Graveney - Renting in catchment for admissions purposes

[StockwellLiving]

I am thinking about renting for a 12 month period or so from this summer to cover up to beginning of Y7 for DD in Sept 2013. And then moving back out.

I know (most people think) renting is wrong (and often discussed here). I actually also think its wrong, but I also know others do it (and not sure why we should be the only one not "playing the game", and I do want to avoid my local catchment school (have no religion, no money (for indies), average DD with no chance of her passing selection tests).

I am not starting this thread to get into the rights and wrongs of it - I only want to ask the very specific question: Do "renters" get caught and are places actually withdrawn?

I am asking about Graveney, not in general. I know from threads on MN that some LAs do try and look into short-term renting. But somehow I think that this particular school and this particular LA don't really care (happy to have aspirational middle classes moving into catchment) ...... so do they look into whether the rental is permanent or not, whether the renters have an owned (proper) home (rented out for a year)

Just wondering as it seems its increasingly popular to do this ....

Apparently opening mid September on a temporary site...

www.arkbolingbrokeacademy.org/Mainfolder/Bolingbroke-Letter-to-all-parents---August-2012.pdf

Not surprised as they only started the building works about two months ago!

Oh dear! Does that mean you have DC(s) attending the Bolingbroke Academy, BeingFluffy? Rather disruptive for them....

No - thankfully. Found it on the internet. DH has an interest in the area as he works for the LA and hears all the gossip.

Fluffy, I suspect the two authorities have different approaches for historical reasons. RBKC is really short of school places, and even shorter of sites suitable to build secondary schools. Wandsworth 15 years ago probably had more than enough places and was happy to take a number of students from Lambeth and other boroughs, with the probably assumption that pupils willing to travel into the borough would tend to be the better motivated. (Some over-lap with "middle class" but not entirely. There are plenty of less well off including first generation immigrants who want the best for their children and a clear pattern of pupils travelling to Battersea Park School away from Stockwell Park and Lilian Baylis when the latter schools were at their most troubled.)

A few things have happened since then. Demand in Wandsworth has grown:

1. generally population, and birth rates, in London have grown.
2. People started moving to Wandsworth because of their good quality primary schools. Not for nothing was Wandsworth the original nappy valley and a decade ago it was said that Wandsworth had the highest proportion of under 5s anywhere in Europe. This pipeline is now feeding into its secondary schools.

The casualty has been Lambeth, who historically exported a large proportion of their school population to local boroughs, at both primary and secondary level. As boroughs like Westminster, Wandsworth and Southwark have faced increasing demand from their own residents there are fewer places for Lambeth residents and with its own population increases Lambeth has the double whammy.

The catchment for Graveney is now tiny. However the good news is that Chestnut and Ernest Bevin have really benefited from a settled population who have been in the Wandsworth School system from the start and are heaps better than they were.

Sorry for the long and slightly nerdy post. A long time ago I was involved in a campaign to prevent Lambeth closing a school and selling off the land. Such a proposal would be unimaginable now even to the most cash-hungry council and it did not take a lot of vision even back then to realise this.

NeedMoreSleep - the final double whammy for Lambeth has been that Lambeth schools have improved so much over the last few years at primary and secondary level, that more parents are choosing to stay, rather than move to Surrey or go private - demand has risen hugely.

Victims of their own idiocy (I know exactly the school sale you talk of), and then success!

But they have also managed to open 2 new schools over the last 5 years, and have another big secondary opening in 2013.

Agree. Part of this is because whilst a decade or so ago it was reasonably easy for a motivated Lambeth parent to get a place in an out of borough school and other boroughs liked to take this group it is now much harder. So people are staying within borough and previously very challenged schools who offered very limited subject and level choice, now have a more comprehensive intake with a good cohort from the upper end. It is not for nothing that Stockwell Park is advertising its "grammar" stream on the back of buses.

Schools improve and demand increases. Anywhere but Lambeth this would be seen as a virtuous cycle. I suspect they are still short an awful lot of school places. At one point a few years back I was told off gently by the then Executive Member for Education, who I knew, for sending my son private. I pointed out that Lambeth had failed to offer us any school place at 11+. (It had been a notoriously difficult year.) He did not disagree and suggested that Lambeth were short over 20 Primary Schools and several secondaries.

Demand for Private overall is increasing. Lambeth has very few (is Streatham High the only one?) However I suspect that this demand is generated by the increasing numbers of very rich living in London and many better-off middle-income Lambeth residents have been priced out. So you are right. Another whammy.

I phoned Graveney school admissions dept, and spoke to the admissions secretary (this was two years ago, admittedly). she told me she was aware of the problem of people renting locally only for them to move out of the area. She said to me that there was nothing they could do about it, and what did i suggest? I was pretty taken aback, as it's pretty obvious what they could do. For starters, every child should have a local address, not just the eldest child. I know of a wealthy family who did the "Graveney Shuffle"as it's known around here - ie rented for six months to get eldest child into Graveney. (They have four children). In the interim they spent over £100k doing up their house in SW12. they could have afforded to send their children to private school, but instead chose to play the system and cheat a local child out of a genuine change. Whatever the defenders of this system say, it is morally indefensible to do that IMO. While I could have done the same thing, I just couldn't bring myself to do it in the end, tempted as I was. We ended up paying for dS to attend a private school, which we can ill afford to do (neither of us being City workers). Thank god Bolingbroke has opened up, where our younger son has just started. But it's shameful that this still goes on.

I emailed Wandsworth admissions about this issue as I feel very strongly that renting temporarily for the purposes of school admission is morally repugnant. I got an email back saying they check addresses thoroughly. If the school/LA are tacitly encouraging this practice, I hope it blows up in their faces. If I lived locally I would be straight onto the local councillors and MP.

Hello I've just found this v old (and vv interesting thread!) and hope that some of you might still be available for wise advice on this matter!

We are also thinking of moving to FD to get our eldest DS into Graveney but please hold your fire.....!!

We really truly want to move into the community and stay there! We will sell our current home to buy in FD and that will be that. No more moving....

My question is ... how close is close enough? Some of you have referred to friends who lived 'a few streets away' and still didn't get in but what exactly does that mean. I've looked at the WBC brochure on secondary entry for this year and, if I'm reading it right, children up to 913m were offered places last year. Does that sound right? And are there any particular factors (eg changes in admissions policies) that are on the cards that would make a massive difference to that?

Many many thanks in advance....

MM

Hi - I don't have any inside knowledge, but I would expect the distance to shrink because the admissions policy has changed for this year ( and probably the future but who knows?) Last year and the year before siblings only had priority if they were siblings of the non-selection places, which meant there were fewer siblings overall and therefore more places awarded on distance. This year it changed back to the previous policy of all siblings having priority, which means a number of siblings who would not have priority before will now get places. I would therefore expect the overall number of siblings to go up and the distance places and distance catcent to go down,IYSWIM.

I would go for around 600m to be absolutely sure, depending on when you want to get your eldest child in. Two years ago we were outside the area at just under 800 metres. Last year we would have been well inside but as Classicsgirl says the area is going to start shrinking again. They have also changed the way they measure this year (now doing it in straight lines rather than walking routes) so maybe you can be a little further as the crow flies but I'm not really sure what effect this change will have. If you are going to all the trouble of moving, make sure it is really close!

Bear in mind that the catchment area will not only shrink (because of the siblings rule) it will also change shape because of the way distances are measured

Some streets which have usually been considered 'safe' will be out - the gains will be generally made on the Church Lane side of the catchment - traditionally Graveney renters and buyers have moved into the rather naicer streets around Moyser Road but this side will probably be the disadvantaged side

Ladies thanks so much for your replies. Yes irisgrey it's a v big financial decision we really don't want to get wrong! I wonder if Wandsworth would let us into their 'straight line measurement' tool!! We've driven round the neighbourhood and are really excited about the potential move.

I'd kind of heard about the ups and downs in the sibling policy but wasn't sure where it was right now. I guess that expanding it back to include siblings of all children ever admitted on the basis of the test will have a major impact on the catchment area. Did they implement that rule very long ago in the first place? Just wondering if I should check out what the catchment was back then if not too long ago....

My DS is in Yr 4 just now so would not be entering for another two years. The thing is we need to sell our house for financial reasons anyway...husband losing his job and wants to work for himself so all a bit scary and risky and we think we should downsize house now to feel a bit safer....so we are wanting to make the move as soon as .. really. Plus there are the obvious advantages of feeling well settled in the area before he starts, and obviously NOT looking like we've parachuted in temporarily!

Thanks again for your help and advice. I greatly appreciate it.

Best,

MM

WOW! Have just done a search for properties near Graveney school which are for sale. The cost of those homes would pay my two children's private school fees many, many , MANY times over!

Very best of luck to get into the area you are hoping for (and then to also get a school place).

Something has happened recently in the larger area there has been another massive jump in prices look for previously sold prices on the same streets, some have gone up by 50% ASKING price in less than 1 year (and no not home improvements)

will be interesting to see what happens to them

MrsMilk, you might want to consider that the younger siblings of clever kids are often (but not always I know) pretty smart themselves, so many of them could get in on the test, and not need to rely on the fact that they are siblings.So sibling category may not be significantly affected.

Call Graveney after 1st March to see how far out they are going-a lot of guesswork at the moment with the change in measurement. Then come back and tell us!

But surely the test is so tight, it must be just 1 question in it for most of the kids, maybe even 1/2 a question

BTW I was told distances will go down when it comes to straight lines

Yes, the address that was 913m away by shortest safe walking distance works out as about 650m in a straight line (it was on display at the last open day).

lambone, the younger siblings of clever kids may be clever themselves, but they are unlikely to take the test if they get in automatically as siblings. Which means that the kids that get on via the test will be new kids without older siblings, so the change will shrink the catchment.

Siblings will be given a place anyway so it means that even if they do take the test (as all Wandsworth pupils do), it doesn't matter what they get

The end result should be that the cohort of high achieves at the school is larger - let's face it, children scoring on the 97th percentile are still very bright but would not get a test place. The downside for local, averagely achieving children is that the catchment will get smaller. It will also mean that house prices in streets which are in the very immediate surrounds will start fetching silly prices ...

It's important to remember that IMO while Graveney is an excellent school if your child is in the top two streams, it doesn't serve the lower achieving children as well, so I wouldn't move just to get into the school unless I was pretty sure my child was a high achiever

If my memory serves me correctly, the Admissions Lady at Graveney (who used to be at DS's school) is lovely and very helpful and I'm sure will be very reasonable about sharing collated information on distance etc....once the hysteria of 1st March is done with.

Presumably if it's being done on straight distance now, you could probably do a DIY job with a pin and a piece of string/thread to get some idea of what might/might not be in catchment....?

Aren't the Graveney teachers' children also factored into the admissions criteria now, so that could potentially skew chance of getting a place for one's DC somewhat - or not....

CecilyP, everyone applying to a Wandsworth school has to take the Wandsworth year 6 test, so if a sibling gets in on test, the fact that they are a sibling doesn't come into it.

Yes, but that's not going to make a huge difference to numbers - what the school is hoping for is that they'll get a lot of bright siblings who just miss getting in on the test but still get very high scores

There's not going to be much incentive for children to try as hard as they possibly could if they know that whatever score they get they'll still get in...

Of the children I know in extension, very few of the guaranteed to be in catchment children scored high enough marks on the test to get on as one of the top 63 .. However they are now more than holding their own against out of catchment children who'd scored 100%

That is exactly what has happened with my ds2 who scored quite highly but nowhere near enough for a selective place. Why? Because he knew he was getting in anyway so did about a quarter of the practice his older brother did. He is no less intelligent.

Given the considerable effect of the significant selective intake, is Graveney performing any better than other reputable comps? With the more average spectrum of intake? I'm not saying it's a bad school, but isn't it's reputation down to the super-selective places? The new admissions policies seem to be support keeping the results up by influencing the intake.

If you are moving specifically for a school I would move somewhere with a good back-up plan. Are the other local schools good? Do you know that Graveney will actually suit your child? (as far as such a prediction is possible)

Reading down this old thread - interesting to see the comments on Stockwell Park which is now called Platanos College, is 'outstanding' and had excellent results in the last round!