To rent in a good school catchment, knowing we'll buy next year out of the catchment?

[lill72]

We are renting at the moment, with our lease coming up in June. As I am pregnant, we'd like to get a bigger place.

We have to apply for reception in January, so I was thinking of moving into the catchment area of the best school I have seen by far. It is a more expensive area than where we are, but the school was so much better than any in this area.

Wherever we rent would be temporary, as we are looking at buying next year, folllowing an inheritance.

Thing is, we will most likely buy back in the area we are currently renting in, as we like it better anyway and it is not as expensive.

This would mean that our DD would not be super local to her school once we moved. We are not far - say 5-10 mins by car or 20 mins bus, but not a walk around the corner.

Am I doing the wrong thing? I never grew up living within a walk to the local school, so not sure how much importance I should place on this - ie ease of getting there, local friends etc.

I just feel like I should try and send DD to the best school and I can, and this seems a way to do it.

Appreciate your thoughts...

To those who say you shouldn't rent near a good school if you don't think you'll be there long term - not everyone's lives are predictable enough to settle in one spot before their kids start school. I know for a fact that we'll have to move house and area after my eldest completes reception year. Sho

Sorry, meant to finish, does that mean I must seek the worst possible school for my child as anything else would be unfair on those with the good fortune to be more settled and not having to move with their work, as I do?

OP - YANBU, although would you really not want to stay in the area the great school is in?

What about a family where dc2 doesn't get a place at the same school as dc1 and the logistics of getting them to separate schools is difficult/impossible. OP would you or others who may have caused this situation by taking a place from a local child feel bad about this? No, probably not from what I've read of this thread. Makes me sad - NO actually the more I think about it, the more it gives me the rage. OP ( and others) you are being selfish and unreasonable. My dc attended a primary school which had a "difficult" catchment area but was a feeder school for an excellent secondary school. If my dc had not been able to get into the secondary school (dp and I have lived here all our lives) because someone had moved in to the area got the place, how would that be fair? It may be legal but IMO it's immoral.

"I'd say YABU. You will be preventing a local child from getting a place.

We live 400m from a good school and have no hope of getting in, exactly because of selfish people renting for a year then moving out and sending siblings there. They then all drive to school causing massive congestion. I know as I walk past the school 6 times a day to our 5th nearest school / nursery. "

I'm sorry, I don't believe that this is particularly prevalent.

I assume you live in London. There is a lot of natural mobility within London just because it's a city and people move around a lot.

Very few people are in a position to rent for a year to get into a school. It happens, yes, but not to the extent of 'massive congestion' that you are talking about.

"What about a family where dc2 doesn't get a place at the same school as dc1 and the logistics of getting them to separate schools is difficult/impossible. "

That's why schools have sibling policies. If they don't, that's not the OP's fault. No school can fill its intake entirely with siblings.

"OP ( and others) you are being selfish and unreasonable. My dc attended a primary school which had a "difficult" catchment area but was a feeder school for an excellent secondary school. If my dc had not been able to get into the secondary school (dp and I have lived here all our lives) because someone had moved in to the area got the place, how would that be fair? It may be legal but IMO it's immoral."

Eh? What is immoral about that? What is the sum total of your contribution to the 'excellent secondary school'? Breathing the same air as its students?

What makes you so very entitled, to the point of 'rage', as you put it?

Agree with your posts Aga

OP, I have read all the posts since I last posted, and I still think YANBU. There is a system is in place and as long as you adhere to it - you will be - then do what is best for your dd.

Some really entitled posts in this thread.

"YABU- the reason the catchment is more expensive to buy is because of the cachet of the school. People who bought 400m from the school paid a premium on their house to (attempt to) guarantee their children places at a good school.

I think you know, and understand this tbh."

What the actual fuck?

Why the fucking fuck should people be able to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to guarantee entrance to the state school of their choice?

What part of 'universal education for all' is supposed to involve some shiny-suited shit of an estate agent telling you how a house is in the catchment for a highly desirable school, and therefore you should fork over brain-melting amounts of debt (because let's not kid ourselves that this money is the outcome of useful work, it's unearned income from speculating on property, plus debt piled on negative real rates of interest) to get in.

And why the fuck are the rest of us supposed to just acquiesce to this grubby little transaction? To the extent that people feel sufficiently emboldened to tell mere pleb renters, that they should not dare to tread on the toes of the land-owning classes, with their hundreds of thousands in ludicrously insane valuation for a house originally built for the poor of London, but now the preserve of those with the hallowed 'equity', a.k.a. having bought a house a few years ago for a slightly less ludicrous price.

If you choose to buy a pile of bricks in the shape of a house, that's ALL you've bought. That does not make you lord of the fucking manor, with the right to tell everyone else to eff off, to not move near you when their landlord kicks them out of their shitty unsecured and overpriced tenancy, or to not build houses on the next road from you. You own some very overpriced bricks on a postage stamp of overpriced land. Good for you. Now leave everyone else the fuck alone.

What the OP is suggesting is no less immoral that buying a place at an outstanding state school.

Aga.The sum total of my contribution to the excellent school is that I teach there and get excellent results. And daily breathe the same air as the fabulous students. And daily have to deal with ignorant twats like you. I also see on a daily basis the difficulties faced by by parents who have to get children to different schools at the same time as well as get themselves to work. If you had bothered to read previous post, I have no axe to grind, my children are no longer in full time education. You will never convince me that what OP is suggesting is immoral.

Sorry, not immoral

I thought you said were a palliative care nurse, ginbin54

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1991628-To-hate-these-kind-of-comments-about-surviving-cancer#45282495

Making things up really does not enhance your argument.

YANBU - if all schools were the same then we could send our children to the nearest school, but they aren't. All the people saying, you should go to your local school probably have access to what is seen as good schools. Would they be happy to send their kids to their local or nearest school if it had as crap reputation?

Can't really blame people for trying to get emir kids not what they see as a better school, having money doesn't mean you should be able to buy yourself a better star education.

What has moral scruples got to do with it? I've given an example of where morality is not relevant as there simply aren't enough places to satisfy the demand. It suits people to assume you've made a pact with Beelzebub himself, where as when you are in the 'lucky' position to have had a windfall on a house that ensures your permanency, you can pick a 'local' school for your very own 'local' child with a sense of smug, superior, satisfaction.

In my case I was very much more local than the school my son would've been allocated 4 miles away - I lived in what is called a 'black hole' of school allocation. I then moved on to live in an equally expensive area where all the 'local' schools are outstanding and I was advised to continue to keep my son in the outstanding school currently 1.7 miles away from us because there were no places available at any of the 'local' schools at that time. There was a place at a school that was 1.5 miles away that is in 'special measures'- so slightly closer. Do you really think my moral scruples would lead me to remove my son from an outstanding school that was 1.7 miles away to put him into a school that was 1.5 miles away and in special measures- I don't know anyone that would perform such a virtuous act and I don't believe anyone who says they would!

If the OP plays by the rules she's not in the wrong IMO. Whatever she does has implications for which school other children get offered.

We don't know what the admissions criteria are and whether they will change and there are no guarantees that her DC will get in.

If catchment children have priority over siblings we will get parents up in arms that they are faced with logistics of getting DCs to different schools (having possibly had to move through no fault of their own when DC1 is settled in the school) and how dare someone move into catchment just to get a place.

If siblings get priority parents will be up in arms that they couldn't get DC1 into local school because most of the places went to siblings who live miles away. We can't please everyone!

Maybe the OP should go and live near a crap school in special measures and only put that one choice on form. Would other MNERS be happy then?

Finding an affordable home has become sooo tricky that I wouldn't fret OP. You may find when you come to make your purchase that a slightly different area again to your initial selection is the one that yields the best bang for your buck property wise. Nothings ever certain in the property market!

Just go for the best home selection you can today, with the info you have today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

I'd say something different if you were one of those that rents out their existing property, to move into a rental on the doorstep of a school, only to move back into their OWN home, once the child has completed their first 6 months in the school of their choice. That is cheating the system, yet I know several parents who have done it.

I have checked out a number of schools near where I am - ever hopeful they were amazing, but they weren't. One is good, with the aim of being outstanding, but that remains to be seen.

The school I want to get DD into is amazing - went and saw it and was blown away. It also fits the type of school I would like DD to go to.

I think the whole school system is just crazy how it works - think there is no entitlement for someone over another. It is a pity that every school can't be at least good, but it is just not the case. I really wanted to like a school I went for a tour on, but it was a comedy of errors with broken lights in toilets etc. Even the work on the wall did not compare to the work on the wall at the favoured school.

Ah..... it just should not be this way.

Why renting in a good catchment area is less moral than buying?

All this so called "immorality" and dishonesty exists only due to inequality between state schools, which should deliver equal quality education to all citizens.

Why renting in a good catchment area is less moral than buying?

Because if you buy you are going to live there. If you rent with the intention of buying out of catchment later, you are cheating the system.

You aren't cheating anything. You've either followed the rules or you haven't.

If the rules say 'you must live here on Date X', then that's what you should comply with. There is nothing more to it than that.

If they want to add something subsequently like 'you must continue to live there', then it would be cheating. But they haven't, and it isn't.

Do not try to impute some kind of morality onto a system of black and white rules.

AgaPanthersSun 09-Mar-14 23:31:44

I thought you said were a palliative care nurse, ginbin54www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1991628-To-hate-these-kind-of-comments-about-surviving-cancer#45282495Making things up really does not enhance your argument.

This is hilarious!!!

Not the thread mentioned of course, liars being caught out ha

The more I think about what constitutes a 'good school' the more I think perhaps it is down to individual teachers rather than the school itself. Quality of teaching is what it's all about IMO. My dds go to a school rated 'good' by OFSTED and is hoping to move to outstanding. Yet my middle dd had 2 poor teachers in Years 4 and 5. It's the luck of the draw - you could find yourself with a really excellent teacher in a so-called 'poor' school.