Any real moral difference between a short term let for admission purposes or permanently moving

I possibly will be doing this myself very soon. DS1 can either get into Grade 1, outstanding school (we're right on the outside) or grade 3, satisfactory.

Morals shmorals, when it comes to eductional outcomes of my dcs I have no morals.

The houses in the catchment are at least £80K more expensive than mine.

Fair enough Maryz, I get where you are coming from and I think I agree really!

I think my opinion is that it's wrong, but that it is justified!

Lurkers, the people with sound moral values often get shafted. That's the probelm, and that's why people who are good people with good values end up resorting to these sorts of measures.

We are probably all capable of abandoning morals and trading on others toes when it comes to protecting the people we love the most. I know I would be, but that doesn't mean I'd be proud of it.

Here is another scenario.... The 2 good local comprehensives have a feeder school system whereby children at the feeder schools get priority over children who may live closer but go to a non feeder school. Parents tactically move their child in Y6 from non-feeder school to feeder school, specifically to get a place at one for other of the secondary schools.

You can't blame the parents for playing the game within the rules but it does bring into question the fairness of a feeder school system.

"They exploit people's desire to be better."

People's desire to be better is the driver of all civilisation.

Slave, I don't understand your scenario...if the nearest schools are denying places, how on earth would that issue be solved by moving house? Or renting near the school?

Surely that's a different issue? What could your friend have done - if she is already living within catchment?

There's only so much time around a state education for private tutoring.

It wouldn't be feasible anyway...folk need somewhere they can send their kids so they can keep going to work and earning vast sums of money.

I think private schools are a disastrous concept. Like private healthcare. They exploit people's desire to be better - not equal, but better - and healthcare exploits those who are terrified of the state system, or cannot get treated soon enough. While those who hold the purse strings have access to the private school and healthcare systems they will continue to stick one finger up at the national health service and state schools.

By PRETENDING that you live really near the school, you are systematically making someone else's life more stressful, less convenient, more expensive.

Plenty of people that cheat the system are cheating to get into their closest school though. That's why the whole system is such a shambles.

Sometimes people are denied the three or four closest schools to where they live and only end up with an offer at the special measures school miles away because it's the only one left with space. This has happened to a friend of mine, and we are in an average sized town nowhere near London. She didn't play the system and bitterly regrets it, because she ended up with her child's first couple of weeks at school being ruined by crap teachers that didn't notice other children taking his lunch and being mean to him. Teachers told him to stop being silly when he complained about a child punching him. They are four FFS! She has found him a place at an nice school in another LA now, but has to drive 8 miles to get him there.

here is another Cheating Another Child out of a Place scenario: Child A is on the waiting list for the school and has been for a year. Child B is removed from private school (secondary), jumps right to the top of the waiting list and gains a place, having turned down the shit schools that always have umpteen spare places. Child A still has no school place at all and is HE.

None of this cheating but it seems really unfair that the child who has been waiting for a year has lost out again. They don't live miles away, they are on the fringe of "catchment" and probably only marginally further away than Child B.

This is just to point that there is no definitive Fairness about the whole system. There is, however, a clear line between cheating/lying and working within the rules.

The solution is to have all schools as good as each other. Clearly that is never going to happen. The bad schools should never have got into the position of being as bad as they are, and there are some true horrors out there. In time, perhaps Ofsted inspections etc will mean it can't continue but that time is not here yet.

Hypothetically, if you ban private education, you get an influx of children "stealing" places from others. The very rich won't have a problem as they will simply be able to go down the route of private tutoring so you still end with a tiered system only this time it's just the Very Rich who gain from it. Is that any better?

I mind of people say 'I know it's wrong but my child comes first.' I mind that greatly.

I also wouldn't shove someone else's kid out of a lifeboat. We'd just have to make room...I don't believe for one second that you would either Mary

'The problem isn't the parents that want the best for their child, it's the parents that aren't bothered and contribute so much to there being terrible schools in the first place.'

What about those who are bothered but have sound moral values? Where do they come into it?

I'm not saying it is anything other than a bad thing to do, I'm saying I can understand why people do it.

People fighting for lifeboat spaces, yes, by fighting for their space they are basically saying that someone else shold drown. But I don't believe that anyone is truly that selfless. It is human nature to try and save your own life, that's the way we were created and it's how our species has survived.

It is also human nature to want to the best you can get for your child.

I realise that it's not a nice situation, and of course every child should have the opportunity to a good school. But that's just not the reality of the system that we have.

I'm not surprised that my comment of 'no harm is going to be done that wasn't going to be done anyway, it's just about what child it happens to', came across as shocking. It's a horrible thing to say but it's the reality.

People can be as shocked as they like by my comments, but I presume that all of you love your children and want the best for them.

If it came to it, and you were faced with doing this or condeming your child to a horrible school that you knew would probably fail him/her, would you honestly, hand on heart be prapared to sacrifice your own child's education for that of someone you don't even know, and who will only have to face what you are being expected to?

I know it's not nice, I know it's dishonest, I know it can come down to buying an incredibly distasteful advantage. But after health and a loving family, a childs education is the most important thing going on in their lives, and it can affect the rest of their lives. That is why it is completely understandable in my opinion that people will do what they have to do to get a good school.

The problem isn't the parents that want the best for their child, it's the parents that aren't bothered and contribute so much to there being terrible schools in the first place.

Mary I love it.

Slaves, it's like the beer analogy ONLY there is a thick rope barrier that runs across a secret entrance to the kitchen.

Most people see it, don't cross it, abide by the rules and take their chances with everyone else.

The ones who climb over the rope and make their way into the kitchen get the beer, of course they do, but it's still cheating. Even if everyone got something...the alcohol free stuff that was left over was fairly disgusting and no one really wanted to drink it. I think that's a more well rounded and accurate analogy myself.

How does it work in Ireland, Mary? Would you mind explaining? I'm interested to know.

I think what it comes down to, with the renting thing, is that the whole REASON why schools offer places preferentially to those living closer is to make it EASIER for the parents that live locally, ease transport issues, (which benefits everyone) and avoid situations where someone lives opposite a school yet has to travel three miles to get to school somewhere else.

It's about convenience, cost and general good sense.

By PRETENDING that you live really near the school, you are systematically making someone else's life more stressful, less convenient, more expensive.

And then you move back to goodness knows where, leaving yourself with a transport issue AND (more importantly) the person who lived opposite the school, but a metre further than your rented pad, without a place that would have made sense in every respect.

There are reasons why this system is in place. Think about them and how you would feel if it was your child who had to go somehwere miles away because someone who actually lived a long way off had rented a place slightly nearer than your permanent home.

it stinks. It's a crappy thing to do.

That school place that you take for your child by fiddling the system would have gone to another child. Therefore you have taken that child's place.

That doesn't make it stealing. One child doesn't deserve it any more than any other child. The place I could have got at a different school (albeit one I didn't want) will also now go to another child.

That's like going to a party where there are 50 people and 40 cans of beer. The people that got the beer just got lucky, got there earlier, made their way to the kitchen quicker, whatever. The beer was free to everyone, they all had equal right to it. Those that got it didn't steal it from those that didn't, because they had as much right to it as anyone else. And those that didn't get beer got something else instead because they were still catered for. They might have prefered beer, but they still got what they had a right to.

Crap analogy, but you know what I mean (I hope)!

It's alright Slaves, I keep doing it myself

Where do we put the knife carrying kids?

I don't think they are the fault of the teachers. Where do we put failing children from failing families...this is the urgent question. And how do we stop those families failing in the first place.

I don't know the answers. It's the children's behaviour in the worse schools round here which puts me off. I daresay there are some excellent teachers in those schools, and some who can't handle it. Why should they handle it though when they are up against kids with weapons?

No one can handle those children and I don't want my child to be around them. But I wouldn't go trying to trick the system to facilitate that. I'd teach him at home. I'd find a way that didn't involve making sure someone else's kid ended up in the shite school by nefarious means.

That's like pushing your way onto the last lifeboat by pretending you're in desperate need...because 'someone else would have if I hadn't'.

Sorry Lurkers. You are right, I'm getting confused, and I apologise

No harm is done that wouldn't be done anyway, it's just about which child that happens to. Out of two children that want one place, one child is going to miss out no matter what.

I know it's not nice, and that's why all schools need to be better, but I suspect there's not a huge amount that can be done to improve the standard of parent's attitudes in some areas, so this horrible situation will always exist to some degree.

But like I said, out of two well supported children who both want the same place, one is always going to miss out.

But that's a nonsense. If nobody "cheats" then more people on the outskirts of a catchment zone will get a place.

It's not a nonsense at all. More people on the outskirts could get a place on a good year if nobody cheated, but equally, they could be beaten by sibling places and other children whose families have lived closer to the school for years.

So there could be no one cheating, and those on the outskirts still might not get a place. Therfore, the place is not theirs, and so cannot be stolen.