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Original poster

IF you knew some people who have cheated on their registred address in order to get their kids in the best school...

99 replies

Summerfruitfullofscaryworms · 09/10/2007 12:18

Would you do report them or would you do nothing ? I know some people who have managed to cheat...they are "renting" a place just near the school where everybody want to put their kids (including me) but they are not leaving there..they are at least 1 mile from this school so not in the catchment...my dd is probably going to be refused a place because we are living at 547 m from the school and the limit is 532 m...I feel like crying, it's so unfair, I feel powerless. What would you do ??

OP posts:
Original poster
Summerfruitfullofscaryworms · 09/10/2007 13:01

I want the best for my dds and I will do the very best I can...I'm 15 meters over the limit and these people at at least a mile...I'm honest so I wont cheat and I cant anyway but we should have all equals chance but we dont

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 09/10/2007 13:02

I'd be sorely tempted... I get annoyed enough as it is about the number of people who come from out of catchment "legitimately".

LazyLinePUMPKINJane · 09/10/2007 13:03

But this child is not cheating the OP's child out of a place. The OP's child is not in catchment. It must be gutting to see, but grassing her up is not going to get the OP anywhere.

It would feel good though

Blu · 09/10/2007 13:05

In our LEA - in inner london - admissions are done on 'proximity' rather than 'catchment' - so people renting small bedsits very close to the school, and pretending they live in them with their 4 children and au pair, artificially reduce what becomes the 'catchment'.

I'll be upfront about this: the school I am talking about is Sudbourne in Lambeth, recently included in the national 100 best primary schools league.

Estate Agents have a smooth operation offering bedsits to rent on an annual lease just before the admissions process. A friend who lives in the road the school is on had someone knock on his door and ask if they could pay him to have all thier mail sent to his address! The effect on admissions is accumulative because every year the bedsits are rented by a new family who then addd to the siblings admissions for years to come...so 'genuine locals' are in competition with perhaps 4 different families of siblings who have all 'lived' in one address on the very doorstep of the school.

But hey...since the old head left it has been slipping down the tables and now ranks below the schools that mine and other MN-ers children go to!! Some people may see the investment in hugely inflated house prices crumble!

CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:05

yes it would get the op a better chance of getting in as they then would both be out of catchment and the op is living nearer to the school!!!!!

Around here it states that the schools take any deceit very seriously and children will end up having their place withdrawn.

ruty · 09/10/2007 13:06

and i call myself a christian but can't bear the smug self congratulatory tone of the local [very wealthy] church so that is not going to help us either.

3andnogore · 09/10/2007 13:07

I must be so naive....I mean, people really do this sort of thing , JUSt to get their Kid into a certain school...
I think that is so pathetic (and I think I may well would report it if I knew it happens)....honest to god, as long as teh teachers, etc....are good...does it really matter THAT much? Especially if we are talking Primary school....!
In the end so much depends on the individual child, their personal interaction, their willingness to learn....indeed...I think my es really benefitted from being a wellmannered and social and just lovely little boy when we moved here...as the way he is made teachers want to help him more, and I think that those good qualities probably really shone in his last school, because a lot of children came from households where parents didn't care as much, possibly...and where children learned antisocial behaviour at home, etc...!

Original poster
Summerfruitfullofscaryworms · 09/10/2007 13:08

Their real address (where they are leaving) is 1 mile from the school so they are not in the catchment either. They have rented a place next to the school and gave that address...so it's not disgusting ??? I'm 5 minutes walking from the school, it's my nearest school but still (unless a miracle happens) I'm 15 minutes meter over the limit, 15 meters !!!!!!!!!!!

OP posts:
CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:09

3 yes you are being naive. Please come and compare my 2 local infant schools, one serves the council estate, one doesn't - one of the PTA raises around 10 times the amount of the other. The difference in atmosphere and accomplishment is vast.

CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:10

I would tell the school because there could be someone 15 metres inside the catchment who isn't going to get in either! If they are def not living in the rented place they really are adding insult to injury!

ruty · 09/10/2007 13:11

I must be only about 100 metres from our school then as it is about two mins to walk there. The other nearest school is a twenty minute walk along a busy road and yes, unfortunately PTA is not active there and results are low. I am

CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:12

ruty you may get in??? OUr admissions criteria do take out of catchment if there are spaces and it is nearest as the crow flies.

Original poster
Summerfruitfullofscaryworms · 09/10/2007 13:14

They leave in a lovely residential aera with the mercedes parked outside and they can afford a private school but no they dont have enough so they've got to have it alll even if it means cheating

OP posts:
Blu · 09/10/2007 13:17

Summerfruit, can I ask, - how do you know all this about this family?

3andnogore · 09/10/2007 13:18

possible car girl....tbh, whilst moving around with teh Army we never had a great choice, we usually took the school that was the one people used....at least that way all teh army kids were usually together, and they weren't the only new Kid in teh class....
so, when we moved here we just went for teh near by school with reasonable ofsted report (although I don't think about them much, anyway) and this is in a council estate...my son has never been as happy as at that school and he had the most lovely brilliant teacher, who worked her butt off with him to get his reading and writing skills up to scratch, she also helped us help him....and I have made this sort of experience in other schools, you always know which teachers really care....those teachers aren't necessarily at the "topschools"...!
With secondary school, it can make a difference, and I did not send my son to teh nearest one, but one that is much better suited to him, which luckily still was within the catchment...but for tehm catchment area didn't mean everythign, and this was made clear from the beginning, i.e. it was actually important to them that we did go to teh open day, that we did go to the little meetings, etc...and filled certain extra froms out, apparently it didn't matter if a child lived to houses down the road from the school, if the parents didn't do the extra bits...

3andnogore · 09/10/2007 13:22

as for PTA...isn't that a bit down to each parent...and you can make it what you want it to be...sort of you get out what you put in....so, never good moaning about it, unless you are actively involved....????

Gobbledispook · 09/10/2007 13:24

Without a shadow of a doubt I'd shop them. Perhaps not name them in the first instance but, as others have suggested, see your local cllr and LEA and say that you know this is going on and ask if they had investigated it.

Our school does thorough checks. THe year ds1 was going in the head turned up on our doorstep unannounced - we'd only just moved in and although we were on the most recent electoral roll, they had checked the one before.

When ds2 got a place, we had to provide 2 or 3 pieces of proof of address. THey specified exactly what it should be and what date - so one was a child benefit letter but it had to be from 2006 and no earlier (this was for entry this Sept).

It's totally outrageous that people do this. I can understand why they do it but they have to accept they run the very real risk of being found out and they can't expect parents, whose children potentially miss out on a place because of them, to support them and keep schtum!

Original poster
Summerfruitfullofscaryworms · 09/10/2007 13:25

Because their daughter is my dd's best friend..they have been to cm together since the age of 6 months old and now they are together at preschool...in a way, I wish I knew nothing about it.

OP posts:
Original poster
Summerfruitfullofscaryworms · 09/10/2007 13:29

When I knew that their son was in that school, I tought great, I leaving nearer the school than them so it shouldnt be a problem..and then this summer, a friend told me how they got into the school..how naive I was......

OP posts:
CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:30

3andnomore, I put my eldest through the council estate one, was on the PTA everything it was awful, the school let her down dreadfully. Issue around here is that there is a glut of places so most parents who are interested in their children's education etc do put them elsewhere.

I do agree ofsted and stats results are not everything and what is the best for one child does not suit another etc.

Dd1 will probably going to the worst performing secondary school in the county (and Surrey is large county with very many schools) because that is where we live.

ruty · 09/10/2007 13:30

Cargirl some people in the catcment get refused as it is so competitive.

CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:30

If this has happened in the past then I don't know if the school will do anything?

CarGirl · 09/10/2007 13:31

ruty I'm in that situation with secondary school it's not nice, dd may not end up with any of her friends as they all have older siblings at the most desired schools and she doesn't.

ruty · 09/10/2007 13:31

and i know for a fact many families who will get their second child in [sibling policy] moved out of the catchment as soon as the first child got in.

ruty · 09/10/2007 13:33

yes cargirl all ds's friends will be going to said school. [sorry for hijack]