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Education

School Place Thieves

77 replies

jojo28 · 24/07/2013 11:18

I had to bite down hard on my fist when I read this
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/school-cheats-checks-on-lying-parents-top-1000-8723077.html in the Independent. I have had first hand experience this year of Camden?s ineffective response to parents seeking to circumvent the oversubscription criteria of our local school.

The head teacher and parents with children attending Eleanor Palmer School nursery alerted Camden?s admission team to parents who had moved out of their family homes into rental flats next door to the outstanding school to ensure their applications were successful.

Despite being given a considerable amount of information about these families cynical plan to jump the queue, the council came down firmly on their side. Camden declared that as long as the families were living in the rental flats at the time of their application was submitted the parents would be awarded places, even if that meant honest parents whose homes were genuinely closer to the school lost out. Camden had left themselves with little option having failed to word their starting school guide correctly. The nebulous language in their starting school guide handed out to parents did not define clearly what was considered a valid home address, it did not clearly state that renting temporarily for the sole purpose of gaining a school place would be considered fraudulent nor did it require parents to declare if they owned additional property in the locality. The local community and the head teacher watched powerless as wealthy parents were given free reign to manipulate the admissions criteria.

It is telling that the only person Camden managed to bust was a young single mum who unknowingly applied from her mum?s address because she lives there most of the week. The parents who cynically circumvented the system, carefully planning their subterfuge, got away with it. As Camden admissions team explained to honest parents who lost out this year ?life ain?t fair.?

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JubesofKT · 24/07/2013 12:35

Re Eleanor Palmer School Place Theft:
It is disingenuous of Camden council to claim they have functioning systems in place to detect school place theft. They were handed all the necessary information to bust the Eleanor Palmer school place cheats but were unable to do so because it was not made clear in their guidance that renting and living in a temporary property was not allowed. In case anyone is thinking of repeating this ruse they are changing it for next year to make it clear in the very strongest terms that renting somewhere for less than a year prior to registration will be considered 'temporary' and it is up to the renter to prove it is the legitimate home. No praise is due to a sleepy council and lumpen unresponsive admissions team for this slow and overdue reform.
As for the cheats themselves - I wonder if they know how unpopular they have made themselves in the community? Bar the odd curmudgeonly journalist - most of the school community including the head teacher have expressed their disdain. It will take some front to Rock up to school in September as though their kids' places were legitimately acquired when everyone knows what they did to get them. Quite apart from that, what sort of message are they giving their kids at this tender age - "Yeah babes go to a lovely state school - get down with your community - but if there is something they have that you really want - step all over them any way you can to get it" Nice.

Wossname · 24/07/2013 12:40

I dont know why I am ever surprised to read something like this. It's just so blatant and mercenary. I think, though, if you're the kind of person to do this then you are exactly the kind of person to show your face with no shame whatsoever in September.

northernlurker · 24/07/2013 12:48

If the council doesn't define what is 'cheating' then no cheating has taken place on this occasion. Morally it's wrong but it sounds as if the parents in Camden have simply followed the letter of the law as it was defined. Of course parents circumvent the system. When I moved house I made damn sure we bought near a good secondary. Is that cynical or sensible? It's a very fine line sometimes.

tiggytape · 24/07/2013 13:24

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tiggytape · 24/07/2013 13:37

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jojo28 · 24/07/2013 14:37

Yes being able to buy a house within catchment does favour wealthy parents but you surely must try to make the system as fair as possible? Allowing people to rent regardless of whether you own a home around the corner already leaves very little opportunity for local people without the means and who prefer to go about things honestly to go to their local school. The admissions code demands that councils admissions arrangements are 'clear fair and objective'. Just to add that these parents would have gotten in to another outstanding Camden primary school but they want the one with 20 per cent free school meals not 50!

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MGMidget · 26/07/2013 10:08

I am surrounded (literally) by people who have done this for our local outstanding primary in another part of London. All very blatant but complies with council's rather weak systems. Council reluctant to do anything as they would need to spend lots of money investigating and a recent court case brought by another council was unsuccessful. It is amazing how many people in our area do it. So many in fact that when we were eventually offered a place at the school from the waiting list we declined as we didn't want our DS in a school where at least 50 per cent of the children have parents who cheated the system.

nlondondad · 26/07/2013 16:55

Think this has three parts:-

  1. Obviously people are influenced when they buy by school provision, and everyone in London will know of anomalous schools, often small ones -one form entry -that happen to be in "nice' areas with predominantly large, family, houses (so REALLY pricey) which end up with very small catchments. And estate agents will tell you what the price premium is for an "in catchment" house as opposed to one outside.


  1. Obviously you cannot stop people from applying from a flat they rent, as that would be discriminating against renters, unless they were obviously just using it as an accomodation address and home visits can pick that up. (Family of four, with large owned property too far away, who claim to be living at a bed sit for purpose of school application.) but there are grey areas. How actually do you determine that a rented property is, or is not, the principal residence?


  1. The case we are talking about seems extreme enough not to admit of being a grey area, and is actually very serious, as a bunch of too clever by half parents are destabilising the whole system, as unless this loophole is seen to be plugged what will happen next year?
tiggytape · 26/07/2013 17:36

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JakeBullet · 26/07/2013 17:41

Also look out for the OFSTED changes and watch their mouths drop open when it is downgraded at the next inspection.

Disclaimer. ..no idea if it will be but many Outstanding schools HAVE been downgraded since the goalposts changed.

frogs · 26/07/2013 18:13

nlondondad, have you seen how Dame Alice Owens deal with this issue? It's hardcore, but shows what can be done if the will is there.

jojo28 · 27/07/2013 16:56

In our planning area there are enough places but middle class parents still prefer to send their children to schools with less poor people in! Some of the parents who rented additional properties to get into Eleanor Palmer would have got into another great school, Torriano, if they had applied from their true home address. It is also rated outstanding by Ofsted but I can only conclude that because it has a higher intake of children on free school meals it did not suit. Middle class parents need to have a little more faith in their parenting skills and read about how life outcomes have more to do with family background/values than what bloody primary school they go to.

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nlondondad · 27/07/2013 18:27

@frogs

No I had not seen the Dame Alice Owen Rules: They are, in law, their own admission authority, so thats why they would have had to draw them up themselves.

They look very good indeed to me, someone should draw them to Camden's attention as they would plug the gap. Camden needs to do something about this as otherwise next year's applications to Eleanor Palmer will be pandomonium!

MrsSalvoMontalbano · 27/07/2013 18:43

I ma impressed that they are smart enough t look at consumption of gas and elec - respect! Just a shame that our council-tax-funded LAs are having to do this forensic detective work, at our expense Sad. Also that the cheaters will leave the heating on at full blast to prove their consumption...

TPFamily · 28/07/2013 12:27

I get the impression that some people don't fully understand what's actually happening here: families are moving out of their own homes and renting elsewhere for a temporary period (at least one year). They don't need to falsify gas or electricity usage because they have moved in to the temporary accommodation and are living there. The council checking utility usage or council tax records is hardly forensic detective work - it's checking the simplest and most obvious evidence of occupation.

There's also no 'grey area' as suggested above. If you possess a property and the mortgage is in your name and you have previously used that property as your home address, then that is your primary address. If you then rent a property in the area, that property is not your primary address. There's no confusion here, it's quite simple. Families who are manipulating the system to get in to Eleanor Palmer have done exactly that, they've rented a property and moved in, while letting their own residence to someone else. Camden Council have been informed of this and have done nothing as their current procedures allow for such tactics.

People have provided various explanations for the reasons they have moved in to temporary accommodation, although it is obvious that such situations are contrived excuses to gain an advantage for the purposes of school application on the distance criteria.

Camden Council have now changed their guidelines for next year's admissions round but had the new guidelines already been in place I suspect the explanations offered by the cheats would never have presented themselves and local families whose genuine home addresses are closer than those of the cheats would have been offered places at their LOCAL school.

As pointed out above, the cheats would all have been in the catchment areas of other local OFSTED outstanding schools but they've all had only one school in their sights and done whatever it takes to get that place.

My personal experience has led me to the conclusion that each and every senior member of Camden Council's schools admissions team should seriously consider their personal futures in education provision.

peteneras · 28/07/2013 12:50

?Camden Council have now changed their guidelines for next year's admissions round . . .?

Have now changed? What have they been doing in the past ten to fifteen years . . . sleeping on the job?

jojo28 · 28/07/2013 12:52

Still trying to work out why my post has question marks instead of apostrophes?!
Yes these families are living in their rental properties and some are making a nice bit of cash by renting out their real family homes. Providing utility bills and council tax is not a problem.
I still, question why Camden considered a temporary rental used whilst 'work is being done on the family home' a valid home address for the purposes of a school application. This doesn't even satisfy Camden's useless definition of using 'the address at which the child usually lives and from which they travel to and from school.'

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firawla · 28/07/2013 13:04

That rule is hard to enforce though really, what about those who want to sell up but can't get a buyer, so they do move into rental and rent out their previous house - it's not that rare??

tethersend · 28/07/2013 13:06

This will address the symptoms of the problem, but not the problem itself. As long as schools continue to use distance as a tie-breaker, there will be the problem of richer families buying or renting property near the school, thus pushing up house prices as the school gets a reputation of having a middle-class intake.

I am in favour of catchment areas with random allocation as a tie breaker instead, as I think this would certainly address the problem in many areas, particularly in London.

tethersend · 28/07/2013 13:07

I would also like to understand how this rule affects the children of professional landlords?

INeedALieIn · 28/07/2013 13:15

Amending the wording of the admissions policy to something more black and white will still result in some happy and others upset with the outcome. Somebody is always going to be just one house away from being offered a place and feel that this is unfair and their circumstances are a one off and so an exception should be made.

The real problem is that clearly, in far too many areas across the country, there are not enough spaces in the schools that meet the parents (or child's) needs.

This is a huge shame. Our pride and joy, about to embark on a huge step in life yet some parents are left to feel that they have failed on their child's behalf at tbe first hurdle in providing the school they hope for.

A huge shame for all involved. My sympathies go to parents on both sides of the problem.

MrsSalvoMontalbano · 28/07/2013 13:26

Having work done on the house is an interesting one. Some friends of ours lived in a house equidistant between schools, either would have been fine. They had work done on their house which made it uninhabitable (no roof, water, floors etc). They had an exemption on their council tax as the place was uninhabitable. They rented a flat nearby, and paid council tax there. They were told very firmly by the council that their application address had to be the flat they were living and paying council tax on (further way from the two schools). So in case they were actually disadvantaged by renting...

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lljkk · 28/07/2013 13:39

What are the economics, how much do these families spend on this subterfuge & how much do they save on school fees (if they went private instead) by renting for a year as well as hanging onto original home? And then there's removals & storage.
it does sound like a rich person's game.

Maryz · 28/07/2013 13:48

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JubesofKT · 28/07/2013 14:07

Camden council's admissions team is shameful in their self promotion - they have totally failed to administer fairly the admissions arrangements for Eleanor Palmer this year. As is usual in these moribund local authority departments with no accountability they have employed a barrage of empty words with which to placate the community members they have failed so predictably.
For example; this from Helen McMullen Director of Children, Schools and Families London Borough of Camden - "Again I would like to reassure you that Camden takes seriously any attempt to obtain a school place through fraudulent activity and we actively investigate all the cases we identify or are identified by the public. I hope that you are reassured that we have improved the detection of deliberately misleading applications through including the use of credit reference agencies, and that we continue to strive to identify fraudulent applications."
Of course in the end Camden council found their procedures and in particular the wording in their documents were both unclear and unfair meaning they have been unable to act in the case of the blatant cheats brought to their attention by community whistleblowers.
As if they have come to believe their own spin, the council hasn't refrained from boasting about their record in busting cheats and reassuring parents that they have fair procedures in place- perhaps reckoning that if they say it enough times it might come true? It is more likely that they are advised by their legal team not to admit their systems are unfair because of all those appeals they precipitated. Of course clarifying the wording for next year to head off a new round of strategic renters is an admission that they got it wrong this year - but they will doubtless issue another statement assuring parents " that this does not mean that the systems now in place are any less robust in the current round of applications". Oh silly me - they already have said that so it must be true!

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