to consider reporting this family for having lied to the school?

[mnbvcx445566]

Two parents and one child. They live nowhere near the primary state school they applied for and got into. I think - am pretty sure - they used a different address to the one they live at.
School very sought after. Shall I report them?

I've looked carefully into myself and this is what I think:

1- I am not jealous. If I had the chance to do the same I would not. I would like my child to go to a great state school so they are lucky for that but I would not play the way they did.

2- If I report them the child will have problems at school (? don't quite know what happens in those cases). The parents might have a breakdown or something having to face the backlash. Obviously they have brains and made their choice and would only pay the consequences of their actions but - I - would have precipitated the situation by reporting them. Maybe the system is so fucked anyway that what they did is not that big of a deal. Surely the school should have done 1000 checks before awarding places so there might be something I do not know. What I do know is that they live miles from that school, which has a very very small catchment area.

3- I should report them because if my child did not get into that school 'legally' I would despise people who took advantage of a loophole and took 'my child's place'.

WWYD?

I am a long-time poster/user but I have opened a different account as I do not want to be recognised. (If I do not want to face them and tell them that they are committing an illegal/immoral action does it mean that I am in the wrong thinking of calling the school anonymously?)

they Yup. Here are the full circumstances - if anyone could suggest how I could have approached this differently I'd be (genuinely, in a non-goady way) interested.

I spent the money that could have bought a house in Area A, to buy a (large) flat in Area B, with both areas having good (properly good, from talking to parents) local primary schools but Area B also having a "leafy comp" that's been good for many, many years. So effectively what I've tried to do is not have an issue 5/10 years down the line when it comes to secondary. As a result we now live in a nice bit of a shit part of London, 100m from a leafy comp.

I live in Lewisham, where parent after parent tells me that all the primary schools are great but secondary provision is patchy. I did not see how else I could have handled things. Lewisham seems to have "sorted" primaries (for quality, if not distance), but secondaries see a migration to Southwark/private schools/Kent grammars where applicable/the few schools that are seen as genuinely good.

Perhap prh or tiggy could confirm whether that is within the rules

This thread is moving so fast I'm not entirely sure what I'm being asked to confirm!

I presume this refers to 38cody's post at 10:03:26. Contrary to what 38cody says, it is not within the rules.

You cannot rent near a good school while owning another home in the area.

Even if you live in rented accommodation normally, entering a short term rental near a good school in order to get a place can reasonably be regarded by the LA as making a fraudulent or deliberately misleading application.

You do not automatically lose your place at a school because you move away. However, if you do so within months of getting a place the admission authority can take a good hard look at the situation to see if there is any justification for believing you have tried to fiddle the system. If you only lived near the school for a short time they can reasonably conclude that you have indeed been doing so and take your child's place away. You are then on the back foot. You have to go to an appeal panel and convince them that you weren't trying to fiddle the system. Worse, particularly if this is an infant class size appeal, you may need to convince the panel that the admission authority has acted unreasonably in concluding that you were trying to fiddle the system - the bar for a decision being unreasonable is very high.

Yes, some people do rent near a school and get away with it. In some cases that is because renting was a waste of money - they would have got in anyway. In others it is because they weren't detected. But renting near a school to get a place is very definitely against the rules.

It is the same situation here Essential. The primaries are fine, the secondaries are terrible with the exception of one. The alternative is fee paying secondaries. But moving from the problem schools will have the knock on effect of ensuring that those who can afford to do so, move away and therefore they will decrease the chances of those schools improving. I dont see the difference in those who cannot afford to buy, but rent instead for the very same reasons.

Unless of course people are suggesting that those children with wealthier parents are more entitled to a better education than those who don't have wealthy parents?

Platform Me but quite clearly few read the whole thread

I love how I can't guess whether the family I have posted about have wrongfully played the system but you can guess my real intentions.

Not that I have to justify anything, I mean I could be Satan for what you know, and they could be lovely people or they could people that would stab YOU in the back if they had a reason to do that. If I wanted to report them out of spite I would have asked 'HOW do I report this family', whereas I was actually worried about her mental well-being in my original op should she get caught doing something she shouldn't.

To those who say that I am obsessed. I opened this thread because of a specific case I had in mind but I am learning a lot about the school system, all things that might be helpful to me one day. Primary schools sound hard but I am understanding that a lot of these games are going on over secondary schools too, and that is my next step, so if my obsession disturbs you please look away.

I've got a similar dilemma at the moment. Someone I know through nursery has told me that they rented a flat over the summer near a sought after school (when they own a house a bit further away) to get a place. It's a school that I'd like my DD to go to but we are borderline, but people like them make it less likely that we'd get a place. Not sure what to do and feel slightly sick at either option.

Please report brittany

As you would any other crime you saw being commited.

38cody It IS against the rules so if you did it you would be committing fraud and you would be responsible for putting yourself and your child through a traumatic experience.

What you are describing is middle class capital, it is standing on the heads of children to gain advantage for your child, because their parents are less able to understand the rules and game the system / are not as savvy / did not have access to the rules in time / live chaotic lives / are time and resource starved / too honest / too naive or simply not motivated. None of that is the child's fault. We have faith schools around here that reflected the socio economic and ethnic make up of the local community and according to parishioners were better for it just twenty years ago but are now the most socially and ethnically exclusive schools in the country. Reason was that as pressure on places increased and the selection criteria became ever more rigorous it was the Middle Class parents who knew to get their child baptised before six months, who know and have time to go to church every Sunday and get a form signed even when they go on holiday, even at one stage to get stuck in cleaning the church silver and sweeping the floors. Presumably you were one of the parents who were screaming in protest when a vicar decided to do away with the selection rules so the school could serve the local community because his pews were filled up with middle class parents who only attended as long as they had to and contributed nothing to parish life (indeed they complained it was his fault because he had not laid on enough stimulating activities for young families).

It is by the way the policy of the London CofE diocese that their schools should be inclusive and serve their communities. It is just Parishes get taken over by pushy parents seeking to preserve priviledge, and the trend as a result is for the number of places selected on the basis of faith selection criteria to increase.......

It actually strikes me as very selfish and anything but Christian........

I think the lesson of this thread is to those who try to play the system, keep tight lipped and don't trust anyone!

tiggytape do councils general check whether someone also owns a home, or only if prompted by someone reporting it

Many councils now explicitly state that they won't accept a rented address unless the family home is sold

How can that ever work in reality? People split up all the time and one partner lives with kids in rented accommodation. The family home might not even be in both partners names, so how can it always even be considered the family home if that’s the case and unmarried parents. Councils can’t force people who have split up and where one doesn’t have any property ownership to stay in the other partners house with the kids, that would never work.

What councils are insisting on this? It’s crazy bizzare.

Bluntness It is crazy bizarre? Really? When many local rate paying families are complaining that local school places have been taken up by people who live out of borough and rent then move back and put their children into taxis for a 5/10 mile journey each day and are depriving families who have lived within half a mile of their local school all their family life of the offer of any school place, let alone a local one. Our LEA are not popular with the parents in the borough because the pressure on places is so great, the admissions process is brutal and puts huge pressure on family life with many deterred to move, go private (with SAHM going back to work to pay for it or all family luxuiries sacrificed) or send their children on long journeys to schools in neighbouring boroughs. However that they have acted firmly and strongly to stop this abuse of the system is one of the few things that has our support. As Tiggy highlights they will take circumstances into account but the need of some member of the chattering classes /champagne socialist in Fulham or Chelsea to be able to say over the dinner table that they have put their children into state schools does not trump the need of a 5 year old to be able to walk to school with their friends and neighbours. It would be crazy bizarre if it did surely?

Thanks tiggy - that's interesting. I know that that is our council's policy but I wasn't sure if they general took active steps

The result of me living very close to a very oversubscribed school but not getting a place is my DD now goes to a undesirable undersubscribed school in a 'deprived' area which is actually bloody good now (has had a troubled past) and has an excellent Ofsted. Still parents will move heaven and earth for there kids not to go there so we have nice small class sizes which is benefiting the kids.

When it comes to high school we should have no issue. The school we want and the only practical one for her to go to is in catchment. The very local oversubscribed school is not.
I suspect there will be a few moves from the catchment area of the oversubscribed school.

I'm sure though that my daughter will do as well as the kids who went to the very oversubscribed school with a similar ofsted to DD's school.

But we will have save ourselves 10s of thousands of pounds that we can use to help them out in the future

Platform Me but quite clearly few read the whole thread

yeh it shows

But we will have save ourselves 10s of thousands of pounds that we can use to help them out in the future

I made a similar comment to this that why would you waste loads on rent that you could invest for the future. I've seen a post by someone on MN who's husband was privately educated at great expense but she wasn't and they ended up with the same degree at uni so you could say his parents wasted all that money for no better result

Do any of the kids have special educational needs because it’s done totally differently if they have and some schools can reject applications?

I guess that would be the case even if someone rented out their original property - as although they are not technically able to use that property, it's by design and not, for example, because it's flooded, or similar.

I know that places like Nottingham, Walsall and Newcastle have high school place shortages as well, although Newcastle for example doesn't really do enough to deter people:

"Every year we have cases where parents give false information about their home address to get a place at a particular school. You must make sure that everything you tell us is true and accurate. We carry out address checks and may ask for additional proof of address. Using a false address is taken extremely seriously (it is committing fraud). If not convinced your address is genuine and your child has not yet started school we will withdraw any offer of a school place and may take other further action. If the place is not removed because the child has been attending the school for some time, we will cancel the sibling link for any other children in that family."

A bit weak imo especially as they are more or less confirming they won't remove a child who has been in place for some time. I doubt people will be put off by the sibling link thing either as no doubt they'd rather have one child in their preferred school than none

brittany I'm not an expert but I'd hope councils are smart enough to distinguish a BTL property (for example) from a family renting out their five-bed house to move into a one-bed flat near a school.

I wouldn't bother I got in to school by my mum using my grandmas address, by half way through reception the school had the right address and they didn't care. You won't get anything out of reporting them and there is a good chance the school will know already, Also they don't kick kids out for moving out of the area once you're in a school you're in so it would be a waste of time and effort. Also you don't know there personal situation they could have moved recently or there house could be under renovation and they might be staying with a relative on a short term basis

User you sound proud of yourself. I hope you think of the child who missed out as result of your lies.

You are wrong they DO kick children out if they found out they were lying.