Renting in Bath and applying for primary school

[CatfordMum]

Advice needed: we are planning on selling our house in London and moving to Bath when our mortgage deal expires in June 2024. We will need three school places for our boys who will be ages 9, 7 and 4 who from September ‘24 will be in years 5, 3 and reception. For several financial reasons, we can’t sell our house before then. Would anyone advise renting from January ‘24? There are three schools in the area we like that are infants and juniors meaning you apply for reception and year 3 places. This seems sensible as then at least we’d have a chance of having two at the same school… but also expensive when moving costs a fortune anyway. Aargh! Any help or experience of similar very gratefully received.

Would DS1 and DS2 be starting school in Bath in January or would this be a rented address on paper? I'd expect the LEA to see through needing a place in Y3 for juniors in September without also needing a Y2 place now, and a quick glance at the LEA website suggests they routinely ask for, essentially, proof of leaving your old address as well as proof of moving to the new one.