AS parents of Burnley's 'D.I.Y. School' we are concerned to hear that parents who attended appeals over refusal of places at Gawthorpe High School had them upheld.

We keep being told that all the schools are over-subscribed and do not have elastic walls, so why is the education authority still admitting children into these schools?

We are not against these children and their parents. Quite the opposite. We are very happy they at last obtained a place in a school that can offer them a quality education. But what about our 'forgotten children' upon whom the LEA have turned their backs?

What has happened to equal opportunities, which are well documented by the LEA, but are obviously not being carried out? Our children are being discriminated against and they keep on asking us what is wrong with them.

Why is it that we all had three preferences on our school application forms, which stated that all these had to be filled in -- as we did -- yet we are told the parents who have just won their appeals only filled in the first two options, as they didn't want a third?

We believe the education authority has pressured these parents into going for a third appeal, which they obligingly did -- and won!

So why have we who filled in all three options lost appeals for all three when other parents have won their third appeal for schools they didn't originally want?

MRS WOLFENDEN, LISA NEWTON, VIKI BROWN, MRS GORTON, JIMMY HORRIGAN, JULIE SELBY, N FREMENT (Miss), SUSAN GREEN (Miss) and STEPHEN SELBY, (Parents, 'D.I.Y. School,' Rossendale Road, Burnley.