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Original poster

pretending i live in a decent catchment area?

76 replies

biscuitdunkernomore · 30/04/2006 17:36

would this work?

My dd is due to start secondary school in sept 2007 and the local secondary school is terrible (one of the top 10 worst schools in the country, plus bullying, riots etc etc)

There is another school about 5 miles away, that is much better, but we can't afford to live there Sad

could we rent a small flat there and pretend this was our primary residence in order to get our daughter in? would this work and has anyone else done this?

your thoughts please ladies and gentlemen

OP posts:
mumball · 01/05/2006 01:25

I thought you could send your child to any school these days, and you didn't have to rely on catchement areas, I know we sent our daughter to a school out of our catchment area. You just need to apply to the school you want your child to go to.

Littlefish · 01/05/2006 09:22

That's true Mumball, but you will only get a place if there are spaces. If a school is very popular, then it is likely to be filled by children in the catchment, and then siblings of those original children.

GDG · 01/05/2006 09:30

mumball - in theory!!

Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 13:50

thanks everyone, we have thought about moving, but would be seriously squashed into anyhing we could afford in the better area and we struggle for space as it is (we have 4 children)

Also the cost of moving (legal fees,agents fees, removals, stamp duty etc) would add up to several thousand pounds, so just thought we could use that money to rent for a few months, even if we rented for 6 months, it would probably be cheaper.

I guess we would have to decide whether the risk was worth it (especially if we were found out)

Is this dishonest? of course it is, but I have spent most of my adult life to date trying to come to terms with the bullying that i was subjected to at school and want to avoid this for my own children at all costs.

I realisethat most secondary schools have a n issue with bullying, but this particular school is appalling. A few years ago a 12 year old girl attempted suicide at the school becuase she was being bullied so much.

I feel so worried for my childrens future and we feel trapped here where we live.

Just not sure that we want to wait until Easter next year to find out we don't have the place we want and then to find ourselves with not enough time to try and sort it.

I guess we are in the same position as so many parents Sad

OP posts:
mysonsmummy · 01/05/2006 14:08

hi - if you have four children does it mean that you are going to be in this situation for all of them of are you talking about youngest. if you will then moving must be you best option. i really feel for you. a friend wanted to get her children in to a really good school but were lucky enough to have family living in the catchment area so used their address. however, at ds sons nursery a mother did what you said rented a flat but she didnt move in just used paperwork needed. dont think you should feel guilty about trying the 'work the system' many people do it but arent brave enough to talk about it. dont know about secondary schools but when ds applied for nursery and with reception the teachers come round to do a home visit. the school in my catchment area is so sought after in all estate agents windows underneath the price the next line is .. in *** catchment area. good luck with whatever you decide - please let us know.

tallulah · 01/05/2006 14:24

Where do you live? We don't have catchment areas as such here in Kent (just as well because we aren't actually in one!). You just apply, then wait and see what happens. Do you know this other school is better or are you just going by league tables? Have you checked their admission policy? You need to do that first. You may find there isn't a problem with them taking your dd anyway. Our eldest was offered a place at a school about 8 miles away, and the kids next door travel a similar distance. It depends what criteria they use.

SenoraPostrophe · 01/05/2006 14:27

hang on - if you can afford to rent a flat there, surely you can afford to live there?

Saggarmakersbottomknocker · 01/05/2006 14:29

This government bangs on about 'parental choice' in Education.......if all schools were good schools we wouldn't need to choose!

Biscuit - if your catchment area school is really that bad then it's worth the risk I suppose. Just be prepared to actually live there at least for a while as they do check. Ds1's friend was the subject of a doorstep visit and he didn't actually get his place confirmed until the day before the schools went back - and this was a family who had actually moved - it was just that their former home hadn't yet been sold.

seriouslystressedspacecadet · 01/05/2006 14:31

biscuitdunker-i can see where you are coming from, our local catchment school is awful, so i applied through the normal channels and got my dc's into a school ten miles away, i didnt need to move or anything, why dont you just apply and see if they will get in, some years, the schools have a shortfall in catchment area applications.
if you were found out and you would be, it would be more distressing for the children to be moved from the good school to the bad one.
why dont you look and see what property is about in that area, you never know.

Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 14:31

hi Senora, we can't afford to live there, it would cost us an extra £350 - £500 in mortgage each month just to get the same sized house as we have now. Also several thousad pounds in moving costs (not sure what exact total would be), so wanted to consider renting just for a short period of time untill/if she got her place!

OP posts:
Saggarmakersbottomknocker · 01/05/2006 14:32

Tallulah - as you say it depends on the criteria but in our area if you put down your first choice school and don't get a place there's no guarantee that you'll get your second or third choices. Most of the schools fill up with children who have put that school as first choice.

Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 14:33

seriouslystressed, we pressed the send button at exactly the same time Grin

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seriouslystressedspacecadet · 01/05/2006 14:35

oh er..how spooky!

Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 14:36

i guess our best option would be to put our preferred option down first, then two others (much further away though) and see what happens, if we still get lumped with the school from hell, i will home educate (alhough i struggle with their primary school homework so it will be interesting to see how we manage that)Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 14:37

or i could divorce my husband, rent a house in said area (and let the goverment pay loads of my rent and benifits), get into good school and then re-marry gain!!!!!!

OP posts:
Tortington · 01/05/2006 15:14

or just seperate. no need to get divorced

Tortington · 01/05/2006 15:18

i put donw my mums address when i didn't want my ds going to the same shithole school i did

WWWontSlagOffAnyone · 01/05/2006 15:26

Can you see if the school would admit your dd without your moving? If they have places they may well do. It seems to be the case in many areas that if there's a place they don't care where you live, it's only when a school or school year is oversubscribed that catchment comes into it. Otherwise I think I'd be tempted to go for renting out your current house (will rent cover your mortgage?) and moving, properly to the catchment area. Will that 100% guarantee you a place though? You need to check before you move or consider it. Or, check their admissions criteria, it may be that you will get in based on those or on appeal. Have you checked out other schools apart from this one and the bullying one? Have you really checked out the one you think is rubbish? It may not be, it may be rumour and not true. Or, could you consider paying? If you're prepared to rent a flat to get in, would this cost be the equivalent of just paying? If you're paying they don't care where you live! Anyway, fwiw, those are my suggestions.

Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 15:37

hi, the gcse results were 13% last year (compared to an LEA average of 46% - which is still crap imo!)

we dont know about the school that we would like to get into as it will open in sept 2007 for the first time, so no info on results, but catchment area is good.

yep, we can apply for any school we like, there are no catchment areas as such, but they do give priority to those that live nearer (as the crow flies), we would be taking a big chance staying here, as there would be many more people living nearer then us trying to get in (and desperatly trying to avoid the rubbish school)

OP posts:
Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 15:38

hi custardo, we could separate i suppose! i'm worried that i would enjoy thre peace and quiet so much though, that we wouldn't want to get back together again Grin

OP posts:
cat64 · 01/05/2006 15:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Original poster
biscuitdunkernomore · 01/05/2006 15:55

Hi Cat, yep i have 3 younger children, so need to consider that, dn't want to assume we would get priority becuase of sibling issue in the future.

I will make sure i fill in all my choices on the form, but will not put down the rubbish school, 13% is not an education as far as i concerned, so it's not even an option,

good luck too with your siuation, it's horribel isnt it, i have felt so relaxed over the past few yeears as have managed to get all children into a lovely primary school, but now we are in for a rude awakening

OP posts:
Tortington · 01/05/2006 17:37

rent another place, get council tax in your name at other place, start paying rent and council tax.

when you fill in the form for school if it asks how long you lived there - tell them 14 years. i dont really think they have the time to research these things. and if you get found out - well your kids get to go to crappy school.

then once your kid is in there, you can say you have moved.

they dont have to offer siblings a place - btw - i appealed when they denied my twins a place at an infant school their brother was attending - after we had moved out of the area.
i won on the grounds that taking my son out of school would be detrimental to him - and there was no fking way could i get 3 kids to two different school 5 miles apart.

louise35 · 01/05/2006 20:38

I think you'd get caught hun. I once saw a programme about this where the school only had a few places and loads of people after them. The headmistress went to the trouble of checking voters rolls, utility bills etc and from what I can remember, a bit of surveillance to catch people out. I can seriously see why you would want to do this though because if I was in the same boat I would be really tempted. The only other thing I could think of would be to put down a family member who did live in the desired catchment area as the primary carer. I remember when my daughter was starting primary school, her school was very desirable and I knew of several women who put their parents down as primary carers because their parents lived in the catchment area. I know its a horrible situation to be in. We've just got our daughter in at our local Secondary School, not my desired choice really but we're in the same position. We have two schools locally which are not brilliant but the one we've chosen is the best of the two and is getting better every year luckily but the school we would have loved her to go to is in the next town and we did not have a hope in hell of getting her in there. I really hope you find a way of sorting things to your advantage, its a horrible time to go through because after all we all want what's best for our children. If you do have to send her to the "bad" school, you never know she might be one of the ew tht do really well. Good luck xx

Nightynight · 01/05/2006 20:50

It looks as though loads of us saw that programme. It was v interesting, but fly on the wall tv has no relation to reality. I wouldnt be surprised if they set it up to get a variety of results for the sake of the programme.

If you rent a flat and move into it, nobody can say that you werent genuinely living there. People split up and move into rented flats all the time.