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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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"

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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]

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]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.