Parents: just lied on an application form to get your child a place at secondary school? Just don't boast about it in the supermarket aisles.

"One woman was caught bragging in Asda how she'd beat the system by renting out a house in the catchment area," explains Birmingham's head of admissions Julie, in the oddly riveting Big School Lottery (BBC Two, 9pm).

As the old war poster used to say, careless talk costs lives – or in this case, the school place she'd cultivated for her child – when other parents overheard, and shopped her.

Julie spends a lot of her time checking up on parents. At 7.45am she goes to a flat where a family of four claim to be living, just moved from the country. No-one's home: "That's unusual," she muses. "You'd think they'd be getting ready for school."

When she's not doing detective work, Julie "manages people's expectations" code for "don't hold your breath, love".

In Birmingham, as everywhere else, parents are desperately trying to get their children into the "right'' school. Julie is there at admissions nights, with her giant maps. On each are drawn circles.

If you live inside the circle, you're in the catchment. Outside, and…. "I would say to you that 95% of appeals are dismissed," she tells one couple.

Her staff wade through application forms from parents and make phone calls to those looking dodgy.

"Er, you've put the same school down three times," says one.

Some parents, like Alison, are hiring a tutor to coach their child through 11-plus tests, others are prepared to move house to get in.

Saffiyah is sitting mock 11-plus exams most nights, working away on the kitchen table, a big clock propped up nearby.

Dad Mohammed is determined she should get in. "It's a full-time job for the family," he says, as he prepares to coach her.

"What's the opposite of noble?" he asks. "Erm….noble-less?" she tries.

*For proof that truth really is stranger than fiction, look no further than My Story (BBC 1, 10.35pm) a search for the most remarkable true stories in the country.

From 7,500 entrants, judges have whittled it down to 15 finalists.

Nikki Johnson's story, as one of the judges put it, was like something from an Agatha Christie novel.

On her birthday, her "perfect" husband said he had a surprise for her. It turned out to be an axe. After bashing her head in he waited for her to die.

But rather than see him sent to prison, she wrote to the court and got his charge reduced to GBH – for the sake of the kids, she says.

"On the first night he was out we went to Pizza Express," she says, calmly. You couldn't make it up.

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