to surprised that this sort of cheating for a secondary school place still goes on?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I thought the schools were generally supposed to be more on top of this sort of scam:

Family outside catchment of highly desirable school let out their house, move to a rented house within catchment for two years to go through admission process and get their first dd into the school, then move back to their original family home. Now their next three dd's will go to that school even though they all now live outside of the catchment!

A feel a certain sort of contempt for people who would do this, and am really surprised that schools still turn a blind eye.

[LoremIpsum]

Why would it cost so much? Surely you already have the schools? So the money you're talking about is spent on shuffling kids around into those existing schools. In most places that have genuine local school systems, and there are many, many countries that do, the boundaries are redrawn to reflect changing populations.

[Outtaker]

The resources chewed up by the selection and allocation programme, and the time and office hours required to implement, review and defend it could redirected into into configuring workable catchments and preparing schools to welcome and accommodate all the children within theirs

lormlpsum
As someone from the sector, the resources required for your two options are utterly incomparable.... Current admissions processes costs most council's a few hundred thousand or so per annum... What you are proposing would cost each council 100s of £millions for a gigantic building programme and £millions on teaching resources for schools that could flex their sizes depending on different year group sizes in their catchments.

[LynetteScavo]

I think if someone is dedicated enough to live in another house for two years just for a school place then let them get on with it. The alternative would be for them to move house in to catchment, then move back out of catchment. That would be what I'd do...doing up the properties I bought while I lived there and make a small profit.

[Seeyouontheotherside]

Stop paying them to reproduce. Or they can just provide the services needed for the actual size of the population.

[Andrewofgg]

banning people from having ten children

Would you care to share with us how you would enforce that policy?

This is not the PRC and even there they could not enforce the one-child rule consistently.

[Seeyouontheotherside]

Andre; if you don't increase the school numbers who have to decrease the number of people who need them. Whether that's by reducing mass immigration, banning people from having ten children..... Stabilise population growth or rapidly build and expand to cope with increased population. They're the only two options.

It's morally wrong to expect an increased number of people to share services that are built to cope with a much smaller number. That has serious social consequences particularly for those at the bottom. Get offended by that.

[Andrewofgg]

Seeyouontheotherside

When you say

The government need to build more schools to accommodate an ever increasing population (or reduce the increase)

are you seriously including the second as a possible and if sh how had you in mind for the government to do it?

[Outtaker]

The issue here isn't an unfair school admissions system. In my opinion, it's actually incredibly fair. Yes, it's not perfect but those thinking there is a perfect system are childishly naive. In this case the child lived for a full 2 years in the required area... If you're that dedicated then good luck to you! As for arguments about money, unless you have a lottery system and ban private schools, it will always be so... Richer parents will buy in better areas. That's life, get over it!

The real issue is that there aren't sufficient school places to keep pace with the increasing child population. If this were addressed (and I'm not saying this will be easy as it will cost billions) that would go a long way to address the issue.

[Seeyouontheotherside]

It's unfair on those who live locally but the real problem is lack of planning to provide appropriate services for people. The government need to build more schools to accommodate an ever increasing population (or reduce the increase), give a greater variety of schools to choose from and raise standards.

I don't think any parent can be blamed for doing what is necessary to send their child to a good school. It's the difference between getting a good education or not, being constantly bullied or not. No school should be failing educationally and all should be providing a safe environment for the children. Unfortunately the reality is that many children are being failed.

[unexpsoc]

"you focus on your own child, not everyone elses."

Although in doing that you are accepting a world with higher levels of crime and higher levels of welfare dependency, poverty, and overall a higher tax burden on you and your children. So a better phrasing is "you focus on your own child now, ignoring the long term ramifications of your actions and the future damage you are causing your own child because you are short-sighted"

[LoremIpsum]

Ugh, typos, it's very late here. Must sleep, DS1's leavers' assembly is on tomorrow morning. Must be well rested enough to avoid embarrassing sobbing when the farewell ceremony begins.

[LoremIpsum]

You focus on your own child

And the need to do that prevents you all from demanding a system that takes both children.

The resources chewed up by the selection and allocation programme, and the time and office hours required to implement, review and defend it could redirected into into configuring workable catchments and preparing schools to welcome and accommodate all the children within theirs. Parents could channel the energy required to secure a place to back into their own lives, and into supporting their local school. Seriously, it's thats basis of the system in the US, Australia, much of Europe. All kids get a place at their local school. Job done.

[Arseicle]

No-one seems to be concerned that for each child who gets into a 'good' school some other child loses out

you focus on your own child, not everyone elses.

[404NotFound]

Claire - yes, it is, isn't it? I did the full open-mouthed gawp thing the first time I saw it. And nope, it's not a blip, this year's admissions distance for Band A girls is pretty similar to the 2015 distance - it's not on the CSG website, but it is in the new Camden secondary admissions booklet.

I don't want to say anything potentially libellous, but there are definitely lots of girls at CSG who live nowhere near the 0.5 miles that has been the cutoff for many many years, so I think there has been an awful lot of gaming the system going on. I wonder if the school's almost cult-like appeal will wane a bit now that the intake area extends all the way to [gasp] Archway?

[ClaireBlunderwood]

404NotFound that graphic is extraordinary. I wonder if it's a blip or a genuine result of the council cracking down. I was once talking to a group of Camden Girls and not a single one of them lived anywhere near the school. I personally know of four families who've done the renting, all of whom have two or three daughters.

To all those bleating about 'sour grapes' or suggesting that we should admire people who do this: how would you feel if your child failed to get into the school you wanted because others did this. Would you say, oh well, dc's not going to the excellent school down the road, but fair play to the renters, they must care more about their child than I do? Or would you report them to the council? Because somebody's child is denied a place every time someone does this and 99 times out of a hundred, it's a child from a less advantaged family than the one that got the place.

[EssentialHummus]

Great post lorem.

My DH - educated in soviet Russia - cannot get his head around why the education system here runs the way it does. To his mind, the idea of a catchment school being "full", or one being so desirable that you need to move to send your DC there, is genuinely absurd. You showed up to your closest school on Day 1, registered, and off you went.

[LoremIpsum]

Looking in from the outside, there's a kind of madness to the education system in the UK. We moved away just before the dcs would have started school but after the first round of trying to understand the options and applying for places. While I still miss the UK in many, many ways, I sometimes feel like we dodged a bullet there.

The amount of energy the system demands, and uncertainty it offers, just to secure a school place seems counterproductive. By introducing choice and competition for state school places, the system manufactures a high level of inequality between individual schools. The lure of good and better and sought after schools requires the contrast of average, blah and shunned schools or there'd be no point to the choice model. It's created this consuming dance to secure a place that seems to pit parents against each other. If you're busy monitoring who might have manipulated LA rules, or worried about how you're going to juggle multiple drop offs at different schools for siblings or seeing one child securing a place as another losing it (madness) then as a parent body you have less power to monitor and have input into the overall education system.

No system or country is perfect, but the sheer unnecessary complexity and inequality that's been engineered into the English state system is striking. I know people talk about the unfairness of the post-code lottery, but in my experience the inequality created by guaranteed places within defined catchments can, at least partially, be addressed via needs-based and adequate funding. Yes there are problems involved in providing guaranteed places, but addressing them seems simpler, and far less frantic, than the allocation procedure you all go through. Frankly, after reading MN threads at this time of year, I feel like you all deserve a medal just for navigating the system in the first place.

[unexpsoc]

It's OK! Theresa May is going to fix it by re-introducing grammar schools!

[ConferencePear]

No-one seems to be concerned that for each child who gets into a 'good' school some other child loses out.

[Idliketobeabutterfly]

TBh not sure about where everyone else lives but our council is currently allowing a lot of extra housing despite the fact there is not enough primary places, storing up problems for a few years time and years after that when the birth rate rose again.
unless they build more schools, or classrooms, its going to get worse.

[unexpsoc]

The catchment area for my son's school is less than 300m (defined as the parish boundary). It includes houses on one side of some roads being in, and the other side being out. There is a noticeable price difference (about £30k) for houses on different sides of the road.

[sparechange]

I've just checked and this year, the catchment for one of the schools was 180m! There are now so many out of catchment siblings that children can't get into a school that is 2 mins walk from their front door...

[Arseicle]

Hold on, if you can pay and you aren't, doesn't that make you a bad parent according to the base definition some here use (ie you do whatever it takes for your kids)

No, not if you don't need to pay, if you can get into a good school for free, of course not. If you only got them into a crappy school and could afford to send them to a better one but refused, then maybe.

[sparechange]

As for allocating places by lottery. that's really eco-friendly. So I live within walking distance of my local school and then have to get a bus or be taken by car?

There are 2 ultra-desirable primary schools near me. Both have catchment areas of under 400m (yes, metres)
But because of all the playing of the system for so, so long, if you go to either road for the school run, you'll find the streets clogged by cars, and also long queues at the bus stops

Because the well-known scam is for the parents to 'split up' and rent a flat in catchment for the period of the application and then miraculously get back together and move back to the big family home in a cheaper part of London several miles away once the term has started.

So there is nothing eco-friendly about the current system around my way...

[MumTryingHerBest]

Tabsicle MumTryingHerBest - seriously? Home owners get priority over renters?

No, home owners and long term renters i.e. those who actually integrate themselves into the local community get priority over short term renters who use their temporary accommodation to circumvent the admissions criteria.

believe me, I live in an area where rental properties are at a premium due to the fairly large number of people using a postcode for a year with the sole intention of returning back to the family home once a place has been secured. When you over hear conversations about whether someone will get away with renting for 3 months or 6 months etc. it makes you realise how out of hand it is all getting. It is also why one of my local schools are now asking for a 2 year rental agreement for any rental addresses.

BTW, my local schools give priority to the children of families who are forced to change address frequently due to jobs e.g. armed forces etc.

If a family has a real reason for renting for a short period (i.e. less than 12 months) they have the opportunity to demonstrate the need when the LEA get in touch to establish legitimacy.