Moving for primary school, but not sure whether house we (eventually) buy will be in same catchment as where we can rent. What do do?

[justthought]

Hello everybody. Sorry about long title. We are moving to a new area of London, for the primary schools. DD is now three, and will be starting school Sept 2012. There are a few schools where we're moving to that I would be happy with but there is no absolute guarantee that the house we buy will be in precisely the same catchment as where we initially rent. The house that has become available to rent is in the catchment area of one of the more sought after schools, where house prices are consequently higher. If we are in that particular school's catchment area during the application phase and are offered a place, and then move before our DD starts school, does anyone know what would happen? Could we/would we be able to reapply to the school that is nearest our new home? I have no idea how this works, so any advice would be really welcome. Many thanks!

You need to read very carefully the information from the Local authority as it is all about dates. There will be a date by which all admission applications have to be in - this could be December 2011 / January 2012 but check. The key issue is where you are living on the date of the places being allocated, so if you are in the rented accomodation on that date that is the address that will be used. You need to look at the LA information because some LAs - Hertfordshire is one, that insist on you having a rental agreement that runs for longer than just the specified date.

After the cutoff date for applications if you change your address you may well be treated as a late application, which would mean that you go to the bottom of the pile as far as admissions are concerned. So do not move or tell the LA that you are moving between the cutoff date for applications and the date of the allocations being made public.

Once you have a school place, it cannot be taken off you unless there is fraud involved. My concern is that the process you are doing is exactly what some unscrupulous parents do to get into a favoured school, rent a property for a few months and then go back to their real house. So you need to be absolutely sure of your ground before moving from the rented accomodation into your permanent accomodation. Personally I would say have at least 6 months left on the rental agreement when it comes to the allocation date, then nobody can argue with that. The alternative is to make sure that you have moved to your permanent residence by the date admission applications have to be in.

You can obviously apply for any school at any time once they have started at school but realistically many in London will be full and you will have only a low chance of success at appeal. It would be far preferable to have it all sorted out before the two dates that are key to all admission arrangements.