Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

Original poster

reported false address to LEA

116 replies

SpeckledHen · 28/04/2007 21:27

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?

OP posts:
FioFio · 30/04/2007 14:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

DominiConnor · 30/04/2007 15:15

wheresmysuntan, forgive me for saying this, but you've reinforced my point about the way kids needs are overlooked.
You say "put the environment first", and goes exactly to my points about councils putting doctrine before the welfare of kids.

You could have argued that being near a school is better for the child, I might have agreed with that, but you didn't, your thought went to other issues.
For you it's the environment, for others some notion of social equality, but typically for councils keeping poor kids away from their betters is still clearly a force.

Also I think you are in danger of confusing catchment areas with nearby schools. To be sure there is a correlation, but let's not kid ourselves that that's how they were decided.
The way we are going to save the planet is by thinking our way out of the mess, that means good education.

portonovo · 30/04/2007 15:31

I think SpeckledHen was absolutely right to do what she did. I would do so regardless of whether or not I had a personal interest in it.

She didn't report the child, she reported the lying mother.

FiveFingeredFiend · 30/04/2007 15:32

At the expense of the childs future

Original poster
SpeckledHen · 30/04/2007 15:55

Thanskfor all comments and help. It is all very distasteful and a shame that my ds and the other kiddie starting school - which could be so lovely - is marred by unpleasantenss.

I cannot make any judgement sa to whether I have affected the child's future. I do not know where the child comes from. I do not know if the school they should be attending is OK or not. I am really sorry if my actions upset the child - a lovely child who has done no wrong. Got an acknowledgement n=letter today from LEA saying this kind of thing is taken very seriously and will be investigated but that the outcome will be confidential.

OP posts:
jdd0709 · 30/04/2007 15:57

If you have to obey the rules then so does the other family. I would have done the same thing. Why should your child's future be any less important. I hope you get a place, though I wish the other child could too.

wheresmysuntan · 30/04/2007 15:59

DC - I am not saying that the environment is more important than a child's welfare but I am saying that the Gov needs to think how to put an end to the fact that so-called ''choice'' is leading to more car journeys and a negative impact on the environment. I don't think it is an easy circle to square (is that the right phrase).I ma looking at things based on my experience in a semi-rural area where certainly the catchments for primaries haven't been drawn in a dubious way but have simply been based on parish boundaries.What the LEA has failed to do is redraw boundaries to reflect current demographics. We didn't get in to our catchment school as it was oversubscribed but at least we got into our second choice which was still walkable.Our school is more popular than the third school in the area but rather than downscaling the weaker school and allowing the best school to expand, the LEA prefers to force people to send their kids to the undersubscribed school. That , I agree, is putting doctrine ahead of children's welfare.

hayes · 30/04/2007 16:01

they won't tell them, but you know you did it so will feel shitty for a while. I'm not getting at you, I just know how you will be feeling right now and its not nice. I did something similar once and I still feel bad about it. Someone was bragging about claiming income support and working loads of hours at the same time.

Good luck hope you manage to get a place

princesscc · 30/04/2007 16:03

I haven't read all the comments on this thread, but I just know you were right to report this. I did exactly the same thing a few years ago. Yes, sadly its not the childs fault, but at the end of the day, we all do what is necessary to get our children into the school of our choice. I have friends who moved to ensure their child got into a better school and so should this woman. If she feels strongly enough about your school, then she should do whatever is legally necessary to get in there, the same way that you live where you do to get into that school.

persephonesnape · 30/04/2007 16:16

wouldn't it be a lovely world if we could all afford to move to nice areas so our nice children can go to nice schools?

I've lied to get my child into a better secondary school and I'd quite happily do it again because ( and i know we all think our children are special...) I don't want her potential snubbed out by attending the local school, because we happen to live in a shitty area on my shitty one persons wages.

NKF · 30/04/2007 16:16

I think you were right to shop her too.

FioFio · 30/04/2007 16:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

paulaplumpbottom · 30/04/2007 16:18

I imagine we would all go that far to get our kids into a good school, but I wouldn't mention it to anybody, although I'm guessing you aren't friends with the people you did it to someone else might be.

UnquietDad · 30/04/2007 16:25

There is the "what if we all did it" element to this too.

The comparison with income support frauds is not that outlandish, although this person was not fraudulently receiving state money.

The fact that the rules are there doesn't mean they are great rules, obviously. If we think the rules are bad, then we should all lobby our councillors, MPs etc. to get them changed. In the meantime, I think we have to obey them, no matter how crap we think they are. I know some will disagree with this. But I don't think you get a bad rule changed by breaking it.

If we think we have been hard done by in the school process then there is an appeal procedure - it sometimes gets you the result you want, as it did in our case. We played the system to a great extent in our appeal, playing games with numbers etc., but all within the letter of the law.

NKF · 30/04/2007 16:27

I agree UD. Vote for the party you think will most improve schools, volunteer for the one your kid attends, play the system as it exists. But telling lies is in another category. Besides it forces you to live a sort of shifty existence, pretending you live where you don't. And your kids are implicated in your lie.

DominiConnor · 30/04/2007 16:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

edam · 30/04/2007 16:49

My education authority refuses to allow the popular, successful primaries in my area to expand because there are surplus places at the unpopular one. Not fair on parents who live further away from the good schools IMO - we all live in the same town, why can't the council give all children the chance to go to the best schools? And ridiculous in terms of geography as well as they are trying to force children to cross town in order to reach the unpopular school.

Means the wealthiest people opt out of the state system as the most expensive part of town isn't close enough to the best primaries - so anyone who tries to go state from that area ends up with the unpopular school. My heart doesn't exactly bleed for them, but I do think it's a shame that we don't get a good social mix with children from wealthy families rubbing shoulders with the rest of us.

YeahBut · 30/04/2007 16:49

OP did the right thing. Lying for your own (or child's) benefit may be understandable but is still lying and therefore wrong.

DominiConnor · 30/04/2007 17:19

Yeahbut are you saying that lying is always wrong ?

edam I'm not quite exactly sure what putting my DCs into a school for poor people would achieve for the kids there. We use nearby Leyton as a threat for "where you have to live if you don't try at school". The idea that DC might identify with kids who see under achievement as "cool", is not a goal of mine.

As my other posts indicate I think it's disgraceful that we even have such schools, but the solution is not to treat kids as some sort of ballast.

Also I reject the notion of state schools being social experiments. Experimentation is where you do stuff, then learn from it. There's a marvelous article in The Economist about the rank hostility of social "scientists" to controls in experiments, as well as basic innumeracy in statistics.

FioFio · 30/04/2007 17:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

UnquietDad · 30/04/2007 17:40

I've never quite bought the idea that popular and successful schools should automatically expand.

I can see it make sense in the short term to avoid lots of people being turned away, high waiting lists, lots of appeals etc. But long-term it just further entrenches the gulf between the best and the worst schools in a borough/city. You have schools expanding on one side of the city and on the other you have empty desks.

A very popular school near us expanded its KS1 intake by 30, with the aid of a mobile classroom. The over-subscription was about 16, so in expanding it has created a surplus - which in turn is taking pupils away from other, equally good but not so "sought after" primaries in the area.

And now, it has a new problem in that the KS1 surplus is moving on up the school, so they need to keep that year at 30 exra, and they've also established a precedent for KS1 to be 30 over so it's hard to go back down again.

paulaplumpbottom · 30/04/2007 17:41

Surely lying is always wrong. We aren't talking about telling someone they haven't aged at all to spare their feelings.

UnquietDad · 30/04/2007 17:42

fio!! and what do you mean? women don't??

DominiConnor · 30/04/2007 17:59

I depart from UQD, that good schools should have their expansion limited so as to keep crap ones going. Again I see the interests of the people in the system being put ahead of kids.
If the LEA has crap schools for poor kids, I have no issue at all with them having empty seats, maybe the improved teacher/child ratio will help them be less awful.
But that's not what happens is it ? The school in the poor area will simply have it's budget cut.
Given that the school he cites has extra capacity I don't see the problem with the "precedent ?

But I do accept the general principle of limiting the growth of good schools a bit.
Any efficient thing has a point where adding more load makes it less efficient, sometimes this can be quite dramatic.
Also there is a lag, and I hear what I think he's saying about "sought after". Parents are poor judges of small differences between schools, and fashion does seem to play a part.
But when you have a school with a known drug problem, bullying and dismal levels of achievement, why should it be the only option for parents who can't afford to buy their way into being near good schools ?

Caligula · 30/04/2007 18:07

Well I'd cheat if it was the only way of ensuring my child got a decent education. And I'd report a cheat if I thought that was the only way my child would get a good education.

I wouldn't have to wrestle with my conscience in either case, I'm not a hypocrite; my child's welfare comes first, before those of others. I wouldn't be proud of it, but I wouldn't be apologetic about it either.

You've put your child's welfare first at the expense of another child's. Just live with it FGS. It's not your fault our education system pits us against each other. Horrific, but not your fault. Just be glad that unlike the woman you reported, you happen to be lucky enough to live in the arbitrary catchment area.