Schools checking procedures

[cswilliams78]

Hello,

Here I am again trying to find a loophole that might help ease my family's very difficult situation (my DS didn't get in any local schools and is being sent to 10th closest school 3 miles away, not good area, can't do the school run etc) so apologies if I am clutching at straws with this..

Having spent too long reading here and speaking to many locals about the situation it is starting to become clear that many people cheat the system by lying about addresses or short term renting (in fact some people think we are insane for not stating that DS lives at Grandparents house much closer to the school). I have no specific information only hearsay but it has been said that allot of people from nearby areas are cheating the system in this way to get their children into my local school (it has an Ofsted 1 rating which is annoying as I would have applied anyway my elder Ds attended long before it achieved this). From what I can see the school do not carry out any checks on where a person lives and it is not practise to do so in my area - we just had to produce a copy of DS's birth cert when accepting a place..which proves nothing!

I have read on here that in many areas parents need to produce child benefit and other evidence with their acceptance letter. Am I within my rights to challenge the local council on their lack of such checks? Do they have a duty to make such routine checks or only where they suspect a specific breach?

It makes my blood boil that this might be the reason for our failure to get a place and even if it doesn't help me (I am 8th on the list) I would be happy if the council/school being a little more pro-active helped another family.

Thanks,
Catherine

It is up to the LA as to how they wish to police the situation. However if a specific allegation is made then they have a duty to investigate it.
Around my area they do not automatically ask for proof of residency but they know from past experience the schools where this tends to happen and there they tend to get quite heavyhanded over it. i think they work on the principle that if they scare everybody one year the message feeds through for the next couple of years and puts people off.
Not sure how you can progress it unless you can point a finger at somebody which would then usually instigate an investigation into all the places allocated at that school.

I know somebody who has done this (an acquaintance rather than a friend). It is very b**y annoying.

They have a duty to investigate anything reported. Beyond that, as Admission says, it is up to them how they do it. I would, however, hope that they are at least checking applications against the electoral roll and council tax records.

It is the duty of the LA to investigate. However, the LA must have specific names and details in order to do the investigation.

in Lancashire LEA addresses are only checked by the LEA if a specific individual is suspected, (i.e. if someone provides a name). In my DD school this year there have been rumors of people using family members addresses and evidence has been asked for. This has never been done before and think they felt it necessary due to the rumors and the fact that they were splitting families - in previous years even though the school was oversubscribed, siblings managed to make it in so they didn't ask for proof. Because of the uproar of splitting siblings this year (in the nearest 4 towns to me no school has ever done this so it made the papers and everything!), the school have asked for evidence. May be worth starting a few rumors/ sending anonymous letters even if you have nothing specific!