state schools in london. did you rent in the catchment or know people who did?

[cheapandchic]

I have realised that where my home is positioned I most likely have no chance at getting into any of the schools that I want. I do not want to send my child to the school nearest me.

is it worth letting my house and moving closer? has anyone done this? how far in advanced to you have to do it? can you move out once that are in?

Am I a really nasty person for hoping it bites people on the bum?

That the good school they cheated their way into ends up going downhill within 2 years.

I saw a documentary about this three years ago - some silly cow woman moved her family of four kids from a spacious semi into a two bedroom flat opposite a school so her PFB would be guaranteed a place while the family up the road who had lived in the area for years missed out. I so hoped the silly cow in the flat ended up desperate with overcrowding and very negative equity. That would have been karma.

The head teacher just said that families do not realise that if they are interested in their child's education and support then then they will do well in any school.

KandyBarr - Renting close to the school in order to get a place and then returning to the family home once the place is secured is definitely against the rules. Many LAs would want to see that the family home has been sold or is on a long term rent before accepting a rented address.

And yes, I do know of children being booted out of school, although it is more common for the LA to discover the problem in time to withdraw the place before the start of term. I doubt the national press would be interested - "child loses school place because the parents made a fraudulent application" isn't much of a story really.

what if you don't own a home and honestly chose to rent in a place with a good school?

What's the mroality of that?

its hardly new or outrageous. People wanting to move to areas in the catchment of good schools. I would do it.

There is nothing wrong about moving to the catchment area of a good school. What some people find morally wrong is renting a flat in the catchment area of a good school, which maintaining a permanent home elsewhere, just to get into that school and moving back later on.

Do schools actually catch people out or is it just a threat? Apart from the LEA trying to prosecute someone in north London and failing, I have heard of no cases in recent years. There was a famous case of a headteacher at a primary in London a few years ago, using the caretakers flat address at her school to get a place at Lady Margaret. She was caught and the daughter's place withdrawn during her first term there, I believe.

We had a big debate on this last year: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/1319850-Any-real-moral-difference-between-a-short-term-let-for-admission-purposes-or-permanently-moving

There's a difference between withdrawing the place and a successful prosecution.

IIIRR, three have been cases where the place was withdrawn but fraud prosecution not successful.

Children were marched out of a playground in a primary school in Southwark a few years ago, but I think that was using a relative's address rather than renting.

Thanks for the info Schools Nightmare.

I was a member of a primary schools appeals panel last year where someone tried to appeal for two different schools on the same day which are in the same borough but quite a way apart, using two different addresses! One was their own flat and one was a flat where the grandparents lived, where he claimed the child had suddenly moved to! Trying to hedge his bets no doubt. Needless to say he failed on both!

Ha, I would love to have seen his face when you greeted him on the second panel, BeingFluffy!

Yep Blu, he was squirming all right! He stated that the original address was his "official" flat that he owned and he brought along something from the Land Registry. It was just outside the catchment of the most popular school in the borough unfortunately for him. For the second one, a school which has suddenly become popular since it's "Outstanding" Ofsted he came up with a story about how they had decided the child should live with his grandparents as the mum (who wasn't present) couldn't cope. We did question him about what address the child benefit etc was paid to and he kept changing his story. Ironically the school he had been allocated was equidistant from both addresses but doesn't have the "Outstanding" tag.

That is the best (for which read worst) appeal story I've heard in a long while!

prh Sorry - I still don't understand how LAs could possibly prove that owning a second property that's rented out means your child's place has been allocated outside the rules. I mean, are you seriously claiming that when families move back to their house a year or two later, the children are booted out of their schools?

I've never known that to happen or even heard of it happening - and that's precisely why parents do it, because they can and do get away with it. Nightmare is right - they then shrug and blame the system.

I don't see any evidence of any rigor on the part of those who are meant to enforce admissions rules - my DS's school in Wandsworth is vastly oversubscribed, and no end of parents catchment-rent. None of them has ever lost a place or had a place withdrawn that I've heard of. In fact - it's regarded as a tiresome thing one must do, rather than anything to be hidden or done covertly.

I live in Brighton where people also do this. My DS is in reception year at an outstanding primary school. We moved tto a flat that we intended to buy but this was situated around the corner from the school. Obviously, we wanted our son to go to a good school - why wouldn't we? We had sold our flat and rented a flat near the school, with the intention of buying but a complication arose because the lease needed extending and this was going to cost a lot more than we were originally told. The flat had very bad damp problems and I had just had a baby so we decided not to buy it after all. Our DS got a place at the school and we moved out of the catchment. We moved to another 2 bedroom flat without damp. We are hardly living the life of Riley!

We live in an area now where the nearest school is Catholic, the next 2 nearest schools are outstanding. One is considered better than the school my DS attends but we can't move him as there are no places at the schools. My partner is Jewish so we would never consider a religious school.

I know a few people from DS's nursery that didn't get places at DS's school, that missed out by a few yards but they are all well off, well established in their jobs, old enough to have bought property ie family houses when they were affordable- to some extent pure fluke due to age, say having 8 to 10 years on myself and DP. Are good schools only the preserve of those rich in capital then? As clearly, if we move DS from this school someone will get a place that fits this category.

My brother lives in North London, they have just bought a house that is very nice but very similar to rows and rows of them for 1.3 million. They held on to their DS's place at the local oversubscribed school until they were certain their DS had a place at a private school. Given the cost of living in this area, the social equality argument that some are getting on their moral high horse about is farcical!

It is always a subject people seem to get very morally superior about but you often find they are making their point safe in the knowledge that their children attend the local school 'obviously', the owner occupied 4 bedroom house around the block from the school helped as did the christianing at birth to make the local CofE school a valid option!y DP's boss about 14 years older than myself was expressing similar moral outrage regarding the reception year mum's at her DS's school as being too religious, frequenting church too much, all to help in getting 'a place'. I had to wander about her motivation for sending her own children there as it wasn't their nearest school, they didn't strike me as particularly 'Christian'. I assumed it was because she wanted what she thought was best for her DC at the time of application, pretty much like the mum's she was criticising for doing the same thing!

Whoever said it was just about parental support at home- ha,ha, ha! I went to a very deprived secondary school for the first 2 years. It was fucking awful. My parents are both intelligent, one was a teacher, at the time my Dad was an Economist. The problem was not my work, it was in top group for everything but I had absolutely no friends, was socially excluded, bullied and taunted until moved schools. I had been to a private primary school and then went to a school where I was the only child to play an instrument in the whole school! It was a disaster and there is no way I would inflict that on my own child!

Oh schoolsnightmare I've no doubt plenty of chancers are picked up during the application stage. That's the easy bit.

But I'm talking about those audacious, well-organised parents who catchment-rent carefully, for several years, well within the application dates and well after the children are settled in to their school places while letting out the family home for a year or two. If it's so clamped down upon, how come all the younger siblings get places on sibling criteria even after the families have moved back to their original homes?

It goes on all the time. I can't believe people are naive enough to think it is stamped out.

KandyBarr - The LA doesn't have to prove anything. It can act if it reasonably suspects that a false address has been used. Many LAs will take a lot of convincing before using a rented address if the parents own a home elsewhere. Indeed, I know of some LAs that will simply ignore the rented address and use the owned home regardless.

The fact that a fraudulent address has been used does not necessarily mean the parents will not get a place. The LA should determine the correct address and use that. If the parents would still get a place using the correct address then they are entitled to it.

A child cannot be booted out if the fraud goes undetected for a couple of years. But the usual scenario is that parents rent then move back to the family home as soon as they have accepted a place or shortly after their child starts school. At that point the child can be booted out.

The number of parents detected making fraudulent applications for schools in Wandsworth each year is comfortably in double figures. I am not saying they catch everyone but they certainly catch a significant number. Such cases generally get no publicity. If the parents are caught during the admissions process (which is where they aim to get most of them) they will simply be offered a school based on their correct address. If they are caught later the place may be withdrawn (and if it is not the parents of the child who should have got the place will have a good case for appeal). Parents in that situation generally don't publicise what has happened.

You will not hear of parents being taken to court, however. As far as I am aware only one parent has been prosecuted for making a fraudulent application and the prosecution was withdrawn as it was unclear that the Fraud Act applied. It is unlikely any further parents will be prosecuted unless the law changes.

We started to think about schools when my son was 2. We lived in a one bedroom flat so we couldn't stay any longer. I researched the distance to school for the admissions procedure and although very near we would've missed getting a place by 35 metres that year. We therefore decided that the next move had to be much closer with the hope that we would get a place for him when he turned 4. We were in a recognised 'black hole' for primary schools anyway and the school in question other than a Catholic school, was our nearest. The way I see it is that it was our prerogative to sort it out in time. We sacrificed a better place to live for the school but even if we had stayed put we wouldn't have got our first, second or third choice as they are all oversubscribed. So we would've been offered a school that was about 3 miles away and was not great. We didn't want this for our child so we made sure it didn't happen.

If your lucky enough to have lived within the locality and own a property within the margins of the, 'distance to school' allocation then it goes without saying that you're pretty well off at my DS's school. It makes sense that people want the 'perceived' best for their children so what is wrong with people using their initiative to obtain that. If anything there is more social inclusion because it is often poorer people renting property nearby because there not wealthy enough to buy?? Morals are great when you can afford them!

prh I'm sure you're right, but how do the LAs know the parents with the rental address own a home elsewhere in the first place? Are they waiting for other disgruntled parents to dob them in? Or are they forced to disclose it on the pan-London application form (I don't remember that box myself)?

Ime what you describe as 'the usual scenario' - parents moving straight back after accepting a place - isn't what happens. The successful catchment-renters I've come across have all stuck it out for a while.

In Brighton a lot of the 'poorer' areas are located on the edge. There is no way, even with your utopian vision for school allocation existed that these schools are local enough. Of course people attend my DS's infant school that are not well off but they are rare is it is pretty much middle lass ghetto for a fairly extensive radius.

The one person I know who did what you're morally aghast over drives her son about 3 miles from an area where she owns a house that would only buy her a rubbish flat in the locality. She rented a house near the school whilst renting out this cheap house 3 miles away. They then had to move back as the landlord was selling the house. It coincided with the start of school and a lot of the wealthy morally aghast whispered about her immorality, they had other rich friends that had missed out because of the likes of her and had to send their children to private schools.

I'm sorry but I don't see it like you. The same parents are outraged at the moment as it has been suddenly announced that there will be an extra intake of children in reception this September. Now they're in they are not the sympathetic to the parents whose children are starting this september!

I'm surprised that it has taken 40 years for people to realise that the abolition of academically selective state education would lead inexorably to selection by mortgage and ability to move.