Swindon has some of the most overcrowded schools in the country, according to new data.

The town has the third highest amount of pupils per secondary school in the next academic year, which is ramping up the competition for first-place choices as admissions draw to a close.

This new data has been shown by The Access Group, which created its School Squeeze campaign to reveal which areas in England have the highest volume of pupils entering secondary schools.

Swindon Borough Council has refuted these findings, saying schools in the town aren’t considered to be overcrowded.

The research found Swindon to be ranked third in the top 10 of the most ‘squeezed’ locations in the country.

There are 19 secondary schools within the local authority while there is an average of 3041.5 children moving up to secondary education in the next academic year.

Schools include Lydiard Park Academy, The Commonweal School and Abbey Park School with some set to experience ‘squeezing’ this academic year according to the research.

This all works out to an average of 152.1 children per school meaning that Swindon ranks extremely high for overcrowding and is behind only two local authorities.

Kingston upon Hull had an average of 168.7 children per secondary school while Barking and Dagenham had an average of 166.5 pupils.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesperson said: “Despite Swindon seeing a higher growth in students than the national average, our schools aren’t considered to be overcrowded as many schools have space due to vacancies in higher year groups.

“We have also added additional classes for the 23/24 school year.

“Most [secondary schools] have a planned admission number of more than 200 per year.”

To create the research, the number of children set to attend secondary school in the 2023/24 academic year was compared to the number of secondary schools per local authority.

The Access group based the number of children set to enter secondary school in 2023/24 using information in the most recent sentence which is based on information as of March 21, 2021.

In order to establish the number of children due to be eligible for entry into secondary school, the group took the average number based on the count of seven and eight-year-olds at the time of the Census.

The number of secondary schools used in the research was taken using the Government's School Performance Checker.