Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to want to shop another parent to the LEA for Primary School Admission Fraud

252 replies

eminthebigsmoke · 20/04/2015 12:15

A lady I know in passing has scammed her way to a place at the best local primary by renting next to the school for 6 months. Two days after offer day she is back at her original address near us. AIBU to think that she has cheated someone else's child out of a place and shouldn't be allowed to get away with it?

Has no bearing on what will happen to my DC as we're 20 odd places down the wait list for that school.

OP posts:
lucycant · 21/04/2015 15:21

I would also abolish faith schools being state funded. If you want a faith school, it should be privately funded.

herethereandeverywhere · 21/04/2015 15:22

Report.

Without question the system is the root of the problem but the issue is that other parents played by the rules and this parent cheated. Her child is no more deserving than the ones playing by the rules but missing out.

Almostapril · 21/04/2015 15:27

Roses Truely bad schools are rare in reality. Often parents are horrified by allocated school yet never step inside

momtothree · 21/04/2015 16:20

Are schools the problem or parenting or lack of funding to help those that need it? Maybe schools should be more able to teach english to those in need rather than french? A kind of back to basics? Behaviour management schools? Zero tolerance or parents are invited to sit with DC instead of exclusion? What about the children who cant who arent academic? Some form of practical school? Why are we pushing children through the same hoop and expecting them pop out the same???

DarlingDaffodil · 21/04/2015 16:43

Can't really label children as practical or academic at age 4 momtothree.

RosesareSublime · 21/04/2015 16:58

almost

I think each person based on personal experience has an idea of what awful means to them, usually a person will look at the school as a whole, that means local knowledge, talking to parents of DC there, as well of course OFSTED figures and then visiting the school for a general feel.

The parents I know who are interested in education, do this, as have we, those that are not interested do not do this.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 21/04/2015 17:11

My children are now adults at university. Way back in the mid 90s my daughter briefly attended a local primary school which was the only one able to offer us a Reception place at the time. She transferred after one term to our top choice school when a place came up.

(They were our two nearest community primary schools but the second one was popular and the first one wasn't, and with reason, based on our brief time there - high staff and pupil turnover, some behaviour problems, not very mixed socially, low pupil achievement on entry, SATs results very poor, Ofsted reports not great.)

Another family we know lived much nearer the school we left behind and had no real choice but to send their daughter there. She is now doing a Master's at London University - first in the family to go into higher education. Now, she did go to a very good secondary school, but that primary school can't have been as bad as local repute made out or she'd have been so far behind she would never have got through her A levels.

I don't regret moving our daughter because she definitely had a better experience at the second school, and so did our son when he followed on, but with 20 years of hindsight I'd say maybe it wouldn't have been the out and out disaster I thought at the time if they'd both had to go to the first school. It would certainly have been better for the school if it had a better mix of children attending.

Emo76 · 21/04/2015 17:12

Please report!

DarlingDaffodil · 21/04/2015 17:16

Glad you have shared that story Gasp. Food for thought for those that perhaps condemn a school on its general demographic.

Uhplistrailer · 21/04/2015 17:28

I'm absolutely gobsmacked at the people who are saying they have respect for parents that cheat the system to get their kids into a good school!

So you think it's fair that me- a parent who lives 5 minutes away from a school, with no car- lost their child's place to a family that were well off and could afford to rent, but not live in a house next to the school and then drive their kids in from their £600k plus house 10 minutes drive away, while we had a 35 min walk there and back to a different school?

How exactly is that fair?

ItsAllKickingOffPru · 21/04/2015 17:36

It's not fair, but I understand why people do it.

PtolemysNeedle · 21/04/2015 17:57

Its not fair, but not is expecting parents to send their child to a school where they have genuine concerns about standards of behaviour and the lack of academic achievement.

I appreciate that sometimes parents will take against a school simply because of snobbery or an undeserved reputation, but equally, sometimes parents have very valid reason for wanting to avoid a certain school.

My opinions on this thread have come from a place where I've given the parents who fiddle the system the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they have valid reason to want a place at a particular school, but I'd agree that if the alternative is fine, then parents should suck it up.

It is so easy for children to be negatively influenced by others, or for them to not be stretched as much as they should be because the overall standard of a school is low. Why would any decent parent not do anything they can to avoid that for their child?

AgaPanthers · 21/04/2015 17:57

I think it's fucking disgusting that school places are allocated on who can afford a home in the naicest neighbourhood.

The rules are shitty, and tattle-taleing about people playing them is equally so.

AgaPanthers · 21/04/2015 18:00

"So you think it's fair that me- a parent who lives 5 minutes away from a school, with no car- lost their child's place to a family that were well off and could afford to rent, but not live in a house next to the school and then drive their kids in from their £600k plus house 10 minutes drive away, while we had a 35 min walk there and back to a different school?

How exactly is that fair?"

But it doesn't work like that typically. 'Good schools' are good because the surrounding houses are full of rich people. Simple as that.

Expensive housing that most people cannot afford.

So the more usual scenario is that you live near the school in your £600k+ house, and they live 10 minutes drive away in a much cheaper area, and they can't possibly afford to buy there, so they rent.

How is that fair?

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 21/04/2015 18:00

I would say that's a massive oversimplification, Aga. Here in SE London it's all very mixed. The schools I mentioned in my previous post are both near some very expensive houses and also near a lot of housing association/council housing and everything in between. I appreciate it's different in other areas.

tiggytape · 21/04/2015 18:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

momtothree · 21/04/2015 18:10

Darlingdaffodil i was thinking more about high school. Rich schools will always do better because those children have more life experience - holidays museums days out etc - some children have never seen the sea been in an plane experienced a different culture - cost wont matter re school trips or after school clubs sahm giving kids full attention etc. Unless the housing is mixed or schools have take a mixed % or rich/poor kids then there will be schools lablled. Any child who is a high achiever will do well - the lower groups get extra help - id be more worried about the kids in the middle drifting along

PtolemysNeedle · 21/04/2015 18:29

Foreign holidays don't make a difference to academic achievement, I very much doubt that anyone is botherd about how many holidays their children's classmates have been on.

'Rich' schools don't do well because of holidays, they do well because the vast majority of parents have high expectations about their child's behaviour, they support homework, they make their children have high aspiration. These aren't things that are related to money, people can be poor and achieve all these things with their children as well if they want to.

Any child who is a high achiever will do well be definition, but it simply isn't true that any bright child will do well wherever they go. They won't. Like all children, they need to be nurtured, they need to receive high quality teaching, they need to feel happy and safe in their environment and they need to have their education supported by engaged parents.

RosesareSublime · 21/04/2015 18:50

Food for thought for those that perhaps condemn a school on its general demographic

Sorry to be blunt but not really.

Huge variations will come into force on each child at each school. Parents helping, stable home, friends at the school and so on.

On top of everything else I would like my DC to enjoy school and be happy in their school not just surviving in it.

RosesareSublime · 21/04/2015 18:52

These aren't things that are related to money, people can be poor and achieve all these things with their children as well if they want to

Of course. Harder yes but not impossible.

Original poster
eminthebigsmoke · 21/04/2015 18:54

I still think you're conflating engagement with willingness to cheat the system. They don't necessarily want the place any more or less than anyone else. And the concerns they have about the school they might have been allocated will be the same as the concerns as those they have forced out of their place.

OP posts:
FishWithABicycle · 21/04/2015 19:10

sometimes parents have very valid reason for wanting to avoid a certain school

This is true. And the problem with the system we have is that if those parents cheat the system to win a place elsewhere, there is a loser as well as a winner from that cheating - some other child, with equally valid reasons to avoid that other school, whose parents did not cheat and who was more entitled to the place than the cheating parents' child, will be forced into the grim school instead.

If popular schools were allowed to grow and given the resources to do so, and unpopular schools were allowed to shrivel atrophy and die rather than being stuffed full of people who don't want to be there, then this cheating would be less of a problem.

PtolemysNeedle · 21/04/2015 19:22

And the concerns they have about the school they might have been allocated will be the same as the concerns as those they have forced out of their place.

Yes, but the child that has been 'forced out of their place' is no more deserving of a good school place than anyone else. Both are equally entitled to a good school place regardless of where their parents live. But to the individual parent that only has a responsibility to one of those children, breaking a rule that has already discriminated against them isn't going to be that bad a choice.

tiggytape · 21/04/2015 19:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheCatsMother99 · 21/04/2015 19:32

I thought it was a fairly well known thing, people temp renting to get their kids in to a school?? At least it's well heard of near where I live (but still heavily frowned upon). Given this, I think the school will probably be aware that it goes on but likely can't do much about it.