Thousands of parents are claiming their children have exceptional medical or social needs in order to secure places at the best state schools, new data has shown.

Food allergies, hay fever, conjunctivitis and proximity to a parent’s workplace are among reasons put forward for special consideration on school applications, according to the Times newspaper.

However, only an average of 10 per cent of such applications were approved, according to freedom of information requests to councils. 

Lee Elliot Major, chief executive of the Sutton Trust social mobility charity, said: “Claiming their children have medical or social needs is just the latest tactic deployed by tiger-like parents who will do pretty much anything they can to secure that coveted school place in the escalating arms race of education.”

He added that “sharp elbowed middle classes who game the admissions system” were pushing the less advantaged to the back of the queue.

It comes amid wider concerns about the schools admissions system.

Earlier this year, the Sutton Trust highlighted “potentially fraudulent tactics” being used by “professional parents” to get their children into good schools, including buying or renting a second home nearby or using the address of a relative to be in the catchment area.

And last year, the Office of the Schools Adjudicator warned how schools admissions were not being “adequately” scrutinised in some areas of the country and some local councils did not know whether arrangements were lawful.

Figures revealed by the Times show that the number of applications on exceptional medical or social grounds has risen 58 per cent since 2014.

Genuine reasons included conditions such as cystic fibrosis and spina bifida, those escaping domestic violence and those who had recently lost a parent. In such cases, the children took priority over those living closer to the school.

Unsuccessful reasons included a need to be near grandparents who would do the school run.