LAST year, two fathers living next door to each other visited their local secondary school and put their children's names down for a first-year place. Competition was high and they knew their children might not get in but, as they had enrolled on the same day, they imagined they would stand or fall together.

This was not the case. One child got in, the other didn't. The family that lost out was told they had enrolled their child too late. This child has a specified learning disability.

Also last year, a child and his parents were interviewed by a secondary school principal who made it clear that the child's learning disability might not fit in with the academic ethos of the school. While not directly refusing the pupil, the principal suggested that another school in the locality with more resources would be more suitable.

The child came out of the interview with no desire to go to the school. "It's obvious they don't want me, " he told his parents.

With academic achievement and the publication of school league tables dominating parental choices of education, it has become increasingly difficult for some parents of children with learning difficulties or special educational needs to find a place in the secondary school of their choice.

Section 29 of the Education Act has put paid to direct refusals of children - last year 93 appeals were brought against post-primary schools for unfair refusal of pupils and 30 of these were upheld.

But some schools are finding easy ways of redirecting children with learning difficulties away from their school and towards another local school, which they assure parents already has the necessary supports in place.

"The whole entry into second level education is a very difficult question for the parents of a child with a learning difficulty, " said Mary Ball, psychologist with the Dyslexia Association of Ireland.

"Many schools have a test prior to admission and parents often have to decide whether they should reveal their child's diagnosis. Many parents now feel that they can't tell the school about their child until they are safely enrolled. There is a silent exclusionary process at work in some of the traditionally academic schools and it's a real problem."

Concerns that some schools are cherry-picking students and excluding students with special educational needs and foreign national pupils have become so widespread that education minister Mary Hanafin has ordered an audit of enrolment policies in schools to be carried out. Its results are due out later this year.

For Sally Maguire, a learning support teacher in Dublin, the problem is obvious.

As the only non fee-paying girls' school in the area, it has particularly large numbers of students with special educational needs, as well as foreign nationals. While many of these have chosen not to go private, others have found little support in the other schools they approached.

"The face of the classroom has changed incredibly in the last 10 years, " said Maguire. "We might have three to four children with special needs per class and we have to cater for everyone and teach individually. . .

"We take everyone but a lot of our pupils have siblings already in the private schools. They didn't get in to those."

Under the Education for People with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act 2004, schools can apply for necessary supports when they take in foreign national pupils or pupils with special needs.

However, the support is weighted by the number of pupils per school, meaning schools with no such pupils can legitimately say another school with a history of taking special needs students is in a better position to take more.

But this has led to an unbalanced situation in many areas, with some schools left to handle all special-needs students and others taking none, thereby retaining their academic record.

"The best schools are the schools which have the widest range of pupils, including the pupils that get over 500 points in their Leaving Cert as well as newcomer pupils and pupils who require learning support, " said ASTI general secretary John White.

"There is no doubt that there are schools across all sectors that do not take their fair proportion of pupils and part of that problem here is created by school league tables and the idea that academic schools are the best."

As well as claiming they cannot give adequate support, schools that routinely exclude special-needs students also tend to do so by curriculum.

"They may tell the parents of a dyslexic child that yes, they can take the child but they should be aware that the range of subjects is limited, " said Mary Ball. "There may be a rule whereby pupils must take two modern languages for Junior Cert and there is no other choice. They can't say outright that they won't accept the child but they can make things quite difficult for the student."

School programmes such as the Leaving Cert Applied (LCA) and the Junior Cert Schools Programme can often be ideal for students with learning difficulties or for pupils who are less academically-inclined.

These programmes are increasing rapidly in Ireland, as is the Leaving Cert Vocational Programme (LCVP), which offers an additional practical work module to students taking the traditional Leaving Cert.

Currently, no private schools in Ireland offer the Leaving Cert Applied and just eight offer the LCVP. Of the glut of fee-paying schools located in south Dublin, just one - Blackrock College - offers the programme.

"It doesn't make any sense, " said Noel Buckley, assistant principal of Presentation Secondary School, Clonmel. "According to the National Council for Special Needs, 18% of all students have some form of learning difficulty. I'm amazed when I hear teachers saying there's no need for the Leaving Cert Applied in their school. Are they saying none of their students need learning support?"

However, Mary McGlynn of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) feels the issue is not quite so clear-cut.

"If a school doesn't have the correct proportion of special-needs students, it doesn't mean the school has refused them, " she said.

"It depends on where the school is located - there mightn't be many students with learning difficulties in a certain area. We would support an inclusive policy. . . and I think parents need to be prepared to take action when they are refused from a school."

Wyn McCormack is a resource teacher in Greystones, Co Wicklow and a parent of two dyslexic children. She regularly meets groups of parents to discuss the issue and feels that parents' difficulties have increased rapidly in the few years since school league tables have been published.

"It is particularly hard for a family when older siblings have attended a school and the one child with a learning difficulty is told this is not the school for them, " she said. "And that's happening all the time. This rejection of the one child is awful but when parents are told the supports aren't there for them they often feel they don't have any choice.

"That is not an excuse. All schools should cope with all levels. What is happening instead is that if a parent feels the school does not have an open-door policy, they'll get the child in the door before they'll tell the school.

"And given the circumstances, who can blame them?"