I hate to ask and I know it’s bad but…..

[Cornishwench]

Has anyone put a grandparents/relatives address down on a secondary school application form due to being out of catchment and successfully got a placement?
Child is in feeder primary
All family live in area
We live hear but may have to move next year
I know morally it’s wrong but if it’s in the best interest of the child?
Thankyou

@WimpoleHat. I agree. I wouldn't do it for the same reasons...I wouldn't want to be caught and for there to be bad consequences for my child. But I wouldn't have any time for people judging me with their faux 'moral' outrage just because their kid lucked out when it came to school places and mine didn't.

Simply living in a certain area, being religious or paying doesn't give your child any moral right to a better school place.

A complicating factor where we live is that the local schools are mostly oversubscribed and catchments are tiny. Literally one or two streets. And they're mostly church schools so half the intake is allocated on church attendance. Many schools offer places to under a mile. One school last year was around 0.6. So the argument "you're taking a place from a local child" just doesn't hold. The children are all local. But the ones who can't literally see the school from their front windows will be sent to non-local schools at the edge of the borough and their parents have to drive them to school through city traffic before going to work. It's a nightmare system.

The people I know who have done it never ‘got caught’. They used a different address to secure the place and then said they moved house. The siblings got in vis the school’s sibling policy. Around here it is oversubscribed and almost expected to use a different address.

The pupils attending the good school could use another school (poor rep) but refuse. The kids outside the catchment can go to the school with the poor rep as their catchment t is wider. If the poor rep school isn’t good enough for the locals why should the other kids have to go there?

Luckily the kids in the expensive houses catchment have another good school along with two private schools within walking distance.

The problem would be solved if they switched the principal and management team of the poor rep school with the good school but there would be uproar from the parents with kids in the good school if they did this.

It’s not wrong, according to my morals. If you can get away with it- do it. Catchment isn’t a morally-guided system!

You're doing nothing wrong, as you say you still live in the area & only might be moving next year. Also if your child is already familiar with the children going to that school & has family in the area it really is in her best interest to attend that school.