thinking they have used my address to gain a school place?

[bostonbaby]

We bought this house at the end of last year.
It is very close to an excellent, very much over subscribed school.
The couple we bought it from had a little kids and we're moving to the next (cheaper, not good schools) area along for a bigger house to fit all their kids in.
Not had any mail for them as assuming they had a redirect set up.
This week we've suddenly had a few bits for them. Including a 'to the parent/guardian of xxx' from the outstanding school
It seems they have applied from this address rather than their own, where they stand no chance of getting in.
What should I do? I feel like returning it to school and saying they haven't lived here since December but then I feel sly. Then I think another child will have missed out on their rightful place. And why should they move to a considerably cheaper area and still get the perks of the more expensive one? My child hasn't missed out on this btw but they have 4 kids now guaranteed a place in that school from this.
Wwyd?

I wasn't referring to the OP, who has already said she's happy with her child attending a far less sought-after school. I was referring to the numerous posters on the thread earnestly stating that this would not be fair, as they are depriving a child whose parents could legitimately afford to buy in catchment of their rightful place.

Though given you've raised it: needs and necessary wealth to meet those needs vary according to family size - the OP doesn't have 4 kids, so the house is large enough for her needs, when it wasn't theirs. Any calculator assessing a family's comparative wealth will ask about family size. As an example, we can afford to live where we do because we have two kids. Four, and it would be out of the question. Same income level? Yes, but very different requirements.

This is not your business. These are not your decisions to make. Return the letter to the sender, in the usual way, by marking it "No longer at this address" and putting it in a post box. Do this with all post received for them (even junk mail).

To quote the thick of it: sending your child to a state school is careless at best.

sleep - And how is lying about the home address any fairer than the current system? That's also going to favour richer families, because they're more likely to have resources that allow them to, say, temporarily rent a flat next door to the school while renting out their house to someone else. Parents lying about addresses could very easily be pushing out children from poorer families.

I agree the current system as a whole tends to favour families who can buy close to schools. But I can't think of how to make it fairer. What would you

What would you suggest?

Shadow improve the other schools would be a most obvious start!

You just return to sender. You could also add date they left. Nothing else to do with wrongly addressed mail.

If people don't agree with the current admissions system, the answer isn't to commit or condone fraud. (Often the kids affected aren't the richest who can afford 'certain' places in houses very close to the school, but on the edges where prices drop.

Instead, you campaign for your council to bring in fairer admissions. Introduce lotteries within defined catchments, get rid of faith admissions which also disproportionately benefit middle class children and drive house prices up further, consider socioeconomic banding or places reserved for out of catchment children, only allow sibling priority for children within a broader defined catchment area.

Lots of alternative models out there.

Being able to buy your way into an Outstanding school in a leafy suburb is not "fair". It does not make you more moral than someone trying to play the system by massaging facts. It just makes you richer, and luckier in being able to conform to the admission rules, so nobody can ever challenge your child's place.

The major difference is that the rich person isn't breaking either the letter of the rules or the spirit by legitimately moving into an area and remaining there. In fact, the people caught doing bad things are often not the poor with their hands tied; it is precisely wealthier people who can take the hit of paying 6-12 months of a rental they don't need.

They are not luckier to be able to conform to the admission rules. The admission rules, though flawed, cannot easily be replaced by something better. I asked another poster above if they have a better, more fair, set of admission rules. I am again all ears if you have one. I am genuinely asking because I too agree the rules are flawed. It's just hard to come up with a better

But while the rules are as they are, getting fake rentals and using fake addresses are just plain fraudulent. Condoning this behaviour is going to hurt precisely the people you think you are defending.

Ach, I can't believe how many people are condoning robbing another child of a place through fraud! Not acceptable at all.

OP, just return the letter to sender with a note stating when the previous occupants moved. Then the school can decide what to do rather than you worrying about it.

Keep, the IFS and one of the unis did a good report on relative benefits of other systems last year, mentioning the sort of things I included in the post above.

Brighton's system seems quite a bit fairer. I agree with you though that part of the unaffordability of housing near good oversubscribed is down to those who can afford to pay for housing for a year or two that they couldn't afford or sustain long term. And there address plenty of those people around.

Keep, the IFS and one of the unis did a good report on relative benefits of other systems last year, mentioning the sort of things I included in the post above.

Sure. I am not saying there aren't better suggestions, and I personally am in favour of a lot of them. However, some of them which I favour (lottery for example) suffer from being somewhat opaque. I suspect that middle class people would object to such systems because it takes power away from people and instead replaces it with an element of chance. In any case, no system will please everyone, which is why I think it is hard to move away from a system which has flaws, but some obvious advantages (the current criteria are incredibly clear and easy to understand).

In any case, your point that cheating a flawed system isn't a solution seems to be lost on a lot of people.

Yes - there is a definite loss of privilege issue that would come with changing the system to something demographically fairer but more complex/removes MC advantage.

Socio-economic banding is an interesting idea.

How could it be done? Places divided equally between 3 pre-determined bands? Or places available pro rata to the socio-economic break down of the area? (Which could change ).

Oh, I'm not saying lying is moral at all. Clearly it isn't. But people buying their child an excellent state education simply because they can afford to, (or faking God to get into a Church school) are not, IMO, any better. Not really. All three parents are willing to go to considerable lengths to secure their child an advantaged start to their educational life.

There's a very over-subscribed school in Bath - a faith one, in fact - which allocates places with people entitled to free school meals at the head of the queue. That's one way, though very imperfect, as you need a really low income to qualify for free school meals, and plenty of the working poor don't. Lotteries are another way, sure, but there are obvious disadvantages to that as a system as well.

I don't have a magic wand, and I make no claims to. If there were an easy and evidently equitable answer, people would already be using that system. All I'm saying is that getting indignant because a richer person's child is denied the benefit that richer parent has paid for, because a poorer parent has lied to secure it for their child instead, is somewhat entertaining to witness. It's human to mind, but let's not pretend that the motives here are pure as the driven snow. It's not about morals. It's about wanting what you pay for, and anxiety that you might not, after all, be able to buy a great start to a child's life, even when you've done all the research and ticked all possible boxes. Even if that start is a state provided education, at a specific school.

If you have a system of school allocation that is as manifestly unfair in economic terms as the current one, then you will also very probably find that people advantaged by that system will regard any attempt to subvert it as a moral wrong, while people who are disadvantaged by it will instead regard their efforts to get around it as being a canny strategy ( "playing the system").

An American friend told me that schools over there are funded directly by local property taxes. So the richer the area, the better the school. I hope I misunderstood something there (any Americans able to correct me?), because if not, it makes our inequality of admissions difficulties seem trivial by comparison.

sleep Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 pupils are now entitled to a free school meal as from last year.

Sleep - except in this case there is no indication it is the poorer parent who has won the place. They sold a house in the 'good' area. The children they have displaced could well come from far, far cheaper housing on the edge of the area.

Gaming the system does not normally help the rich beat the poor (on an individual basis) but the 'rich but not quite rich enough to buy a family house close' beat the 'well off enough to buy at the margins and hope for a low sibling year'.

It is the overall structure that favours wealth.

Mittens - there is still a category of entitled to fSM even though they get one. The change to universal entitlement is different

Sorry OhMittens, I should have said "pupil premium". I have a 6 yr old myself so well aware of free school meals - though doubt they will still exist for us much longer, tbh.

Penguins I don't disagree that there will be outliers and exceptions, but the OP's own first post explicitly stated why should they move to a considerably cheaper area and still get the perks of the more expensive one? so the main thrust of the thread and her complaint is precisely the point I made: people should be allowed to buy in, and those who can't, shouldn't be able to blag it. It's rather as though they see the place as bought and paid for with the house, bundled in the higher purchase price, and therefore evading that premium and still having the place is being talked about as though it's a theft. But it's not - it is a state provided education, and the point about catchments isn't to select by income level, but to try to ensure kids live close to their schools (or in faith schools, that the provision that faith is making from their own assets for the children is going to their own parishioners/faith family). To see it as a commodity you should be able to reliably buy is actually rather reckless, because the state can and does upend all assumptions about education very regularly.

My feeling is that you can't expect people to comply scrupulously with a system so very manifestly unfair. We complied with that scrupulousness, because we could, and I knew how close to get to guarantee a place in my preferred school, and to avoid a faith school in order to guarantee it without having to teach a small child that we will lie systematically to achieve our ends. But in my view, I played the system just as much as this family by selecting a home almost on the desired school's doorstep. A lot of posters here seem to feel I was therefore morally entitled to the place, due to irreproachable conduct. I think luck on a range of fronts played a big part, from clear awareness of what the rules are (research skills developed during my own privileged education helped) and the economic ability to live where we do. That strategic approach to education in the state system isn't a moral strength on our part. In fact it's rather dog eat dog. But we did what we thought was best for our child... which is what parents who try to get around the rules are doing, too. There's no personal advantage to them in this, after all.

Oh, I'm not saying lying is moral at all. Clearly it isn't. But people buying their child an excellent state education simply because they can afford to, (or faking God to get into a Church school) are not, IMO, any better. Not really. All three parents are willing to go to considerable lengths to secure their child an advantaged start to their educational life.

I abhor all cheating to get into schools. And yes, people who cheat the system are most certainly worse. I am disadvantaged by the faith school crap system in the country, but do you know what? I don't lie and pretend to be a member of the CofE, because lying and cheating are wrong. So no, I don't think it would be canny of me to "play the system"; it would just be bad. I do what JR suggests; I try to change the system honestly (I have written my MP, supported initiatives to get rid of the discriminatory criteria etc).

All I'm saying is that getting indignant because a richer person's child is denied the benefit that richer parent has paid for, because a poorer parent has lied to secure it for their child instead, is somewhat entertaining to witness.

That's only one possibility. The more likely possibility is that some rich person can muscle there way into the inner circle squeezing out someone with less means.

It's human to mind, but let's not pretend that the motives here are pure as the driven snow. It's not about morals. It's about wanting what you pay for,

it's actually not (in my case). We have the means to cheat; we have the money. But, unfortunately, we also have a conscience. We simply refuse to do it, and our child is paying a price for it as she is in a school that isn't as good for her (the school we wanted would be particularly good for her). it's about a sense of fair play. We would be squeezing out someone else's child unfairly, who is just as precious to her parents, and I just don't feel right about that. This idea that it's noble to steal and cheat if it benefits your child, especially at the expense of another child, is downright appalling.

I think the OP has only two options - either forward the letter to the current address (assuming she knows it) or returning to sender. I'd probably do the latter.

I can see the dilemma, though - if she chooses the first option, she becomes complicit in the cheating; if she chooses the second, then her action may well result in the child's place being withdrawn. So it is tricky.

It will only results in the child's place being withdrawn if that child is not entitled to the place and it actually belongs to another child. If it's just an administrative error, then no issue.

In London, most state primary schools have catchments with a broad mix of housing (with the exception of one or two weird little enclaves like Dulwich) and therefore family incomes.

Children in the catchment for my primary school live in council and housing association flats right up to million pound houses.

That is the same for every primary I can think of that I know.

The mix is a good and positive thing afaic, and all the schools are good or outstanding.

Mintyy, that is my London experience too. And there are areas with Outstsnding schools which do have cheaper housing that are avoided by MC parents because the area is not fashionable enough or the demography in the Outstanding school not to their liking.
Their loss.