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.

[Floggingmolly]

Some schools are now introducing a "siblings within catchment" into their admissions criteria; with "siblings outside catchment" coming in a long way behind...
About bloody time too.

[Togaparties]

Sounds like they're working exactly within the rules. Don't hate the player hate the game!

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

Yes, I don't know why more schools don't do it FloggingMolly. Problem more or less solved in one easy step.

It's not so simple for primary school, of course, but even then some of them are so desperate that they are going for the same changes.

[Kenduskeag]

bibbity - we've a couple of years to hope the School With No Staff bucks its ideas up! Beyond that? Don our farmer's caps and head to the hills to live in a village of Other People Who Only Live Here Because Of That School and Commute Massive Distances.

Which kind of scares me. At least we'd actually be living there, not faking it, but beyond a pub and a drug problem I can't see much for us to do of an evening.

[KathyBeale]

I only recently discovered that our local secondary prioritises out-of-catchment siblings. I think it's rotten and completely unnecessary at secondary school when kids get themselves to school. Our LA's guidance on admissions is that the sibling rule should only apply inside the catchment but because the schools are all academies (every secondary school in our borough is now an academy) they set their own policy.

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I know of a school which admits on lottery and even that has siblings as top priority! Madness.

[ElinoristhenewEnid]

With regard to' good' schools and 'bad' schools people seem to get this the wrong way round. A school is not intrinsically 'good' - it is as good as the pupils attract.

Had a situation in my home town whereby the local grammar school was situated in a run down area but obviously had excellent results because the pupils who attended there had passed the 11 plus.

When comprehensive system came in and it became a catchment school taking pupils from the local area within 5 years it was a 'failing' school due to the intake. The teachers used to teaching highly intelligent motivated pupils could not cope with children with additional educational needs as well as social problems so they left and the school was quickly struggling.

If you changed the catchment areas to give struggling families the chance to attend an outstanding school the pupils would not suddenly become outstanding - the problems would come with them and affect the school.

Schools will never all become equal or outstanding because children are not all equal or outstanding.

[Oly5]

I don't think they've done anything wrong. I'd do it. In fact I'm considering it! I don't think there's anything wrong with jumping through hoops for a good school place. If you move to live in the house for a few years you ARE in the catchment

[Minstrelsareyum]

I am in LB Richmond and there is the rule (prev. mentioned) that your owned property is used as your permanent place of residence not one you might have rented for the purpose of securing a school place. This is very fair and I feel renting for a school place is rather underhand. Also all Richmond secondary schools are now academies (not necssarily in name) so I'm not sure where this "academies can do what they like" comes from?? This particular council takes care of all admissions not the schools (academies) too. I read somewhere recently that all schools are moving to the 'you can't rent for a school place rule'.

[Catinthecorner]

In places where the owned property is counted not the lived in rental what happens when a family owns multiple properties in the area? Let's say both of the child's parents owned a one bed flat when they met. They wanted to sell but the market was against them. They rent a family house and rent out both flats. Oh, and granny died and left her bungalow to one of them, they haven't sorted selling it yet. Which property counts?

[TeacupDrama]

My point was that if as you suggested as well as some other posters that you needed to have had that address in that catchment area for at least 2 years, it discriminates against children whose parents regularly move for work they will never be 2 years in same address .

Just because someone has recently moved into area doesn't mean they should have last choice people moving into and out of areas is fine choosing a new home based on catchment fine

Giving false address pretending your whole family lives with granny in a studio flat etc when in reality live 4 miles away is fraud, the family in OP lived at same address for 2 years according to you they were actually living there not somewhere else so seems OK, whether when someone moves miles away a sibling rule is relevant is worth discussing

[HerRoyalNotness]

It could be simplified by having catchment only admissions. Each school year, you prove you live in the catchment and if not, your DC must attend another school.

That's how our US school district does it, no arguments, no shenanigans.

If you have a school over subscribed and the next one over is undersubscribed you redo the boundaries for admission, as happened at our school this year. We had 200 odd DC move to another school as we were massively over capacity.

[minipie]

Cat I'm not sure, I guess one of the flats? Perhaps a bit unfair but realistically nobody's heart is going to bleed for a family owning several properties and renting another... people will say they should just get on and sell their owned places if they want a place at the school.

[Lunar1]

Siblings should come below catchment. It's the only fair way to do it.

[EssentialHummus]

Cat, possibly also looking at things like council tax bills, other bills, DVLA records? Those should point to the primary address. (And again, with enough time and will all these things can be shifted to the "right" property.)

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

No, Teacup, I wasn't suggesting that at all. 2 years is a red herring ... this happens to be how long the "cheating" family in my op moved out to a rented house before going back to their mortgaged house that is their real home.

[embo1]

Of course 4 children in the catchment area did not get in because of them... That's why they moved closer: if they stayed where they were, they wouldn't have got in... and others would have.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I don't think they've done anything wrong. I'd do it. In fact I'm considering it!

Whether or not you think it's beside the rules isn't the point. Regardless of whether an LA has put in an extra part about accepting rented properties when another property is owned, moving into a property for the sole purpose of gaining a place and then moving back to your original property is school place fraud under the rules of the Admissions Code. You can have your place removed if someone reports you to the LA.

You could try reporting it to whoever the admissions authority for the school is. They are unlikely to remove the place for the oldest child, but they can remove the sibling priority for the younger children if they want to.

[ForalltheSaints]

Whilst some of the criteria can be changed to reduce this form of queue jumping or cheating, I cannot see it changing greatly unless there is a willingness to prosecute for what in some cases seems to be obtaining services by deception. Which I cannot see happening.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

There have been cases where parents have been prosecuted, or at least taken to court.

Usually they just remove the school place and allocate to which ever place they would have got if they'd used the correct address or whichever school has a place left once all places have been allocated.

[SouthernComforts]

This rule is biased against homeowners (never thought I'd write that sentence!)

I rent. I know which secondary school I want to attend. What's to stop me moving into a rented house within the catchment area a couple of years before I apply? And how could anyone possibly stop/catch me?

[SouthernComforts]

Which school I want DC to attend obviously.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

I have no issue with this at all. We moved to a different area to attend a better school, not sure that's any different really.

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

Can you really not see the difference DDTDQ?

[EssentialHummus]

southern I've thought the same, actually. But for a valuable enough school place - genuinely outstanding, so worth, say, £120,000 per child in the private sector over the duration of secondary school - I think selling a house or transferring ownership of a house "enough" (to a limited company, to one's parents) starts making sense.

If I sell my flat to make myself look like a genuine renter, I lose potential capital gains in the flat, and prices may go up while I'm off the ladder, and I pay a premium in rent. But (even in Zone 2 London, where I am), I don't see them going up by £120,000 in a short timeframe in the current market.

In other words - desperate enough? Sell. Again, if you have enough money you can play the system.