What's to stop someone renting a flat purely for school admission..?

[eggplanty]

Other than the cost of the rent..?

I met some mums recently who had rented but never moved into a property near a very desirable school. Their children had gotten in.

Based of a few things I have read here schools are savvy to this but these women seemed very brazen, as if it were nothing.

They both owned properties that they remained in and just paid the rent on a small one bed just for admission purposes.

Is this normal in London? Or risky?

I know a family who did this to get their child into Eleanor Palmer (I believe the child would be one if the ones allowed to stay after the investigation). The family did actually live in the flat for a while but once child started school they moved back to their house outside the catchment. To add insult to injury the parents always took the most vociferous moral objection to private schools at every single opportunity

Nothing stops it, I don't think anyone really checks (especially for in-year admissions) and it is unfair. And yes, renting for years would be less than 3x private schools. We actually had reason to do this (and we didn't) - our house purchase was delayed and no amount of effort was speeding it up, and we could have chosen to rent close to the outstanding school for the first 6 months to year. We live 0.3 miles from the school and we are still on the waiting list, now quite far down it after moving up to a peak of 12th, 3 years later :( Would have gotten in any previous year (one reason for buying that house).
Basically: people are lying. And there is nothing we can do about it without knowing who they are and the details. Only parents who have already obtained a place would usually stand any chance of knowing this.
Relying on parents to report, and thinking it's parents responsibilities, is not the right approach. Other parents just don't have (and probably shouldn't have) the information to report, and many who do know have no incentive to report or even have a disincentive.
To be fair, our school has been fine so far, but I'm annoyed at the moment because there are signs that it is not working out particularly well this year for DD, for things the outstanding school is supposed to be excellent at. And we'll never get in. I kind of wish I'd been savvy enough to suss the system out from the beginning...

Namily yes you are. Anyone who knows a definite example and turns a blind eye is guilty too if allowing rightful children to be robbed of a place

Just to add to Tiggy's comment...

If the LA do decide that someone has got a place by using a false address they are required to use the correct address and see if they would have got the place anyway. If the answer is yes they are entitled to keep the place.

Relying on parents to report, and thinking it's parents responsibilities, is not the right approach

Which is why it is not the approach taken by most LAs. They actively look for applications using the wrong address, especially where there is a history of problems. Similarly if the school finds the parents using a different address to the one supplied by the LA (i.e. the one on the application form) that can trigger an investigation. But these measures won't always catch everyone, so parents should still report any suspicions.

people are lying

If the people who are now ahead of you on the list are lying it hasn't done them any good. They still don't have places.

Yes you're right Doodle, I always thought I'd shop in such a case as it is in effect buying yourself a place at the expense of someone less able to.

But I won't, because knowing them personally is trumping my principles which is rubbish and it makes me very uncomfortable. I've told them that I disapprove (as well as quoting the relevant admissions booklet stuff to scare them into doing the right thing), but I am in effect condoning a situation where there is a girl who wants to go to the preferred school who won't because of fraud.

Tiggy - do those same rules apply to houses bought in addition to the family home or only ones that are rented? They should do, obviously.

Why is it somehow better because they bought their place instead of renting it Namily? Does being wealthier make it ok?

Cheating is cheating. For every child whose parents cheat to get them in there is another child who is directly disadvantaged because the place that would have been theirs goes to the cheaters' child.

Horrible and totally immoral.

The reason I was so blunt about it was because my DC are at a school where it was rife although less so now. It does still go on though. Three different people have told me they know some one who definately cheated. I have no idea what family or families this is, myself. I do however have a distraught friend whose child has had to go to a RI school they hate, miles away, with no friends at age 4 etc whilst all her little friends moved from nursery to reception together. They can not afford to move house, rent or go private. They are devastated

Happens a lot here for the oversubscribed grammar school.

Local landlords do a roaring trade in six month rents in the shittest part of town.

School nor council don't do any checks at all.

Half way through year 7 a staggering amount of children "move" to a really posh town some distance away.

I guess six months-a year of cheap rent (I'm talking £400 a month max) is cheaper than 5 or 7 years of school fees.

Sadly it meant dd didnt get a place after she passed her eleven plus.

Can you tell I'm still bitter?

My council (Wandsworth) are, from this year, taking the view that if you own X property and rent Y property then your address for admissions purposes is taken to be X property. No matter where you are actually living.

So, no more renting a flat near the school gates to get a place. Not even if you move into it (which some well off families do "while the main home is being refurbished, dahling")

If the family owns more than one property then "additional checks will be carried out to determine which one is actually their main home". So, no buying a flat near the school gates to get a place either, unless you do a really convincing job of moving into it permanently.

Absolutely right IMO.

This still leaves a loophole however - what about parents who don't own any properties, have always rented (this doesn't necessarily mean they are less wealthy than homeowners - there are lot of ex pats in my area who choose to rent) and choose to change their rental accommodation to near the school gates, 6 months before admissions time?

They're also looking at changing the sibling priority rule, because of so many people who live close for a few years to get their first child in, then move a long way away and continue to send child 2, 3, 4 etc to the oversubscribed school.

I don't feel got at Tiggy and iK8 because I agree with you and I feel in the wrong so you're only confirming what I think anyway.

iK8 - I don't think it's better that they've bought rather than rented, that was their argument. The large family home needs various plumbing and other structural work done to it so they are moving out. They also might, at some point in the future, sell the original home as they need to release some capital and downsize. But not before 31 October...

Tiggy that's a very good point about the risk to an already fragile and bullied little girl. I think at that point they'd bite the bullet and go private (which they're against without seeing the irony paying for education in another way). And yes, I probably would shop them if it were my child they were defrauding so I am a stinking hypocrite.

Papermover - I know of more than one family that's done the renting next to CSG thing with no repercussions. I expect your house would be in the catchment if it weren't for all these families with three daughters doing that.

No my friends aren't Camden. It's a less sort-after school than that. But I agree that there are lots of girls who'd benefit from that school who aren't going there because of the actions of others (two families, five daughters!).

And actually whether the school is sought after or not is irrelevant, it only has to be oversubscribed by one for this sort of action to result in a child being defrauded.

The give away is when you have a school with a really small catchment area, and lots of cars dropping children off at the gates in the morning. A clear sign of a high number of siblings, who oddly, do not live close at all!

We are right on the edge of the CSG catchment, might get a place, might not, depending which year's figures are closest to this year's ones. And dd could probably get a music place if we made the effort (G6 on instrument). But tbh the whole deranged circus of parents who are hellbent on getting their kids into CSG by whatever means they can puts me off so much that we're probably going to put an alternative school as our first preference. That way my child has a chance of making friends who come from non-deranged families by way of a bonus.

Nlondondad this is very much the case at one if our near by schools. However I do also know one parent who told me he drives 150 yards to drop his DS at our school then drives another 700 yards to work up the road which is also insane

when we applied for a school place earlier this year the lea wanted 2 utility bill, copy of rental agreement or proof of purchase and a copy of the el register.

I think even if you are caught it is unlikely that your child is removed so actually if there a few kids In the family it is probably a price worth paying!

Horrible practise and I think the kids should be removed to send a message to everyone else

Handcream - children are removed if they are reported.

I do hope so, I saw something in the paper reporting a women who had been caught today and there was no mention of the children being removed which made me think that they were still there...

handcream I saw that story - the child never got a place (I think the fraud was detected early enough) so no removal. but prosecution anyway.