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 live in a 'rubbish' part of london.

My view?
My view is that there seem to be many people who would rather move home than send their kids to the same school as mine.

My view is that if you think that moving, renting, private schooling is and option for everyone you are mental or have the same grip on reality as David Cameron.

I do not understand why people get so twisted about primary schools. Most are fine. They are FINE. Its your perception of how utterly dreadful and full of chavs they are that informs you and that is your problem.

FFS.

I thought it was people who chose not to work that were shit?

You know, like my Dad who's about to take early retirement and my mother who was a SAHM and now has caring responsibilities for their parents.

Is it people on benefits that are shit? But some of them choose to work...

Can we please just be clear about who the shit people are so I can go and have my lunch?

I am going to move to Devon next week and then moan about how fucking near the sea it is.
London with its deprived areas and all

BTW just cos you live in a deprived area doesnt mean you are deprived. One of the things that makes an area so deprived is the poverty gap. Lots of well off people living next to lots of poor people but refusing to have anything to do with them.
Like send their kids to the same schools.

Fuck it I'm off.

I only read this thread because I really wanted to try and understand. I didnt want to have this knee jerk reaction 'snobs' or whatever. I wanted to see both sides, different angles.

It wasnt going too badly. I didnt really get it but I could sort of see the point of view.

Then it all went tits up really didnt it?

Shame on you

Living in London appears to turn middle class parents into stressed out, competitive, uncharitable, insular, manipulative, self-centred people. If you don't mind becoming this person, then stay in London. If you don't fancy the thought of spending your life like this, then do everything you can to escape before you pass these values on to your children. Later in life, they can then make their own choices, rather than accepting these attitudes as a normal part of life and inflicting them on generation after generation.

Rabbitstew: quite a lot of people actually want to live in London you know, even the ones with children, even the ones who aren't fantastically wealthy and live in the hugely desirable areas. My dh has a 45 to 90 minute commute to work from our zone two house to the various places he works (he is freelance) in other parts of London. But, still, its all doable for just a few pounds a day. If we moved out to Kent, Surrey or similar a) we'd be living in the suburbs and b) commuting would cost a fortune. That holds no appeal to me so we'll just have to grit out teeth and carry on with being "stressed out, competitive, uncharitable, insular, manipulative, self-centred people". Thanks for that.

Obviously, I'm not talking about SAHMs! I'm talking about some of the people who live on our street, who have their large dogs chained up all day, barking in the garden, who deal drugs at the end of our street etc etc. Nothing to do with being snobby, just not wanting to experience this stuff. And the school's results are mainly poor (the ones right near us, not all).

Probably best not to comment on someone's street (and if someone is just being a bit of a snob or not) if you don't live there.

"The school's results are mainly poor".

You might want to dig a bit deeper into that, though. There is a WORLD of difference between a school that has a challenging intake and moves heaven and earth to give them better life chances - even if that still means 'lower SATs results than schools in leafy suburbs' and a school that has a challenging intake and basically gives up, has a huge staff turnover etc - and a world of difference again from said school in the leafy suburb that relies on the fact that it takes in more able students and does absolutely nothing to actually teach them for the next 7 years with a bunch of teachers who see the place as a sinecure until returement (I'm obviously exaggerating here to make a point).

I would send any child to the first type of school, and run a mile from both of the others, regardless of the 'high SATs results' of the leafy suburb school.

Yes, sorry, I was feeling unkindly provocative. I don't think commuting from Kent or Surrey would make the remotest bit of difference - merely export the issues further afield. I ended up committing career suicide to get well out of London once I had children, but then I should have thought about that when I pursued a career that was so London-centric.

glad i dont live in London if it does that to you!

And sorry if I've offended anyone. We just live on a street where there are a lot of problems. Don't mean to write off anyone else's area/part of London.

'And sorry if I've offended anyone. '

well, maybe you should think before you equate not having a job with "people who live on our street, who have their large dogs chained up all day, barking in the garden, who deal drugs at the end of our street etc etc."

Teacherwith2kids - take your point altho I also hear bad things from parents on local forums and mums I know who's kids go there. None of what I say is about bashing schools based just on stats, or bashing people on benefits. It's about local knowledge having lived here for years and having first hand experience of trouble

OP - no, nothing wrong with it. We did exactly what you're suggesting at primary level. Like you, it was a genuine move - we moved out of London as it was too expensive for us ever to be able to buy a house, and the local school was shit. We rented close to our preferred school and got a place. Do I feel guilty? Not remotely. We rented for 7 years (house prices kept going up so still couldn't afford to buy a house even though now out of London) and have moved last year to rent in catchment of preferred secondary. Likewise, this is not a 'fake' move - we are genuinely planning to stay in the area and preferably house unless we are able to buy.

It's just snobbery about renting among those who object. Those who think you are taking a place away from those who 'ought' to get the place - why are those children more deserving? It's just because their parents can afford to buy permanently - not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford to buy a house on the doorstep of a fantastic school. And you ARE planning to move to the area permanently - if not in that specific house.

So why should your child be less deserving?

really mumtojohn- fee-paying school for 7 years for 2 children = £150k
Can you move to a better house in a better area for £150k?

nicevideo= Bham is weird like that... slums next to £1m houses

No problem at all with renting in the area you intend to buy in, applying for school and then staying in the area.

The problem arises when people rent for a short while to get the oldest child in, then buy further away but send another handful of siblings to the school even though they are way out of catchement. By the time you have half the intake taken up by siblings of children who only lived in the area for a short while, and there are no spaces left f children who live permanently nearb.

The problem compounds itself, too, because each short rental falt used as an admissions ploy generates a place for an older child and subsequent siblings - whereas if one family lived in the flat long term there would only be one 'clutch' of children getting into that school for that address during each generation.

And this is why catchment areas for new families become ridiculously tiny.

I can fully sympathise with mumtojohn. We live in inner London near primary schools that are poor performing. I want my son to go to a school that is diverse but I doubt that a school were more than 60% of the intake do not speak english as a first language can be good for him -tell me, how is he going to progress in reading and writing and all the other basic skills if half of his class do not, yet, speak fluent english? There is one school near me who dish out alarm clocks to infants on day one in the hope that they will get to school on time - I am assuming this is because some of the parents (of all walks of life) couldn't give a toss. I have friends who are teachers and they tell me that dealing with such parents and their children takes up a huge amount of time and divert them from what they should be doing - teaching.

And to respond to mumtojohn's comment about people on the street not having a job - it is not fun living near to people who sponge the system, are on drugs, sit in their front gardens all day blaring out music presumably because they have nothing better to do. Last year I came home to find a drug abuser on my doorstep - since I could not rouse him I could not get in my house with my son and pushchair and had to dial 999. I should add that my Mum was a single parent and we lived on a council estate so this is not snobbery - it is reality.

We move in three week's time to another part of London that has better performing schools but still has the benefits of a mixed culture and has a more family friendly feel. We are not loaded and are lucky enough to have been able to buy a house instead of having to temporarliy rent but i would have certainly gone down this route if I had to.

We've chosen to stay put here in Lower Clapton/Homerton. If we moved, the DCs would never see DH as he works weekends and evenings and the commute to where he works (when not travelling for work/out of the country) is tricky. The way things are right now, he can't just change his job - it's too risky and he earns pretty well. Put simply, if we moved away from where we are now, I would raise the kids on my own, while he works and commutes all the hours and the DCs would hardly see him. I would prefer my children to grow up spending as much time as possible with their dear father and take my chances with their education. If our professional circumstances had been different and DH's job were more flexible we might have moved, I just don't know.

DS's prospective school is not the most 'popular' in the area and is emerging from special measures. The future looks bright. It has an excellent new head and the lower years have changed beyond all recognition in the last year or two. Its reputation is still poor, mainly because of the poor SATs results (the result of past years of poor teaching) and the hysterical peddling of unfair, untrue rumours about it. All the people I know whose children go there are happy. They're learning, they've made good friends... it's all fine.

As we're staying, he'll be going to school just around the corner with children he's known all his life, as part of a strong community.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

I have every sympathy for mumtojohn wanting to get out of the area she is in if it isn't family friendly and has shit schools and she is lucky enough to have the freedom to move. I also don't see what is wrong with renting a house as opposed to buying - I didn't think that was an issue for anyone on here, anyway. I know quite a few people who have ended up renting houses long-term simply in order to be able to afford to live in an area within which they cannot afford to buy but which has a good school. I see nothing wrong with that whatsoever - there is no law saying you have to buy a house at any point in your life, they genuinely live in the community which serves the school and stay within that community whilst their children attend the school. If they then move on at secondary level to be close to another good school and stay there throughout their children's secondary schooling, then that's fine, too. I thought the issue was with the acquiring of somewhere to live, whether buying or renting, for the shortest amount of time possible in order to secure a school place and then moving on to outside the catchment area for the school. That is slightly harder to justify, which is why there are risks to this approach in terms of subsequent children potentially not getting a place and some parents being upset by it. Basically, if you are hoping to "get away with it" then you know you are doing something you shouldn't and it might in any event end up backfiring on you.