THE dreams of a school choir hoping to sing live on national television have been crushed by voting problems.

Westlea Primary School choir was just one of more than a dozen entrants from the Swindon area in the Joseph Choir Search, part of the BBC show Any Dream Will Do.

But the school had to watch as their ranking plummeted from fourth to 603rd, despite the website being suspended and voters continually having problems trying to vote.

Choir teacher Sarah Sumner, said even when they could get on to the site to vote, giving themselves top marks reduced their ranking.

"It was a real disappointment for everyone watching us go from fourth and then suddenly dropping down into the 600s while schools that had no votes went in above us," she said.

"When you gave the choir a five coats ranking, which is the top mark, a message would come up saying that it had reduced your ranking. It was all a bit iffy."

Hundreds of choirs up and down the country submitted video clips of themselves singing in a bid to get into the top 20 and be in with a chance of singing with the new Joseph at a special charity performance.

But tactical voting by rival schools, coupled with technical problems, has left many schools without a chance.

Schools have claimed that the BBC contacted those in the top 20 before voting closed at 3pm on Friday.

There have also been allegations of rigging, which the BBC strongly denies.

Mrs Sumner said she does not know what went wrong, but believes the BBC was naïve in thinking that not many schools would take part.

"It is so disappointing for the children as they have worked so hard," said she said.

"You want to show children that doing things like this are positive opportunities but this has left them so disappointed.

"I feel like I've wasted their time, mine and Sheila Harrod's, who very kindly came in to help us.

"It has definitely made me much more cautious about entering anything like this in the future."

The BBC has issued an online apology to anyone who experienced technical difficulties.

A spokesman denied they had pre-empted the results and said that production staff had called some of the highest-ranking schools to make preliminary arrangements on the off-chance that they made the shortlist.

He also denied there had been any vote-rigging.

"There are systems in place to recognise and discount multiple voting," he said.

"If there is anything underhand in the voting we have systems to detect that."

The top 20 choirs will be announced on Thursday at www.josephchoirsearch.co.uk.