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.

I think Spidookly has hit the nail on the head:

"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."

If we agree - and I'm guessing mostly we do - that some schools are better than others, then why on earth should the street you live in determine whether your child goes to a good one or a bad one? And no, sending your child to the sink school isn't going to miraculously lift standards there.

People play the system all the time, or pay to opt out of it. I did it by applying for three 'plausible' schools close by, rather than the best or the closest, and got one I found fine. As long as schools are unequal and parents have preferences or choice, we're all rats in a bucket doing what we can to advantage our kids, which always implicitly screws others' over.

Don't make it right, and you need to get the practicalities sorted, but almost no parent can hold you morally culpable. But, equally, if parents who have lived there all their lives and will continue to do so moan about this, you know they're morally more right than you are on that issue within the broader debate. Which don't make them more moral, or you immoral in some 'net' sense with this decision.

Does that even make sense?

Well, you have to draw the line somewhere - most people would view poisoning the opposition to be going a bit too far. Genuinely moving to a rented house and staying there longer than you want to can be considered acceptable by many, provided you end up staying there much longer than you wanted to and hate the place. Bribing or sleeping with an official is much less acceptable, but surely better than the poisoning option.

Giddypickle

Surely they can't apply changed criteria AFTER applications to school, as your timeline suggests. Wouldn't that be illegal?

We will be "competing" for places at a school where residence in the catchment area is required for 2 full years prior to even applying, so THREE years virtually before start of term. This is because we are currently not in a catchment area at all.
Check with your local EA first for length of residence required.

Thanks everyone for all your responses.

I'm relieved to see that most of you share my view that it's OK as long as it is a genuine move. Appreciate the points made about tenancy lengths and siblings (DC1 already has a 6 month old brother). Having seen all these posts, we'd definitely look - when we make the 'big' move - to move to even nearer the school or at worse, further but still near. We'll just rent I guess until we can achieve that. I can't drive anyway so we'd never be able to move very far away. And I take the point about being ostracised and that having a negative effect on my child, so we'd hopefully not move out of catchment.

Ideally we'll move to an area where the schools are all pretty good and so we can avoid all this stress, knowing wherever DS ends up will be good enough. I'm not after the very best, just a school that gives him a fighting chance of achieving his potential, whatever that may be (I don't assume my kids are going to be super bright, although of course I live in hope!).

Currently we live in one of London's most deprived areas (Upper Clapton), where most of the primaries on offer are not good (huge proportions of kids - over half in some schools - in early stages of learning English, lots of behavioural problems, parents not giving a toss etc). So we have to go.

Finally, I do suspect that those MNetters up in arms about my original post probably have one of the cushier situations. Easy to be moral about it when your kid goes to a good school and there has never been any question of anything else. We all want what is best for out kids and most will do whatever it takes - within the realms of basic decency - to achieve that.

If you're going to move there anyway, there is no question of a moral dielemma, you are doing nothing wrong.

Even if you were doing something slightly underhand, well, what about it? We all do what we have to when it comes to our children and something as important as their education.

If the country can't provide excellent schholing for all children within a reasonable area, then this is to be expected. I would not criticise anyone for doing this at all.

Not reallty a genuine move though is it??.
Lucly you that you can afford to 'buy'yourself a place

I'd consider doing this too, for the reasons and with the slightly iffy defence already stated several times on this thread. Agree that it's horrible to criticise parents who do this sort of thing if you're a parent who's been fortunate enough to be able to afford a house in the desirable area in the first place.

Right now, and this isn't meant to sound smug, I am really grateful for living in a small village with a good, small village school that DSs will get into.

coccyx, I'm not at all lucky. Right now, we are stuck in Clapton and not sure what to do for the best. And we are not wealthy by any means; if we were, we wouldn't be living where we are. We want to move area anyway, to quote my husband, 'to live on a street where everyone has got a job.'

If you take some of these 'against' arguments to a logical conclusion, you would kind of be saying that no-one should ever migrate (either renting or buying, or do you approve of the latter whilst not of the former?), just in case they happen to move onto a certain part of a street and thus end up 'taking' the school place that rightfully 'belongs' to another child. No family can ever earmark a school for themselves and believe that that place is rightfully their child's! People move all the time (both for schools and for other reasons) and end up 'jumping the queue' as a result. Should we all just stay where we are and accept our lot in case we offend the likes of yourself? Madness.

I stared this thread thinking it WAS a bit iffy. but now I don't think it is (as long as one genuinely lives in the house for the required amount of time and accepts that moving again could cause issues for siblings if you go too far).

On the moral thing, seems to me that it is fairer (not fair, but fairer) to allow short-term renting for the sole purpose of getting a place than to crack down on this or put distance above siblings with the result that the places go to those whose parents can afford to buy or rent long-term in the catchment area.

This is because more people will be able to afford the rental thing.

why is it iffy? If you live there long enough to integrate into the local community, why is it iffy or unfair or immoral?

How could there be a length of residence criteria of 12mths? Should people not move for new jobs then? We relocated hundreds of miles last august and my main priority was renting a house as near to the oversubscribed primary as possible to maximize my eldest child's chance of getting a school place. Obviously, we didn't just move a few miles down the road but there's no distinction if you are actually living at that address. I'm sure there are families who have lived here all their lives within 0.5 mile of the said school who resent the new homes built which are close to the school. We are still living here btw since we have only just manage to sell our house across the other side of the country?

Private school would probably be cheaper than all this toing and froing with rentals and buys.

Haven't read every single post, but just be aware the reception teacher will probably want to do a home visit, so you will need to be actually living in the house.

Also be aware that if you have a younger child and you have moved out of catchment they may not be offered a place.

Reception class teachers do home visits? WTF! Why?

This is where our daughter(s) was/were going to have to go to school based on where we lived.

This is where they go/will go now because we lived in teh catchment to get a place, and moved further out, whilst still in the catchment, to settle down.

Here they are on a map.

I hope, i sincerely hope, you see the difference in schools, and why we did it. Its not like we had to integrate with a different group of people, we did not - we are/were well known around both places. Though the demographic around the first school is radically different to that around the second school. Shockingly so, really, considering how far apart they are (very small area really - they're off the same road fgs).

Last time I checked, anyone could move out of London to a " nice " village.
I will never, for all my days, understand why people stay in not very nice areas stressing over schools IF they could move out to somewhere nicer and cheaper!

Private school in our current area wouldn't be better as: a) they are not that great either, and b) they are not very near (not many private schools near our deprived area for obv reasons. None that would not be a rather long bus ride away, anyway).

We need to move in any case (see my previous point about DH wanting to live on a street where everyone has a job).

And at 9k or so a year (x2, we have 2 kids) every year for private school in London, it really wouldn't work out cheaper.

So, that is not a go-er. Anyone on here who also lives currently in a rubbish part of London who has a view? Got a pretty good idea what that view might be! Someone suggested earlier that we move right away from London but there is a small issue of work (we both do quite a specific job within advertising).

So we are stuck, genuinely.

God, replying to posts is a bit addictive. Must stop now!

Because having a job obviously makes you a better person.

You can move out of London easy peasy . You can be way out with a 30 minute train journey.

Having a job doesn't make you a better person unless the people you are comparing yourself with actively choose not to work.

Fucking hell.

'live on a street where everybody has a job'

Poor you living in Clapton. It must be hell.

You mean like a SAHM?

I don't know many SAHM on benefits personally . Do you mean those or SAHM with working DH's?