Moving into rented accommodation in the catchment area-when can I safely move back?

Another thing to point out as far as cheating the system because "X school I'm in the catchment for is horrible and I don't want my child to go there":

My foster daughter's school, as I've said before, has a drug problem, she got involved with drugs through some of the older kids. She's spent the best part of year 11 getting wasted with her (expelled) BF when she should be in lessons and the school made a bloody halfhearted attempt to deal with it. This is the school she ended up at after missing out on the 'outstanding' school by a couple of metres, in an area where people are known to rent in order to get into the 'outstanding' school and avoid this one. When she got involved with the drugs, the reason many parents tried to avoid this school, she was still living at home with her mum, who was completely disengaged and unsupportive.

I have taught in a number of failing secondaries with such problems, including this one. Trust me, the kids of those on this thread who have/are planning on renting/cheating to avoid these schools are NOT the kids I worry about getting caught up in the drugs. The reason is simple: the parents are engaged enough and concerned enough about their child's wellbeing to support them, to listen to them, and to teach them the difference between right and wrong. The children I DO worry about are the ones like DFD was, the ones whose parents couldn't give a damn how their child is doing at school. I'm not saying it's only ever been the kids from the unsupportive homes who get caught up in anti-social behaviour in and out of school, but in the majority of cases the children of the concerned, engaged parents are not the ones who end up as school drop outs on drugs.

Now I'm absolutely not saying that on that basis, the children from unsupportive homes like my foster daughter, as she was in year 6, should be the ones who get priority for the local outstanding school, and the ones from the supportive homes the ones who get shoved into the failing one. Not at all. But I am saying that if you cheat the system and rent in order to avoid your catchment school because it has a bad reputation, you are potentially sending a child like my foster daughter into an environment of temptation, where she is at a disadvantage simply because she lacks the support network that your child has.

It's a postcode lottery, and I appreciate that. But that's the way it works in this country, it's the law, and anyone who rents/uses a second address/bends the rules because they want the best for their child when it means depriving someone else's child is a criminal in my book and upon being found out should be treated as such.

Biso, absolutely that can happen. However, IME it can also be that skeletons can tumble out of cupboards under new heads that nobody suspected were there under the old one!

I have direct experience of a school in which a long-established head appeared to keep a school on an even keel, only to disappear just before Ofsted and for a new head to uncover HUGE issues. To the parents, it must have looked as if the new head created the issues, whereas in actual fact they only ceased to conceal them....

Sorry, I wasn't referring to fraudulent applications when I mentioned the local school. All I was trying to say is schools can go from outstanding to failing without any move from parents. The school I am thinking of failed within one year of the appointment of a new head. Everyone was shocked at how quickly it deteriorated bearing in mind the majority of the staff were the same as under the old head.

Bisjo,

I was not implying that fraudulent applications are the main factor behind 'failing' schools in any way.

I would, however, make a distinction, which Ofsted / Gove / league tables often fail to do, between schools that have lower results as a result of an intake skewed towards children of lower ability / higher disadvantage (e.g. secondary moderns in full grammar areas, schools in some very deprived areas) who nevertheless make good progress FOR THEM and schools which fail their intake through not enabling them to make good progress from their starting points.

In a school of the former type, in which children make very good or even exceptional progress from their starting points (but which are often locally regarded as the 'bad' schools because of the nature of their intake), a re-balancing of the intake through the entry of children from the type of decently-off, educationally-savvy parents I referred to above may well have a strongly positive impact on the school.

In a school such as you refer to, where incompetent leadership, complacency, instability or poor teaching means that children do not makw the progress that they should, then I agree that the arrival of a slightly different cohort of children would make little difference.

In the case I know it was to get into a grammar school so the child would have had to pass the 11+.

I don't think you can lay all the blame for failing schools at the door of parents who seek to cheat the system. I don't condone cheating at all but I witnessed an outstanding school become a special measures school in under two years. The parents hadn't changed but the head had and his incompetence had a devastating effect on the school. Bearing in mind the cohort of parents I wouldn't have expected the change to be so dramatic and so quick but it was.

It has taken 8 years to turn the school around and it still has a considerable way to go to be back to outstanding. Ds will have left primary school by then.

Some people say that they only consider doing what the OP suggests (or think it would be OK) because schools vary so much, and until all schools are good, think it acceptable.

A point that might be worth making is that this scramble to obtain places in 'the best' school, through fair means or foul, actually windens the gulf between 'honeypot' schools and the rest, and mitigates against exactly what people say they want - good schools available to all.

If parents with money, interest in education and determination to do well by their children are more evenly distributed between schools - so if some go to the 'less desirable' schools through being in their catchment area - then that is an agent of change that will in time birn gup the standard of those schools. If, on the other hand, all or many of such parents do whatever it takes to go to the 'honeypot' school, then the gulf between that school and the less desirable ones gets wider and wider.

I know someone who did this. They moved down the road. They were already contributing to the local community but didn't have the extra 200,000 to buy the same size house in catchment. Ironically both parents were teachers in diff boroughs but taught in very deprived schools, so prob benefitting society more than others.

They moved back halfway through year 7.

goodvibrationsrgood - I would be happy to advise on any appeal. As Tiggytape says, you should probably start a separate thread. I have come across this approach to distance before. In my view it should be avoided because of the anomalies it can throw up - not just the one you highlighted.

MrsGrowBag - In London the borough council collects council tax and handles school admissions. In an area like yours the county council may contact the district authority to ask for checks on council tax and electoral roll information.

The child I know isn't statemented etc. The mum overshares on everything and would probably tell me how she got the place if I bothered to ask. I just assumed their application was successful maybe because of lower numbers in the year she applied but when I looked at the application data I realised that they must have done something else to get a place. It isn't a school I would choose and I doubt that the dc will stay there as they have a place at different school lined up for the future.

That's interesting. She didn't talk about how she got her dc into the school and I'd assumed that she must have got in via out of catchment and out of county place but when I saw the list of distances from school for successful applicants I realised that she hadn't. It is a shame as she is taking a place from someone who would have passed the 11+ and lived closer to the school than she does. We are out of county but in catchment and even though it is our closest senior school we wouldn't get in based on distance.

Bisjo, Locally, buying a property but not living there and renting are treated on exactly the same basis - the family's main residence is treated as the actual application address, it makes no difference whether the 'fraud' address is bought or rented.

A friend of mine did this. I couldn't work out how she had got her dc into a local grammar school and I especially couldn't work it out when the council published admission details showing how many of each category got into the school,ie distance from the school etc. She lives miles out of catchment but there was nothing on the list to reflect this. It was pointed out to me that she probably rented to obtain a place. There is a possibility that she may have bought a flat in order to qualify but with no intention of ever living there. Of course buying gives you the right to send your dcs to the local school even if you have no intention of living there but morally doesn't make it any better (just a higher income level than those who choose to rent in catchment and then move out).

Ds doesn't go to a local school but it hasn't stopped him making local friends but does mean he doesn't see his school friends out of school.

I think the sad fact is that as a parent you just feel so desperate. When your dc doesn't get into a school which is a better fit for them and local so that they still feel part of their local community, you really feel as if YOU have failed them. In part I have wondered whether I should have done what the OP is suggesting but these are desperate thoughts at a stressful time.

The ideal is that all schools are good or outstanding. But I don't get schools who push children who are part of their local community away in favour of children who live further out. Yes these further out children need a school to go to but how do children learn about belonging and community when they live in one town and are sent to school in another town. Where does green living come into it and the fact that children are encouraged to walk to school but then can't. It is so topsy turvy and wrong.

Tiggytape thank-you for your kind offer. I have PM'd you (I think). Never done this before.

tiggytape, I think the answer would be to abolish the siblings rule and to introduce a lottery allocation. That would make entering a school less of a financial decision.

One of my oldest friends heads up the local investigations team to check applications for both primary and secondary applications .On the occasions we have talked about the role I have been amazed at the amount of info that can be gained without having to leave their desk. The whole thing is taken very seriously and they are able to commit a few people to each case as and when necessary. They don't have to prove anything ,they just have to show reasonable grounds for thinking that this is a misleading application for a dc to lose his/her place. I have seen this happen at primary level 5 times (just at our one form entry local school) in the last 7 years. One mum whose dc missed out on a place to a family who rented a house two doors down from her a few months before the application deadline whilst retaining their other home went to a primary school appeal hearing and pointed out the facts as she saw them as part of her case. She won her appeal and the other child lost their place a few weeks later. In secondary schools it is worse and last year saw one of dc's friends being booted out from his school two days before the end of term....he had been at the school for 15months. I felt so sorry for the dc in question..... 13years old and shocked that his parents had brought this about. They wanted him to say that he was just moving for other reasons but he loved his school and was devastated so he told anyone that asked that his parents had committed fraud so he was kicked out. He pleaded with his ht to be able to stay. I agree that the child who missed out on a place on allocation day will be the unseen loser but for anyone considering this think about how your dc will feel if they have to leave their school and their friends-especially when they are settled and very happy.

I sympathize and am in a similar position. The school I want my kids to go to is not oversubscribed in catchment and always admits 20 to 30 kids on distance. Some years we'd get in and some not. So if we move closer we're not depriving a child in catchment of a place and might even be getting the place we would have got anyway! We will probably chance getting in from our actual home and consider appealing if necessary.

I don't understand how the Local Authority would know that you had two different properties in the area because of Council Tax, because the council tax is paid to / collected by the local (district) council, isn't it? Whereas the County Council is the body responsible for school admissions. Or is it different in London and all done by the Borough Council. Where we live there are 5 district councils and one county council, but they are separate bodies.
But doing what the OP is planning to do is wrong on every count - morally, socially and probably legally.

Even after the transition you still have the problem, as Tiggytape pointed out, that you might have a school with an official capacity of 200 pupils having to cope with 300 or more because it is the closest school for all of them.