Any real moral difference between a short term let for admission purposes or permanently moving

[OhDearConfused]

Question says it all really.

A short term let or a more permanent move, in either case to get you into catchment for admissions at a popular school, still has the effect of reducing the catchment area, increasing housing prices, disadvantaging the poor, and so on.

Is there a real difference?

Struggling with this at the moment, as in catchment for a not-particularly-attractive school, when many others are doing one or the other to get into another school a little further away.

Just wondering what other's views are?

'The other difference is that you seem to think there is something outrageous about putting the welfare of your own child first, but I'm not at all ashamed to say that I would put my own child first. You call it an 'I'm all right Jack' attitude, I call it being a parent. Who else is going to consider what's best for my children if I don't?'

Don't you think we all want the best for our children?

If putting my children first means another child suffers then I don't think it's particularly justified.

Morally there is no difference. If you feel guilty, put your dcs down for the local school and enjoy being part of the school community and let you dcs enjoy local friends and being kept an eye on by your neighbours.

Yes, I wouldn't do it because I wouldn't have to. I am lucky enough that I have options, I love my dc's primary school, and I'm aware that not everyone would be able to move.

If I was faced with a choice between sending my child to a crap school in the next town, or taking a short term let, I would do the latter.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

If putting my children first means another child suffers then I don't think it's particularly justified.

But it's ok for my child to suffer when I can do something about it

The 'another child' wouldn't have to suffer any more than my child is already expected to. If this were a real situation for us.

Even when the thing you can do is to commit fraud?

There is a difference between doing the best for your child and doing something wrong.

I see what you are saying but I don't think it's exactly like that.

There is a limit to the number of children who can go to a school.

Some families will have invested in the community, perhaps made sacrifices in order to move there. And someone comes along and rents a house for a few months, just to shove in in front of the child whose family lives there...firstly I don't think there are many people who could afford to keep up rent on a second home even for a few months, who could consider themselves too poor to move house, (this is crucial really - adversely to your argument I think it's mainly wealthier familes who could choose to do this) and secondly, it's cheating.

The system may well be very flawed and that's a different argument. But I think cheating is not on. You said yourself it's immoral. Why is it immoral?

If it's immoral then it's wrong.

I'm not being clear now.

What I mean is people doing this are buying their way in. Most families can't afford to rent an extra house.

So saying that if you were 'forced' to because you weren't able to move house...I'm just not sure what this scenario is that you envisage in which your sense of morality would be allowed to fly out the window.

It's immorral because it involves dishonesty.

But there are degrees of immorality in this situation.

Is it worse to rent the home without moving in than it is to temporarily move in?

Is it worse to do it when the school you want is not a designated catchment school for where you live, than it is to do it just to get a place at your own local, closest school?

It makes a big difference when siblings of successive families who have all moved away then take up places from out of catchment.
And every year a new family takes a lease on a flat, gets the first child in, move on having 'bagsed' sibling spaces, then a new family move into the leased flat and do exactly the same thing, and local families on the doorstep then find themselves locked out and travelling away from their own locality. So it isn't just lack of local engagement from the moved away families but the dislocation to a far flung school from those on the doorstep.

It's a loophole on the system, it's legal, but it's effect is to favour certain sections of the demography. Yet again. That's the experience in inner-city London, where expensive housing is cheek by jowl with council estates. I can't speak for other areas.

Are families that do this 'buying their way in' any more than another family who is able to to buy a house close enough in the first place though?

What about the family that live in rented accomodation anyway, and decide to put up with higher rent for a few months until they secure their place and then move back to the street with cheaper rents round the corner?

There are perfectly legal ways to beat the system, all will involve one child getting a place over another. Is it immoral to do either of the things suggested about that will get your child a place above someone elses, or is that ok because strictly speaking, it's not against the rules?

Its just very sad that school has become such an issue.
When I was small you just went to the school nearest where you lived,it wasnt a choice but then schools were all on a par we didnt have value added scores and league results and ofsted.

Theres so much wrong with an education system that yet again allows the 'wealthier' to 'buy' places at state schools -cos thats what it is basically .

Where I live there is a secondary school so exclusive it attracts busloads of students from far away - local kids hardly stand a chance as it has a very very strict admissions policy.

Do you mean actually moving to somewhere that is rented, or 'moving' a parent and child to a rented place near the school while keeping a house elsewhere?

The former I have no problem with; the latter is fraud.

Also if you aren't in a position to buy, it's remarkably difficult to get a long term let. SIL had to move recently so obviously looked for somewhere near a decent school as will have to apply this winter. Trying to get a landlord to agree to a 18 month lease so that she can guarantee dn will still be living there when school starts (as required by the LA in order for the place to be kept) was incredibly tricky given the standard is 6-month ASTs - luckily they finally accepted DH as a guarantor rather than requiring a year's rent up front!

I think what gets to me most is that those families with the 'nouse' are at an advantage to those who just get on with their lives assuming their child will get a decent education in their local school.

Those who have faith in the system are those that are let down by it the most. Those who work out the loopholes, win.

There should be no place in a democracy for this kind of inequality. That sounds like something a political leader would say - but so far, not one, right or left, has had the balls to do anything about it.

I shall be with you nickshick.

Either nocitrus.

Both can involve money and an opportunity that someone else doesn't have. Both can be done without a view to living there long term and becoming part of the local community. Both can involve moving away when the child is in Y1 and then getting a younger sibling in even though they now live further away.

I just think that using money to get a school place over someone else is either morally wrong or morally ok, whichever way you chose to do it.

Whether it is legally wrong or right is different, because of admissions criteria, but that's not what the dissapearing OP asked.

I hate this "it's stealing a place from another child" attitude. What you're basically saying, is that people who can afford to buy near a good school deserve a place there, and people who can't afford that have to put up with the rubbish school near their (cheaper) house.

No, what we are saying is that lying and giving false information is wrong.

Slave "Are families that do this 'buying their way in' any more than another family who is able to to buy a house close enough in the first place though?"

Tend to agree that this is an important distinction. I was not really talking about the second address just for the application process, but moving albeit only for a year - and then moving back.

There are all sorts of reasons one might want to not buy in the area (but still want the school). One might be - just as StopRainingPlease says - that you might not be able to afford the "catchment premium" (said to be 100K - 300K in some areas in London). Others might be that you just don't want to live in that area (for commuting to work reasons, for example, although the worst commute could perhaps be coped with for 6 to 12 months or whatever).

What about the family that moves "permantently" for 7 years, then moves out again? Is that any different? If so (and I know some on this thread will say it does), where is the dividing line between 1 year and 7 years when moral behaviour becomes immoral behaviour.

To the people who don't undertand how you can think something immoral but still go ahead and do it: would you steal (immoral in most peoples books) to feed a hungry child? (And in response to the "its not the same, noone there suffers" - would it be the same if you steal from a family rather than a shop?)

Moral Maze indeed

OhDear I understand that you are not suggesting a fraudulent application, but many posters would seem to be comfortable with one.
In which case they are sending a message to the child that if you don't like the rules it's okay to lie to get what you want.
That lesson in morality could come back to bite you when you are trying to parent an older teen.

I just think it's not fair if people can do this.

It is pushing in.

It's not fair because not everyone knows you can do it, not everyone thinks they should, not everyone can afford to.

It is a sadness about the way the system is set up that this loophole exists.

It's just not equitable, that's the only thing really. It's not a level playing field.
And the state system OUGHT to be.

Fwiw when I was small we had to go to the Catholic school as my mother put us there due to the horrible bullying my big sister got at our local primary.

We had no choice apart from staying there or the church option. The school we went to was horrible too, but my sister didn't get bullied any more which was good.

This was mid 70s = things were the same back then to some extent. You couldn't just go anywhere and if your local school was shit, you suffered.

Well our choices for secondary school were something like this:

1. Poor local catchment school. Around 90% of the local primary kids go on to this school.

1. Apply to out-of-catchment better school. Oversubscribed, of course, only a slim chance of getting in.

1. Go private.

1. Buy house in better catchment (more expensive than going private for 2 kids).

1. Rent in better catchment, either short-term or long-term.

It all comes down to money, doesn't it? We went private, by the way, but if you can't afford to, what then? Pushing in? I don't blame people who do, why should they be stuck with a rotten school just because they're not well off?

Imagine Child A living within (but just within) catchment - and can't afford to move in further "just to be safe". Child B lives outside.

Family of Child B moves (well) into catchment; knocking Child A out.

Whether Child B does so on the basis of a short term let as the OP is suggesting or on a permantent basis (for 7 years at least), either way it means that Child A due to lack of money (compared to child B) loses out on a place.

Not sure in the end I see a moral difference. Money in the hands of Child B's family has bought the place to the disadvantage of Child A.

(Yes, I've ignored cheating in this. But whether its cheating or not even when its not Child A loses out.)

Nobody has made the point yet that the parents are all required to pay the same tax on their earnings and investments, regardless of whether successful or failing schools are on offer to them in their local catchment area. If you consider the problem along these lines, is it really 'taking a place from another child' if you apply to attend somewhere other than the school on your doorstep? Surely all UK children should be entitled to the same educational benefits, and they shouldn't be rationed?

Boffin good point! It's not right that I pay x tax and the families up the road pay the same, yet their children get a better education. Perhaps we should be claiming some kind of crap-school-related tax allowance.

Indeed. For example in Lincolnshire, some areas have grammar schools, and a choice of places to go, and in others it's the local comp or nothing. And it's even in the same Local Authority. So same council tax, same income tax, some everything, but better doses of education the nearer you come to Margaret Thatcher's place of birth.