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?)

I understand where you are coming from and your anger
When my 2 youngest needed to change schools because we moved,,i applied at the closest school which had a very good reputation.
I was told we were just out of the catchment are,there were 2 other schools close by,
Then i found out that a boy who mine were friends with, and lived in the place we had just moved from, [8 miles away] was admitted as a pupil,i was very annoyed,
The boy still lived there and his parents were business people, owned a pub

It is simple: REPORT IT

If the child is adopted or whatever, then the LA will know and won't do anything. No issue.

If a different address was used to the one they are now in, then the LA will investigate, decide whether it was fraudulent, and take whatever action they feel is appropriate.

If they committed fraud and their child is removed from the school (worst case scenario), then TOUGH LUCK. They tried to game the system and failed. But a family who just missed out on qualifying due to the fraud will now have the opportunity to send their child to the school they should have got.

OP This is an extremely serious issue. Please report. Our local LEA go to great lengths to police applications to ensure that children meet the selection criteria because the pressure on places is such that many children do not get offers of a reception school place on first allocations, in one year some did not start school until Christmas. There was therefore widespread fraud. It is an issue of fairness, and unfairness should not go unacknowledged. One of the Councillors (Tory of course) even tried it on, moved to grandparents conveniently near outstanding oversubscribed school, whilst their home, near less popular and certainly less middle class but actually very good local school they were very lucky to be able to access when many parents are offered places only at very distant and hard to access schools, was "renovated". Since they were paying Council tax on the latter not the former, they not only lost the place but got sacked as a Councillor too. Their sense of entitlement was so great they wasted a lot of money taking it to Judicial Review, this was a Cabinet Member who had presided over an education strategy which effectively was one of deterring parents into private education by failing to provide enough school places to meet demand......

Does anyone really think they should have got away with it?

I do not think anyone should get away with accessing good school places by fraud and depriving other children of a local place or by sitting in pews but that is a different issue

I have come across this first hand. The school involved is outstanding and competition hot for places. A near neighbour had a child at the school but split from her partner and moved further away out of catchment. She thought she would get her ds2 in under the sibling rule. No, she did not and did not use her former partner's address because the children reside with her.

She became aware of three other families whose children did receive a place at the school, but lived well outside catchment. She challenged this without indepth investigation on her part. She was right and her ds2 took one of the places that was withdrawn.

I did work at this particular school many years ago and there was an issue back then with parents who lived very close by complaining about children from a local Council estate coming to the school. Hard to believe, but yes, I heard it first hand. All equal, but some of us more equal than others.

Oh, and yes, the Councillors real home was in a much cheaper suburb than her parents.......

I would mind your own business. What difference does it make to you? Its up to the school to investigate or find out, not you. Sorry but you sound like a horrible person.

And is there a sibling in the school? You say you've known her for some years. You can get children into out of catchment schools if that's the case. If not, how come you've known her for years when she doesn't live that close to the school? What's the connection?

Many LAs have taken away the sibling link. Having big bro in the good school doesn't necessarily mean you're guaranteed a place for baby sis.

The school that the Councillor tried to access had at one stage twenty years ago children being brought there by taxi from Holland Park and Chelsea, where their families moved back to after renting properties to get in. It was not a matter of not being able to afford private school fees as being seen to be principled, though quite happy to do so at the expense of local residents. It was complaints about that that brought about the Councils extremely strict policies in the first place. Does anyone think nobody should have reported that either?

Those on here shouting 'mind your own business', you are 'horrid', etc etc would probably also take no action of any suspicious behaviour in their own streets, for example. Like scores of people who live close to a house that turns out to be growing cannabis, or making bombs, run as a brothel, etc.

Where is your intuition, people!?

Never it is not OP who is the horrible person. Surely it is the person depriving a child of a place in their local school that is being horrible?

I wouldn't go out of your way to get involved in something that isn't life or death, it's not an issue of safeguarding. Why wade in to the middle of it?

Just do nothing and stop thinking about it.

I wouldn't go out of your way to get involved in something that isn't life or death, it's not an issue of safeguarding. Why wade in to the middle of it?

Just do nothing and stop thinking about it.

This ^
The point is, it is not her place. It is nothing to do with her. She doesnt need to get involved.

'would probably also take no action of any suspicious behaviour in their own streets, for example. Like scores of people who live close to a house that turns out to be growing cannabis, or making bombs, run as a brothel, etc.'

Yes that's exactly the same

For a more realistic analagy, I'm one of 'those' who if a family went to a faith school and I knew the dc was neither christened nor a church goer I wouldn't say anything either. School admissions are a farce, it's every man for himself really.

I appreciate the thread had moved on somewhat, but the language you use in this statement a few pages ago

The child has not been adopted. I know them both and the child is theirs.

Is pretty offensive.

has moved

Yes, report. The LA will investigate. If you're wrong, no loss to anyone. If you're right and they lose the place that'll be one more school place going to the local child who should be at that school.

It drives me absolutely nuts that this kind of thing goes on at the scale it does; I'm thinking especially of that school near Parliament Hill which Giles Coren ranted about (can't remember name) where the LDA was something like 0.1 miles, but it seems to happen everywhere. If parents saw that every iffy case was investigated and children whose parents were up to tricks were turfed out of those schools, it would very quickly stop happening imo. And a few more local schools that are probably just fine may even get a slightly wider intake, if the wealthier parents aren't clamouring to get children into one particular school at all costs.

You haven't got all the necessary facts needed to prove this couple have frauded the LA.

You're just going off what you think might be the case OP.

Butt the fuck out.

It is none of your business op. What exactly are you hoping to achieve by reporting this family?

You are not in possession of the full facts. As pp's have said there could be a whole host of reasons as to why the child is being educated at the school.

One of my DC children is at an out of catchment school. I hear some other parents moan about in the playground, but tough because like you op they are not in.possession of the full facts as to why DC is there.

I do not need to explain to playground parents, who are being nosey and fishing for further information about my child's exists at school.

Emillee (and another poster too)

You are right and I apologise for it. I absolutely did not mean that an adopted child 'cannot be theirs' but I see that my wording could hurt people and could hurt me if I had an adopted child. I will be more careful next time.

The child has not been adopted. I know them both, the child is a spitting image of the father and I was around from the very beginning so I know that she was pregnant and had indeed delivered him.

In the time that it's taken to read this thread I could have found the correct name and address for the officer at the LEA who deals with this, written an anonymous letter and posted it. Job done. If they have a legitimate reason to be awarded the place they'll keep it. If they don't the next child on the list will get it. Maybe child no. 31 will turn out to be from a wealthy family. May she/he won't.

Tiggy People are saying MYOB because it is obvious the OP is being mean spirited and is attempting to justify herself by letting on she is doing it in the interests of fairness.

What I also find interesting from this thread, though, is this.

Having no knowledge of how the process works I would have expected people to tell me 'if you do this you can cause serious trouble to a family that might well be legit', which would be totally acceptable and one of the reasons I wanted to know what happens if I report. I also get those people who say 'you have only a partial view of what is happening so be quiet', I said it myself in my original message. However those who say 'it doesn't affect you so piss off', and they are a lot, surprise me. Obviously you might think that I have a vested interest in ruining this family, but independently of my reasons, you or a member of your family will one day or another be the subject of discrimination (I am not wishing you this, I am just stating what I believe happens in this world/our society), would you not want someone to point that out, if it benefits you? Why not doing it for others?

It's screamingly obvious that you don't like this couple. I bet there's a back story here you're deliberately omitting.

There's an underlying tone from you that the reasons you're thinking of reporting are not because you're being altruistic.