New figures showing public school application and enrolment numbers have been obtained by The Royal Gazette, as parents await the results of a reorganisation of the state education system.

An announcement on which schools are being considered for closure or consolidation is expected from the Ministry of Education by the end of this month, just before school registration week.

This newspaper asked the Department of Education to provide figures for the past five years and the results show which schools receive the most and least applications and how many places are allocated annually at each.

The ministry divides primary school applications into three zones — eastern, central and western — and places are given based on whether a sibling already attends a school and geographical distance.

Wayne Scott, the Minister of Education, announced last April that a working group of stakeholders, including parents and educators, would recommend schools for consolidation or closure during the 2016-17 academic year, with a long-term view of reducing the number of schools by one per zone.

Harrington Sound Primary is the clear leader for applications among the Island’s 18 primary schools, with 72 for the 2015 academic year. The department did not provide enrolment data for any school for 2015, but did share it for previous years.

Harrington Sound has been mostly oversubscribed in recent years. It got 51 applications for September 2014 and 51 students were enrolled in P1. In 2013, it received 69 applications and 50 students were enrolled. In 2012, 64 students applied and 29 got places. In 2011, 51 applied and P1 enrolment was 45.

Students who failed to get into Harrington Sound last year would likely have been offered a place in one of the schools with fewer applications in the eastern zone, such as Francis Patton Primary or Elliot Primary.

East End Primary in St George’s received the least number of applications in the eastern zone last year.

With only four applications, it trailed behind close neighbour St George’s Preparatory School, which received 30. The previous year, the P1 enrolment for the two schools was nine and 25 respectively.

The data shared by the education department also reveals the small number of applications received for Prospect Primary and Heron Bay Primary. The former, in the central zone, got seven applications for September 2015, while the latter, in the western zone, received eight.

The school with the highest number of applications in the central zone was West Pembroke, with 56. In the western zone, it was Purvis, in Warwick, with 27.

Figures for preschools show Warwick as receiving the most applications for 2015 with 50. St David’s received the least, with ten applications.

St John’s has consistently received a high number of applications for the past five years, compared with many other preschools. It got 52 in 2011, 34 in 2012, 44 in 2013, 52 in 2014 and 44 in 2015.

It was amalgamated with Victor Scott Primary School last September, after the landlord of the building on Marsh Folly Road reportedly asked the preschool to move out. It moved sites to The Glebe Road and is now called Victor Scott Preschool.

Figures for the two senior schools show the Berkeley Institute has received more applications than CedarBridge Academy for the past five years. It received 185 in 2015, compared with 138 for CedarBridge. The Department of Education did not share application figures for the five middle schools.

Last week, Mr Scott said he had received the final report on the school reorganisation from the working party, which is called the Score Advisory Committee.

He said once stakeholder consultations were completed, the report would be released to the public, before a further six-week consultation period. A final decision is due by the end of March.

The Bermuda Parent Teacher Student Association has accused the Government of trying to take away parents’ rights to be consulted over school reorganisation by creating parent councils, a claim denied by Mr Scott.

• To view all of the figures released by the Department of Education, click on the PDF links under “Related Media”