Renting any old hole for 5 minutes to secure a school

[mumtojohn]

Am sure this has been gone over on MN loads of times before, but I am just entering the minefield of schools consideration (DS is now 2.5), and wondered what the general consensus is on the practice of renting for a short time to secure a favoured school (before moving then to the house you actually want to buy and live in, which may then not be within the original catchment of 10 metres away or whatever).

I know it is 'working the system' and that is wrong, but I am increasingly thinking that said system is completely ridiculous anyway (or rather, what you need to do to get into a good school is becoming ever-increasingly ridiculous). Do I care that much if the other mums at the school gates clock that I don't live in the school's armpit any more? If we have the flexibility to do it (and I mean genuinely live in that rented property for the necessary time, rather than simply re-routing mail for a few weeks), why not?

I should point out that I am usually someone with a strong sense of fairness and mostly live by the mantra of 'well, if we all behaved like that...', but I've just had a particularly fast and large glass of red, and this schools business is really something else.

We did it. We moved closer to the school to make sure we got a place, and then 7 months later, moved away again.

Firstly, we're talking about an area which is less than 2 square miles anyway - that we moved from and to and where the school is. We can walk to the 2 old houses within 20 minutes of where we are now.

We moved from slightly-out-of-catchment (catchment was like 1500m radius, now its less than 1000m) to smack in the middle of the town centre, with a 12m contract signed, and got the school place.

Then we moved before the 12 months was up because of the DV, drugs and police problems in the flats we moved into - part council, part privately owned, it was the biggest dive in a poshy area i've ever seen - like a demilitarised zone.

We moved into a house still inside the catchment (though not for long, its shrinking each year!!) and have been here for 3 years. We walk 1 mile to school each day.

Didn't get a place for my DS in any of the 3 primary schools applied for. Closest is in catchment area (less than 5 mins walk) other 2 are the next closest (about 15 mins walk).

Didn't get in as class of 30 had 20 sibling links & 10 others (which I assume are children who live closer to the school than we do). The other 2 schools are around the same kind of numbers.

I would say go for it if you think you will get in but in my case living in the catchment area (and I mean really living so to speak) made no difference to getting into the nearest school/school we wanted.

I would worry that once you move you and your child would miss out on being part of the local community and near school friends.

we are in Scotland so I dont understand the English system..

Is it really worth moving house to get your child into a primary school. I know some schools are better than others but suerly most primaries teach the basics of reading and writing to some sort of standard

am I mssing something?

Do you get allocated a place at all or do you have to apply for any place

I don't get the moral quandary here - if it's acceptable to move into a school catchment area to secure a place, then only a hypocrite will differentiate between someone who buys and someone who rents.

The system is shit, and everyone is working it. Listening to people who can afford to buy into a good catchment area whinge about people doing what you propose to do makes me a little bilious. They are happy with obvious unfairness when it's in their favour.

Just be aware, as has been said before, that any further children you may have may not get into said school if you move out of cathcment.

Do people REALLY live like this?
Dear god, why not just make a permanent move BEFORE you have to consider school places to a nice area with a nice school?

I live in a small village with a superb village school which is attended by every child in the village, pretty much.

Oh fuck off Peppa, you know perfectly well why people don't.

Sneering at people for not having the money and choices you are lucky enough to enjoy is very unbecoming.

Well not everyone has that luxury of being able to make a permanent move near a good school.

I have lived in this area all my life (apart from university and a brief spell south of river while I built up enough money to buy here). I'm far closer to the school I went to now compared to when I lived with my parents. When we moved here we were well within the distance usually offered. Since then there has been an influx of renters renting multiple occupany properties (so 3 families per house) and lots of new build flats. The result being we couldn't get into the school by the time DS was due to go.

We can't afford to sell up and move closer, since now all those properties are beyond reach, plus we would need all the various fees.

Now the secondary school is going the same way, so come application time we will definitely do the short-term renting thing.

Spidookly.

Money?

I live in an area many, many times cheaper than London and the areas you are talking about that mean that people end up renting second homes ( and if that doesn't require money, I wonder what does?)

Most people in these predicaments live in London. You could always move further out?

We will do something like that when we return to London. Rent in the area of the good school, and then look for a house to buy nearby. Easier to rent first, and house hunt when already in the local area. But we plan to stay in the catchment area, because we want our sons to socialize in the neighbourhood with the other local children attending the school.

I don't really see how a LEA can require 12 mo residence - people's lives aren't like that

Our LEA did require 12mo contract - we had to present it when we moved.

Basically, we rent, so its easy(ish) to uproot if need be, and for my daughters' educations, it was well worth it doing even if it meant 3 address in 7 months (!!!). The difference between the school the old house was in the catchment for, and the school she attends, is staggering. The difference is truly inner city vs suburbs type difference, and in the middle of Birmingham, the difference between city schools and burb schools is staggering. Really.

Well, you can present a 12m contract, but it doesn't actually tie you to live there for the full 12 months. You can leave after 6 months, al ong as you give 2 months' notice.

exactly - we got out after 7 months in the dingy flats because a. it was intolerable, and b. we wanted a back garden again.

havent read all of thread but if you are going to do this, fine if you have 1dc to get in at the start of reception.

may not work if you have or plan to have more. our la has changed rules so that catchment area children get priority over sibs of non catchment area kids. this means that those who have done what you are proposing are now facing a dilema. 2 different schools or moving their dc1 from the school that they tried so hard to get them into.

would add that this happened quite suddenly in the space of one academic year.

Schools investigate this type of thing and can withdraw the place in favour of a child who actually does live there - so you would have to steel yourself to move in a year beforehand and stay there until through the first term at least

like i said, we moved to a house that is still within the catchment, just further out and not in that disgusting block of flats - and our second one will go to the school too. (unless she gets her statement before then and somewhere else is identified as more appropriate...)

We've heard alot about the mechanics of moving into catchment. What about the morality of doing this, or isn't it important? In my village, there were 15 families whose children didn't get into their village school last year. Why? Because just out of the village, the developers had converted old houses into multiple luxury flats and sold them on the basis of them being near good state primary. Cue loads of families trotting up from London, buying or renting and as they were within catchment but 2 minutes walk closer to school, got their children in. Good for them. Not good for village families who were given other schools 2 bus rides or 15 minutes drive away. Many of these were beside themselves and distraught for months as they often had babies, didn't have car and weren't willing to put a 4 year old on 2 buses for a half hour journey twice a day. Especially fun when it's icy and the second bus doesn't turn up on time.

The villagers live between 5-10 minutes walk from their school. Luckily they campaigned - hard - and got the school to expand for one year. I'd be surprised if you weren't given some hairy eyeballs at the school gate for years once word got out. Renting/buying long term is one thing but doing this, you may be accused of deceit by others even if the LA don't find you out.

x-posted with GiddyPickle

"changes to admission policy can happen in just a few months with little warning."

does there not need to be a consultation?

There is child in my eldest's class. The parents rented a home in our village for 2 yrs and lived in it. Their child got accepted to the school. They moved out of rented end of last year to another area and their child is still obviously in class. But there are issues about the siblings who are yet to start school.

It all sounds an horrendous nightmare and very stressful for the family. Think it all out OP, which I am sure you will.

The 12 month residency thing is a bit of a nightmare really- where we live I have never seen any tenancies for longer than 6 months... they just aren't available because landlords want to protect themselves, and agencies like to gget fees every 6mo
Having rented here for years, we've never had problems renewing, but never ever been allowed to take longer than 6mo in the first instance.

It is actually cheaper to put 2 children through independent school than move next to the better schools in our authority