moving temporarily to get into a school

[testbunny]

hi

my son is due to start reception next year. a friend has a house quite near to a really good school and has said that we could rent it from her for 6 months to improve his chances of getting into the school.

i know that schools are cracking down on this sort of thing but is it actually illegal / wrong if we were to live there legitimally, is there a period of time we would have to live there?, and would the school chuck him out if they found out??

initially we thought no but we want to know exactly what the rules are

thanks!

I don't believe anyone has really been booted out of a school because their parents move - just a scare tactic - tho' suibling may not get the usual priority if you no longer live at the original address.
Advisable to check whether it is one of the LA's that want proof that you don't own another property you are renting out in turn tho'.
Legally, if you are renting the property you live in and are really licing there until the child gets into the school can't see why it is a problem. The moral/emotional blackmail issue was not what you asked about, but which posters seem keener to comment on.
We own a flat near a desirable school and have been approached several times by parents openly saying they want to rent it but not actually live in it - I have alwasy turned them down, and warned them it was a risky strategy - at least you would genuinely be living there, so can't see the LA could refuse you.

"In our area you have to inform the Admissions team if you move house between the offer being made and your child actually starting at the school. They may then withdraw the offer and give you a place elsewhere. A 6mth tenancy wouldn't be long enough to be able to apply and still be there the following September."

Surely that is terrifically unfair to private renters though?

What if you simply cannot get a tenancy longer than 6 months and then your landlord boots you out?

I had to move around my local area a fair bit when DD was small, that's the nature of private renting. But thank goodness she didn't have to move school every time I did - that would have been disastrous. I was so glad that school, and her school friendships, provided continuity during that period.

Proably helped that we weren't at a terribly 'popular' school though!

It is usually worth being upfront with the Admissions team if this is your situation and making it clear that you are in a vulnerable situation that means your child requires continuity of schooling. It's the same for people in the Armed Forces. There are ways and means for this to be taken into account when applying the 2007 Schools Admissions Code.

Legal/illegal, moral/immoral, whatever - I do agree with you though testbunny that the real immorality is that people with lots of money can buy their way into the good catchments. Let's face it, how many towns are there where the best schools are in the cheap areas?

Is there anyone out there who is trying to move into a catchment area in order for their child to go to school there?

Yes, we have done that.

I should say, we were needing to find somewhere to live and school catchments were top of the list. We had selected two favorite schools.

A family I know rented a flat for 6 months, several miles away from their own house, yet never moved in at all - just so they could use the fraudulent address to get their child into their favoured secondary school. As that child has 2 siblings who will now both also get into that school under the sibling policy, the parents have therefore deprived 3 other more local children of legitimate school places.

By way of background, the mother is a church-going teacher, and they made the child pretend that they had moved to the new flat, when they hadn't. Interestingly, they live in an area where pretty much all the schools are good or outstanding (including their catchment school), so it wasn't as if they were worried about having to send their child to a failing school - it was just that their favoured school is considered the most prestigious. They do not believe they did anything wrong.

A couple of people have suggested that the child would not actually be booted out if you subsequently moved out of catchment... a friend of mine moved to a new area, and initially rented a house in catchment of school A. Child was due to start school for first time in September. My friend moved into her own bought house during the summer holidays, and the house was closer to school A but actually in catchment of school B. When she took her daughter for her first day at school they turned her away, sent her home . Child was very upset! My friend had had no idea that new house was out of catchment. 3 days later they sorted out her starting at school B (and she did very well there - "child" now 20).