Is this admission fraud? AIBU to report it?

[grammarmom]

Here's the situation.

We live in a grammar school catchment area that gets smaller every year. When we bought our house several years ago, it was very comfortably within the catchment for an excellent local grammar (very high in the league tables), and oh boy was it reflected in the price. Now we're right on the boundary. Among the thirty or so houses around us, some children got in last year and some didn't, literally a difference of a few yards.

Another child on our street, who is in the same class as my DC, only just passed the 11+ (a few points above the pass threshold). We live on the same road, but they are about 50 yards further from the school gate. Based on last year's distances, my child would likely get a place while theirs wouldn't.

Over the weekend, during a sleepover, the child mentioned that her mother has now rented a house much closer to the school to secure a higher priority for admission. The tenancy was apparently signed one day before the cut-off date, making it "legal" for admission purposes. She still owns their original home, but the story being presented is that relatives who were previously "homeless" will now live there free of charge, and all bills and utilities have been transferred into those relatives' names (I strongly suspect that the mother will in fact pay these bills as those relatives are penniless).

She's even moved the children's belongings to the rented property and makes them spend nights there (they hate it). There's no doubt that once the school place is obtained, they will move right back.

This effectively pushes my child down the priority list and means they may now miss out.

Would this constitute admissions fraud? It feels incredibly unfair that someone with £40k to spare for rent can effectively buy their way into a top grammar school, especially when their child didn't perform particularly well in the exam (despite being tutored for hours every day).

Should I report this? I have no more detail apart from what this child told me (and they obviously weren't too sure about some aspects of it due to age).

This would absolutely be admissions fraud where I live (11+ Grammar school area.)
The address used must be the child's main residence - renting a house for a year in the catchment & keeping your old house is the oldest trick in the book and most oversubscribed schools are wise to it now.
OP - I would genuinely report this if my child didn't get a place at the school, and hers did.
She's played dirty for her child - you fight for yours.

Yes, it’s highest scores ger priority, some even out of catchment, then the rest based on location.

Do the admissions arrangements specifically say whether this new rental will count? Many, eg the London Boroughs, would disregard the rental.

Is it one of these schools?

www.swhertsschools.org.uk

I don't want too much identifying detail. The local authority has been mentioned upthread by one of the posters who clearly has been through the process too. Just trust me that I know the admission criteria by heart now.

Yeah not cool. Have no sympathy for you now. How dare you project your anger onto a child and whether or not they would fit in better to a school than your kid?

I know many many kids who got high 11+ scored and didnt perform well or do well at grammar. I know kids that ‘barely’ passed and flew at grammar. Your child isn’t more entitled or better.

You played the game and she played it better and now you are throwing your toys out all over that place to make it seem that your child deserves it more - and just to cut to the chase - they don’t.

Your attitude is poor and entitled at best.

yes - that was the issue for us. Even if she COULD get a place (and she'd have had to have at least some tutoring to get there), the big catchment made it really tricky for us from a logistics perspective.

So it's ok for you to buy a house in the catchment area to give your kid an advantage, but not for other people to rent a house in the catchment area to give their kid an advantage?

You know you're a hypocrite, right?

So it's fair for you to have enough money to buy within the catchment, when others don't, but it's not fair for someone else to have enough spare money to move even closer?

Oh dear OP, you've been out manoeuvred 😆

My own child spent hours helping this kid with the more challenging non-verbal reasoning topics.

Sure😂 he did

Your child who scraped a pass?

I would report it to the admissions authority, and then forget about it. Just be very careful how you word the email, as the parents might do a SARS request, and whilst your name will be redacted, the circumstances around how you found out the information will not.

Some councils have very specific criteria for how address changes and rental properties are dealt with, and will rescind the offer if not satisfied. I know primary schools are often asked for information too, when there are recent address changes.

Haven’t read the full thread. However I know of a family that did this (but moving town to be really close to a school). In fact they actually bought a house near the school, but did not sell their house 10 miles away. They fully moved in to the new house and drove back daily for primary school.

the grammar school investigated (as far as I know no one reported them so I think it was standard to investigate) and withdrew her entire application. They could see this was clearly an address of convenience, the fact the original house was sitting empty was irrelevant, they owned a house in the general area and had conveniently moved close to school weeks before the deadline. They knew they'd be moving back on 5th September of year 7! She had to reapply as a late applicant in January/February and did not get a grammar school place.

(Before anyone questions how I know the detail, I was the child’s teacher and saw the email chain between the parents and school because the parents asked our advice on what to do.)

The school my DCs go to would investigate and probably (almost certainly) not offer a place to those children, unless they fell within the admission criteria otherwise. But they also require you to have been at that address and have documents to prove it for a period before the cut off date - including in the childrens' names so they wouldn't get in. I would report and see what the school do.

Bexley Grammar schools work like the OP says. The top 180 chose their school, otherwise its siblings then distance for those who have passed the exam.

I think you are ONLY bothered because your nipper may not get a place? No?

Whether it’s fraud depends on how the school’s or admission authority’s oversubscription criteria are worded. Many - but not all - require evidence that, if you are living in a rented property, you have sold any other property you own. If not, they use the owned property as the address for admissions purposes.

It’s far from certain that the set-up OP describes would satisfy the admissions authority.

It was a steep learning curve for us 😂 there were children that had been in tutoring for 2 years, summer holiday school programmes etc and an awful lot of pressure from some parents.
When I collected mine after the exam he came out and said it had been hard but he thought he did ok. Some of the children came out sobbing which I think showed the amount of pressure they had been under. We got the info to say that ours had passed the exam and we could apply for a place but until March /April when everyone finds out what high school they have we don’t find out if he’s actually got a place.
Part of me is hoping he doesn’t, because I love the local comp that our other child attends, really nurturing and they are excelling but I’ve always let mine look around all the schools and put their choices down and this one was determined to take the 11 plus 🙈

You can rent your main residence out and move house, that's perfectly legal. We did it.
But we moved permanently to the new area with no plans to go back to the old house.
If they have rented another property but are not actually living there then yes, this could be fraud.

As others have said, if it is a popular grammar then the admission policies may cover this scenario eg if you have a property you own within a certain distance and you rent closer they will take your original address.

I would report and let the admission authority decide.

Is it unfair? Yes
Is it immoral? Yes
Is it going to be hard to prove? Yes
Is anyone going to bother unravel it? Probably not
What are you likely to achieve? Nothing

@NewCushions we ruled it out. DS was exceeding etc but it still would have involved lots of tuition & even if he did manage to get a place he would be in the “average” cohort. Luckily we are catholic so had lots of other options.

She hasn't done anything wrong though. She was able to rent a house to be closer and give her child a better chance so she did.

Morally its wrong but so is buying or moving house to get in. So are many things parents do like this.

But so what - they are finding and can afford loopholes to do this.

Sorry this may push your child out OP but its the game and shes just playing it

I can only see bucks, London and tiffin. All who prioritise high scores then everyone else based on distance, like every other grammar school?

I honestly can't believe people genuinely think that. We bought this house when my eldest was still in Infants, long before we had any idea whether they'd even be grammar-school material. Sure, the school was one of many nice aspects of the area, but so were the local lovely park and the easy commute. That's a far cry from scrambling to rent a place after a child only just scraped a pass (in an exam their own mother expected them to fail), isn't it?

It's really annoying but legally I don't see what she's done wrong. Life is full of annoying people doing annoying things.