No judgment please — has anyone actually been checked and removed from a school for being out of catchment?

[Uptownmom]

Hi all,

Please no judgment — I’m just looking to hear real experiences from other parents.

We own a flat in a good catchment area, which we currently rent out (it’s an HMO). At the moment, we’re living in a different part of the city that we really love and that works well for our family, but the local schools near us aren’t as strong as the ones in the catchment for our rental property.

Our baby is only 1 now, so school is still a few years off, but I’ve been thinking about the possibility of using our rental flat address to apply when the time comes — even though we won’t be living there full-time. I know it’s not the “correct” way to go about it, but like many parents, I want to give my child the best education I can without uprooting our lives unnecessarily or putting strain on us financially.

That said, I’m nervous about what could happen. Has anyone actually been checked and removed from a school for not truly living at the catchment address? Are councils really investigating this kind of thing? If so, how common is it, and how do they check?

I’d really appreciate any honest insight or stories — again, no judgment please. I’m just trying to understand the real-world risks and how this plays out in practice.

You haven't considered that the schools might see a reversal of fortunes by the time your baby is old enough to attend. Schools are upgraded and downgraded all the time so your plan is flawed.

You're also shortsighted not to realise that committing school place fraud has consequences. The school in your preferred area will be familiar with cheating parents like you. Don't think your scam won't be unnoticed by both the school & education authority. Do it honestly & move to the better area for schooling choices.

No they don't 🙄 there is no requirement to have been living in the catchment area for 2 years, only that you live there at the time of application. They won't be able to prove that though and will get caught.

It’s interesting because buying a property in a school catchment wouldn’t evoke judgement.

Either way, money gives advantages, and that’s not really news to me.

I know of a girl who’s family did actually move before the cut off date to apply, to be in the priority area for a grammar school, and continued travelling 12 miles back every day for primary school. However they hadn’t managed to sell their old house (I suspect deliberately so and were planning to move back once the child had started at the school) and were still paying council tax on it…council viewed it as an address of convenience and cancelled her whole application so they had to reapply as late applicants and take what was left.

My nephew lost his primary place a couple of weeks before he started. I don’t think the LA did much checking (most people where I live get their first choice but other places - Birmingham famously - do lots of checks) - I suspect he was reported by one of the other parents who knew through the nursery that he lived a couple of miles away but had a place whereas children in the same village had not got one. We see it all the time on here after allocation day - people know where other kids live and if a child who lives further away gets a place over their kid they will fight for their place.

An education system designed for people who don’t care about education. Yay!

If your child is only 1 then you have about 3.5 years to sell your current home and find a property in the same location as your flat.
I am in Birmingham and they are very thorough with checks. I know of many people who had places cancelled in both the local primary and secondary schools

Our reception teachers do a home visit
yes other checks are made as well, why start school life lying through your teeth

A few things:

1. schools can, and do check. Usually by council tax.
2. Schools usually do a home visit for the teacher to meet the child. How will you do that if you don’t actually live there?
3. have you considered how you will handle the commute every day, and the impact a long commute to the other side of town might have on a little child who is already being worn out by their first experiences of school?
4. If every child there is local to the school apart from yours then your child isn’t going to have the same social life as the other children - play dates etc will involve travel so others may not be willing to come.
5. As above, with secondary school - will they end up at the same one as their friends when the time comes? If they go to the secondary school nearest to their primary with the rest of their cohort will they be able to have the same independence at the same time as their peers, when it comes to time for walking home on their own, meeting their friends independently etc?
6. Lastly, you may be able to mitigate all these factors. But you are potentially taking a space away from a local child whose family don’t have the capacity to get them to and from a further away school and facilitate social engagements etc. but who now won’t get a space at their nearest school thanks to you. How do you feel that is fair?

I knew a couple of families who appeared to be doing this at ds's primary. I wasn't going to report anyone as I'm not a snitch, also back then the school was recovering from a bad patch and had only just filled up. The parents didn't ever invite people home but just played in the park near the school, which was unusual for that school and seemed a shame, though I'm sure they coped.

The thought of worrying about being dobbed in for 7 years would put me off tbh.

In our area they do stringent checks ,so it could be difficult

We moved into the area of a fantastic school when I was pregnant,because we could afford it
I don’t think I am in a position to take the moral high ground

I mean… you could just actually move to the flat and rent out the other house?

In my area they ask for your council tax reference number at the point of application so you would need to be paying council tax for the flat at the appropriate time. They also ask for two proofs of address for the child which is harder than you would think if you don’t receive benefits and your child is not having ongoing medical treatment. I ended up asking the doctor and dentist to provide a letter confirming the address (had to pay the doctor, which is fair enough as NHS; the private dentist provided it for free). The point is that your child would also need paperwork to show they live at the address.

It’s worth being aware that some councils will disregard your application address if you own another property within x miles. However, the rules massively vary from council to council so your best bet is to get on your local authority website and research the rules so you can see what you would need to do to comply with them. No judgement from me - we all want what’s best for our kids; many people move house to get into a good school and this is no different really - but I do think it would be hard to travel to a primary across town every day, there and back, for seven years (longer if you have more kids). Ours is only five minutes walk away and it makes such a difference. As you have plenty of time, I would consider either moving properly near the better school or researching schools near your current house to see if there are any better options (church schools etc.).

I'm judging you.
My daughter was the only child in her primary school not to get a place at our local high school. We were 8 meters further than the last allocated place. Which was odd because the child in her class who lived 3 miles further away, but whose grandmother lived near the school, got in.

There are actual real children who don't get to attend their local school because of people like you.

Also everyone makes a big deal of the home visit - I am pretty sure you could just decline it. There’s nothing in the admissions policy to say a place will be withdrawn if you don’t let the reception teacher come round to your house!

You’d have to have it empty and pay council tax on it and put the flat as your main residence. If you kept it that way from the admissions opening to after offer day, you then “move” to your new home (your current house).

It’s not quite as simple as that though, because schools do home visits.

Apart from all that, wouldn’t you feel embarrassed around the new people you’d meet at the school?

The biggest thing, too, is that all the other children will live next to each other, but you’ll live on the other side of the city, driving over. You’d be out of the community for play dates etc.

How bad is your local school really?

A home visit from a teacher is different to a compliance check if they suspect fraud.

Although home visits are optional. We declined one.

You are asking for advice on how to commit fraud, so people will judge you. Framing it as you just want the best for your child is entitled. You realise the parents living in the other flats near your rental also want the best for their child, who has less privilege in life.

The answer to your question is that it is unknown. Many oversubscribed secondaries will investigate if you own 2 properties within 10 miles of each other. Your area may not bother, if it's less of an issue for them. You would be 'at risk' even once your child started school, as if they did investigate, you could lose the place.

Given the flat is an HMO and assuming legally registered as one with the council, using it as an address would almost certainly immediately flag it as potentially fraudulent.

Most councils look to see if you have another property in the area (20 miles is a commonly used cut off) and if one’s obviously a family home and another a flat then again more fraud flags raised.

I think you’d be absolutely nuts to even consider it. That’s even before the moral argument is considered.

I wouldn't.
You submit evidence of where you live when you apply.
Teachers come to visit.
What about when they want friends over? What about if those friends have teachers at the school as parents (happened to me, but I am not lying about where I live so no issue).

Surely if you're desperate to get in and the school is over subscibed, you move into the HMO permanently as your family home. What you're planning could not only mess up your DCs first year of school but it may have implications for your HMO. If you tell the council the property is no longer a HMO and you live there, you may not get permission to use it as a HMO in the future. If the school is on it you need to prove it is your sole and main residence and this involves letting the council know that the property is no longer a HMO, applying to vote from the address, setting up utilities, moving doctors and dentist living there when home visits happen and removing tenants etc.

would you tell me how to rob a bank please ? More money would really help give my child a better life

The Local Authority have withdrawn offers for 2 parents at 2 of our schools in the last 3 years for fraud (I work for a Trust). One appealed and was fried alive by the panel for their behaviour.

I have a friend who is a primary headteacher, and she says annually there are 4-5 applicants removed once they check the catchment.