Lying on school application

[strikemehigh]

School mum friend told me yesterday that she's used her NC DM's address for her child's high school application.

Her DM lives in a different county (the one I live in) and friend lives just over the border into a different county. Both our DC are at primary school in her county but obviously I'm applying to my county for high school place.

We are quite rural. Her fake address is middle of nowhere and her real one the same but miles away. Hence the distances to schools.

Anyway, this would be bad enough but she's put 2 schools that as the crow flies from the fake address her child is unlikely to get into. First choice school A, the furthest please given based on distance last year was 3.3 miles and address is about 5. Second choice school B is almost ten miles from fake address and already oversubscribed. DC has no other factors such as EHCP which might help.

She has not put a third choice so 'they'll have to give me one of the choices'. When I explained that isn't how it works child will likely be allocated school C which is the nearer fake address she said she would just appeal.

AIBU that this is short sighted and bonkers? Also fraud - which if she wasn't so unlikely to get her way based on the choices I'd be thinking of reporting.

because we were 500 metres out of catchment area

You said in this post that you were 500 metres out of catchment?

"My daughter passed 11+ and she was not offered the school that she and we expected her to go to because we were 500 metres out of catchment area !!"

I had an horrendous school experience mostly because my parents refused to do anything about me being bullied. It was an excellent school according to Ofsted. I don't think an excellent school makes and breaks an education I think there are many factors.

I spent ages looking at schools for mine. Every school I put on my application I would be happy for them to go to and I made sure we were catchment and feeder school to the school that was my first choice.

If that all went wrong I would be upset about it but I would get over it once we'd worked something ou but we would work it out. I wouldnt extend that to reporting friends over such matters as lying on school application that had nothing to do with me because we are all just trying to get by in life.

I think it's a shitty thing to do on an application but also I understand why people do it and It doesn't sit morally with me to grass a friend in for something like this.

Different people are using the word 'catchment' differently.

Some are using it as 'the area from which the school took pupils' (usually a circle)
Others are using it as 'a predefined priority admission area' (usually odd shaped).

Choosing to let your child endure bullying is a parental failure. Sitting around and watching your kid get bullied for 6 years because they didn't get into your chosen school is a complete parental failure. At that point you can hardly blame pushing their luck lying parents for the situation.

Depends where you are. Our local grammar takes from out of catchment once in catchment children who have passed the 11+ have been offered places.

In catchment about 3 miles, out of catchment stretches from 3 miles up to about 10 miles.

Thats awful!

As a side note, appealing a school place is incredibly difficult round here. It's not as simple as saying "but I've got two kids who have to go to school in different directions and then I still have to get to work 45 minutes away"

You lied about where you live??
If not then you did not get the place you have because you didn’t put the other schools as choices. That’s not how that works.
You know you can be given none of your preferred schools and allocated any one that they have a place in??

Most London boroughs don't have catchment is done on distance from the school.

Means you can live in one borough and go to your nearest school which is in another borough.

There are exceptions for oversubscribed schools where some of the places are available on selective criteria or even a lottery for all the places.

Despite all the discussion that's gone on, I still think leave her to it - because the procedure at LA level is to match addresses and names to Council Tax accounts,

As she doesn't have a council tax bill in her name at the address she is proposing to use, the discrepancy is going to flag up; in addition, if she's applied to a school that is their own Admissions Authority and provided the fake address there, they have to cross reference the details in the SIF with those provided to the LA, at which point they start asking questions themselves (and will contact the LA to check the details are correct/if they need to be updated - therefore also alerting the LA to the issue if their November checking and January Iteration processes haven't already picked it up independently). When an OAA school produces their rankings, the LA will also query why somebody far further down the list on actual address distance has been placed so high up - and refuse to offer as 'it's an error/omission/incorrect information has been provided to the school' until the school updates the order.

She'll likely get to National Offer Day and there will be either no offer or one in the nearest school to their actual address that has a space - or, if all the checks and procedures have inexplicably failed so there has been an offer and she then advises her change of address to the school, that'll be notified back to the LA and dealt with then.

Leaving her to it means she gets the joy of experiencing the consequences of her actions. And appeal documentation is likely to show the attempted subterfuge with addresses just through having to provide the paperwork to the Panel.

If that all went wrong I would be upset about it but I would get over it once we'd worked something ou but we would work it out

as would i. But the key sentence is “we would work it out”

and if that involved a school my children were happy at and I was happy with their education - then Absolutely i would “move on”

but for both of us given what you say here / that would be contingent on it “working out”

*Choosing to let your child endure bullying is a parental failure.*a thoroughly shit school for a) not noticing very serious bullying ongoing for years b) the child not feeling she could ever confide in anyone at the school

I'm not going to report anything but I do think she's totally out of order.

I love people saying it's nothing to do with me. She made it my business when she told me. You'd all be up in arms if your child missed out on a place due to someone doing this.

As it stands she's likely to end up with a lace at the school she doesn't want as it's nearer the fake address. How will she then get child into the school that is nearest her actual address without admitting what she's done?

Precisely

but then you say you’re going to do bugger all

Just to be clear,after the nightmare that we went through as a family. Where I said catchment area ,I probably used the wrong word ! I meant that with the area I live in it was reasonable to expect a child within 1.5 miles who passed the 11+ to get to the local grammar school.
I think that the fact I am still thinking about this thread highlights the impact that the liars ,fraudsters had on me and my daughter! Have chatted to my daughter this evening and mentioned this thread …she said that she doesn’t want to be reminded about how robbed she was at the age of 11! So there we are OP ,yes definitely report please 🙏

With friends like you, who needs enemies!

You'd be astonished what deceits parents will go to trying to secure a place in the school they want. I sit in one appeals sometimes and I also help vulnerable parents make sure paperwork is submitted on time. I often think 'I've heard them all now' but then another bizarre lie pops up. I bet our local authority deals with about 100 a year for secondary school places. Parents lie, manipulate, exaggerate, twist things, offer bribes, 'shop' other parents also lying, rent additional houses, forge documents. It's madness and they are almost always found out because it is so obvious.

This is the reality when people cheat the system. As long as they get what they want by dishonestly then feck anybody else.

About time it was made a criminal offence to deliberately and knowingly provide false information on these applications. You are obtaining an advantage by deliberate dishonesty, so time to face some criminal sanctions when you get found out.

Every year our school gets calls from disbelieving parents amazed that their child didn't get a place even though they didn't meet the criteria but they are like well it was the only school we put down so you have to give us a place er no

That's a misunderstanding. Parents think they have to get a place so they think if they put down one it will be that. At least they are not fraudulent or dishonest. Just misinformed.

Yes that sounds like a shit school. But this is also a significant parental failing for either a. Not noticing their child is experiencing serious bullying, a child being seriously bullied isn't going to be behaving like nothing is happening at home or b, continuing to send their child there knowing the school isn't doing anything about it.

@Universalsnail

your parents let you down. Big time.

and

You went to a thoroughly shit school that didn’t notice the bullying, didn’t deal with it, for years and years

now - you weren’t ever able to change your parents BUT there would have been many many schools out there that would have dealt with the bullying and you would have had a very very different school experience (and childhood) as a result

and it is baffling you can’t see that