squeeze in extra pupils, but new admission figure show many children have been turned away from their nearest schools, and offered places elsewhere.

Secondary schools where there was most pressure for classroom spaces included St Paul’s, Bellahouston Academy, Knightswood Secondary and Hillpark Secondary.

There was also high demand at a number of primaries including Ibrox, St Monica’s in Milton, St Angela’s and St Francis.

St Monica’s Primary in Pollok and St Monica’s in Milton have ended up offering more places than their “agreed” pupil numbers, after finding extra classroom space to cope with demand.

A city council report said it was considered “necessary to increase capacity for four secondary schools to make room for catchment pupils at St Paul’s, Bellahouston Academy, Knightswood Secondary and Hillpark Secondary.”

But due to “movement” of pupils the high schools were not above their pupil cap as the academic year got under way.

On July 31, a number of other primaries were “too full” to take local children zoned for the schools including Riverbank, St Maria Goretti, Ibrox, St Angela’s, St Francis and St Vincent’s. A process was put in place to offer alternative spaces for children elsewhere.

There also wasn’t enough room for all the children living in the local catchment areas for Glendale Gaelic, Glasgow Gaelic Primary and Calton Gaelic so pupils were offered places elsewhere.

There were a total of 46 children on waiting lists for the Gaelic schools and other squeezed primaries on July 31.

It comes as 5,675 children were enrolled in P1 and 5,794 kids were registered to start secondary school on July 28 – before the start of the new term.

A council report said: ” All catchment children in the secondary sector were placed following placing request decisions which created movement across the estate.”

The school admittance figures will be presented in the report going in front of councillors tomorrow at the city administration committee.

Councillors will be asked to approve maximum new P1 and S1 pupil numbers for August 2024.

The report said: “At an operational level the council is required to plan for the sufficiency of primary and secondary school places across the city on a rolling annual basis with priority given to children and young people residing within the defined catchment areas. Having ensured that catchment area needs can be met, then placing requests are approved in line with legislation and the council’s placing request priority criteria.”