reported false address to LEA

[SpeckledHen]

My ds has not got a place at the local primary school since the school can only take 30 and we are 31st on the list (special needs, siblings and those closer come first). Someone who I know lives far away but has a brother living near the school did get in, claiming that she was living with her brother. I was gutted at my ds not getting a place and reported them. Wrested with my conscience but am compelled through love of ds and desire for him to attend local school. Am I being unreasonable? What will happen and will the LEA tell the family it was me that reported them?

I would have reported them regardless of whether it benefited my child. Cheating is cheating and they would be denying some other child a place by their actions.
In defence of Dominiconnor - I have to agree that my experience of going to an appeal for primary (which we lost) was that the LEA officer was totally incompetent.She had basic information which was out of date, didn't know the school floor plan (which was crucial to a discussion regarding space available),didn't know the correct number of teachers and to cap it all had spelled my dd's name incorrectly.

Yes, it's "cheating", but is it wrong ?
The catchment areas are known to be both arbitrary and corrupt.
I have never seen any defence of the rules on the grounds of it being better for kids, which really ought to be the objective, but since we're dealing with local authorities, is actually a way of avoiding annoying middle class people who've bought expensive houses near better schools.

If you ever want to understand why I see local councils as very biased towards richer people regardless of which party hold them, look at your feet.
As you drive or walk round your local area look at the upkeep of roads and paths. Some issues to do with poorer people like vandalism can be claimed to be self-inflicted.
But few vandals create potholes, or dig up tarmac, yet in every place I've spent time you could see better maintenance of roads and paths near richer people's housing.

My guess is that they have used this address for the purpose of enrolment, then come September (or soon after he starts the school) they will have moved out or will 'all of a sudden' have to move out of the brother's house...

Surely, once he has started, they won't throw him out? Happy to be told I am wrong, on this point tho.

I think that one comes down to "discretion", sandcastles. In practice they usually don't as it would cause the child more distress.

GOOD LORD! ( probably the wrong exclamation to use) DC has made a fantastic argument.

Regarding my earlier comment i ws refering to "grassing"

ABout 3 or 4 months ago (I think!) a similar thread came up. I'm very heartened tosee that this time around the majority of folk seem to feel Hen was entirely in the right about this cheating to get one's child into a specific school. On the last thread I was dismayed at the number of posters who really genuinely felt that when it comes to one's own child's education, ANYTHING is permissable as long as one gets what one wants.

The admission system may be a shambles, but commiting fraud in order to beat it is still wrong. Better if those parents were putting their energy into bombarding the government into change than finding ever more devious methods of shafting someone else's child which is effectively what happens when you lie or cheat to get a child into a school to which they have no legitimate admission claim.

And personally I feel that if a family move more than a certain distance from a school, their child should be withdrawn at the end of that academic year. Many will cry 'unfair' but to whom? The people who buy their house but cannot send their child to the local school?

Tosh!

Your argument could be applied to private schools. It's unfair that most of society cannot afford to buy a good education. Therefore those parents who can, should bombard the Government and lets have free Great education for all.

The people against, i would bet my Youngest child, have either not got the means to cheat the system or do not have thier child in the worst school in the area, where the word of the day for a five year old is "Wanker" something heard in the playground and no uncommon, where children are assaulted or stabbed in secondary school and where schools are nothing more than holding pens until we unleash the poor children who have been wilfully neglected a decent education ( through resources, money, parental involvement, decent teachers, decent resources, decent BUILDING fgs.)

We live in a society where the I is the most important, Please don't spout morals on such an important issue, when the richer sections of society can effectively BUY their way into great primary and secondary catchment areas. Leaving the rest of us either saying we live at another address, Appealing and appealing against school enterance criteria, suddenly becoming church goers/It isn't outragous to think that some children are doomed to have a chosen career of drug taking/selling or car theft despite best efforts of the parents. I suggest the people with this "snot fair" attitude hae never had to suffer the indignity of being called a poor parent whilst living in the poor part of town, get the worse NHS service ( no it isn't rubbish for all, for some its more) to get poor education. To live in houses that are either owned by the council or a Housing Association, where your repairs arn't even important, where you and you children are effectivley 'untermenchen' not deserving of the same service as everyone else becuase your poor. Where the Government have to legislate to 'Social Housing Providers' to bring their homes up to a 'decent standard'

Excuse me if i dont effectivley waste years of my childrens lives lobbying the Govt for change, becuase i want to be fair.

My children are entitled to a good education, the unfairness is the system. Therefore i will play the system if i have to.

Why dont allthe mothers who can afford to BUY their childrens education with the nice semi in the catchment area lobby for change?

can they [you] not see the unfairness? Why don't you waste the years lobbying? whilst your child is at a good school? I'll tell you why, becuase "your alright jack" that's why.

Actually, it isn't fraudulent, it's dishonest. Different things.
But dishonesty is not of itself wrong.

You are dealing with a corrupt bureaucracy, who takes your money but refuses to give the education that you have paid for.

Look at the efforts in terms of visits,
checking of resedential credentials etc.
Does this help even one extra kid learn to read ? I don't know the numbers, but to make even a vague attempt to police an LEA we are talking more cost than the running of a primary school. Again the corrupt incompetence of LEAs stands out.

There are some interesting silences on this topic:
1: No one has come up with a reason how this system benefits kids. No one has even come up with a crap reason, let alone a good one

2: No one has argued that boundaries for schools are for any other reason than bureaucratic convenience, and keeping "influential" people on side.

3: No one is saying that the schools people are trying to escape from, are good ones because all state schools are good.

Ooh, what a horrible scenario speckledhen - I'd hate to have been in your shoes but I don't blame you for doing what you did.

Fine if people want to try and cheat - who can blame them either - but if they get caught and shopped, well, that's the risk they ran isn't it?

I hope you get your ds in SH.

Five, no I'm not 'alright, jack'. I rent because I can't afford to buy. Having 'renter' next to one's name in the school records might have implications. My children are not in my 'first choice' of school which was the one I could see from the end of my road, ie the nearest. THAT school is full of children who are driven upto 8 miles to be there. I send my children to the next nearest school- or did until my landlord suddenly decided to sell and we had exactly 30 days in which to get out.

A child brought a knife into my older son's year last week, to threaten a girl with whom he'd had a dispute. I do not run screaming from this evidently nasty, horrible, sink school. I applauded the firm and appropriate attitude the head teacher took; swift action, an exclusion, and ALL the kids there now know the consequences of such behaviour. I guess it's even possible the word 'wanker' is heard in the playground there, too!

Despite all this, poor old me, I do not attempt to defraud the state system into putting me, me, me first.

And I am not 'spouting morals', I am elucidating what I consider to be fair and just, instead of indulging in moral relativism.

And Domini, 'dishonesty is not of itself wrong'. What? Can you honestly say, hand on heart that YOU'D accept that explanation from the admissions board of a desired school if another child had cheated to get in, taking YOUR child's place? And would it not be a poor school that taught its children that?

Right then, where is your campaign? when you are ready let us know we may even join you.

I'm not campaigning. I'm accepting my childrens' school, warts and all. I'm not attempting to defraud another parent of its' child's rightful place.

I am, however, supporting the Brighton and Hove initiative to break the stranglehold middle-class parents have on its preferred secondary schools.

DC, the feet test doesn't work in Hertfordshire. Wealthy and poor areas alike, the roads and pavements are crumbling.

"My children are entitled to a good education, the unfairness is the system. Therefore i will play the system if i have to."
But surely then SpeckledHen is entitled to do what she has to to get her children a good education - why is reporting someone for giving a false address worse tha giving the false address in the first place?

agree with edam, am also in herts.

5FF has a good point, and if I couldn't afford private education would regard it as perfectly ethical to cheat to avoid the crap headmaster of St. John's in Buckhurst Hill, our nearest state school.
Although there's no way I can see to cheat the selective admissions for the private schools our kids go to, we certainly play the game to win.
That's not even remotely fair by any standard I know, but we've seen the alternative, where parents don't think 3 steps ahead and their kids don't get places.

It is of course wrong that there are so many sub standard schools, though I see it the other way to apologists for the state system.

Good private schools show how better management, better funding and better parents can achieve better outcomes.
The state can only really affect two of those factors, but chooses not to, even though they are on average so much better that 5FF and others says they give an unfair advantage.

I don't like unfair advantages, and having come from the wrong side of the state education system, being a Labour party member near me is an uncomfortable experience.
I saw kids who lacked quite my bloody mindedness, but possessing decent brains being wasted by the state because we were working class. that has not changed, and Labour policy has been to pander to teaching unions and Daily Mail readers, rather than trying to build a workforce for the 21st century.

Ironically Edam it is in Hertfordshire where I first noticed that the council took street repairs in posh areas as a higher priority than poorer ones. I grew up in Sawbridgeworth.

At first I thought it was a tory thing, which fitted with the way that us working class kids got a lot less funding for our school than the ones with more middle class intake.
The school bus route was altered away from the council estate towards private, not stopping, even when it drove straight past it.

But up the road in Harlow, Essex, the pattern was repeated, then in various bits of London, Hampshire, Berkshire etc.

However I accept that a given council may be so crap at fixing the roads that they don't even cope with ones in posh areas.

Think your last sentence is correct, DC, Herts County Highways bring the words 'brewery', 'piss up' and 'couldn't' to mind. My district council blames the county council conveniently forgetting Highways was set up as a joint operation.

Education department no better, been failing to decide on two form entry for ds's (over subscribed) school for three years. And have miscalculated how many children need secondary school places for two years running - by 90 children last year and 60 this year. In a town with four high schools that's quite a proportion!

Feet test doesn't work here either!

am i cheating then? my local secondary school is failing, the school that my primary feeds into is rough - i obviously want the best for my children, so my daughter will be attending the school nearest to her fathers residence in a better area. It's not a fantastic school, but it's the best of my possible choices at the moment. My daughter spends one night a week and alternate weekends at her fathers and I do hope/want to move into the catchment area when her younger brothers are due to start the same school.

I could have applied for a placement request and there is a good chance that i would get it as some of her classmates have applied and been succesful - there isn't a waiting list for the school, but i didn't want to leave it to chance.

yes, i have been dishonest. my daughter does not spend the majority of her time at the address she has been registered from. Frankly ,even if she were sending another child to a 2nd choice school because i have lied, then i really couldn't care because if i can't have the best for all children irrespective of background or where they are lucky enough to live, then i want the best for mine.

I can see why you would 'grass', and i do think you did it with your childs welfare in mind. Why is your child 31st though? Did she apply before you? do they take applications in date order?

That's a slightly greyer area, persephone.

I suppose some would argue that the school would improve if more people like you sent their kids there. It's one I've had put to me (we moved legitimately out of a rough-ish catchment into a decent one, doubling the mortgage in the process). I've never been convinced by it......

I'm slightly more convinced that my children would be pounded on a daily basis. The social experimentation can be done with other peoples children thanks very much!

I think that there are a whole heap of grey areas though, so while the OP has done the best thing for her own child - as we all would, she did seem a little uncertain or doubtfulabut whether it was the correct course of action. With my choice, my ex partner lives in a nicer area and we live in Lower-Beirut, because He left us and gota rich girlfriend. We all used to live in the 'nicer' area a

(sorry, distracted) tehpoint i'm trying to make ( badly) is that we're never aware of the full story - the lady who sent her son to the local primary may have very legitimate reasons for wanting to send him there that we're not party to.

DC - I can provide an argument for boundaries for catchment areas. I think , in an ideal world, all kids should go to their local school and should not have the choice to go miles away as 9 times out of 10 this will mean yet another car journey. The Government needs to work out a way of putting the environment first on all of this or else a good education is not much use on a failing planet.