Moving into rented accommodation in the catchment area-when can I safely move back?

[enlondon]

I am thinking of renting a property in the catchment area of a secondary school. Once I have done this and my child is given a place (presuming everything has gone to plan and the catchment area has not all off the sudden become even smaller etc), how much longer do I need to live there before I can move safely back to our house outside the catchment area? As soon as I have filled in the application? As soon as my child is offered the place? As soon as my child has actually started in September? I actually called the LEA to ask this question and they were not sure. I asked a different LEA the same question about another school and they said that I could move out of the catchment area as soon as the application form was received! They seemed puzzled by my question though, understandably, and not sure if I trust their answer.

Aufaniae you should be fine as you've gone from rented to own home- the offenders here own their own home, then move into rented without selling their own home because they are only renting to get their child a school place they are not entitled to.

Mrsdevere that's exactly how I feel. It isn't fair that some children have access to a better education because they have the right post code. However, parents like the op robbing children like ours from places they are entitled to by law, regardless of whether or not that law is fair, is just plain immoral and downright criminal.

It's just another way of keeping out those not rich enough to buy close to the school in the first place, all this 'oooh it's fraud'. Oooh you're poorer than me and it's not fair - more like!

Round here, it is a problem for a few schools only, not a general thing.

So the resources available to the LEA - and to the schools, who also investigate if e.g. they are given an address on entry, or a change of address during the time at school, that does not match the one previously held on the system from application - can be focused very specifically on those schools. And a lot of it is automated - screens against well-known properties, screens of application address vs other addresses held ofr the same family etc.

Merci, so on the same morality it is OK for the 'realtively poor' to steal, though it should be illegal for the 'relatively rich'?

And also, merci, someone with the money to rent a second property while already owning / renting another is definitely not 'poor'... and it is often the genuinely poor who miss out in the 'sharp elbowed jockeying for position' of which fraudulent renting is one of the more egregious examples.

marinagasolina thanks. Trying not to worry, it's nervewracking!

OP, sorry for the hijack!

So let's get this straight.

Child A, who lives in street A, "deserves" a place at good school A.

But Child B, who lives in street B, doesn't deserve any such thing and has to go to bad school B.

And just so we're clear, House A is nearly always more expensive than House B.

Where exactly do "fair"/"deserving"/"immoral"/"denying Child A their rightful place" come into this?

Someone asked about homeless families. They fall into a separate category for admissions due to their vulnerability. I'm in primary and have been put over infant lass size to accommodate homeless children.

its not fraudulent, its using the rules to your own benefit. bit like the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. so long as you abide by the rules, which could mean renting for a while, and you genuinely live there.

and yes, it is crap that the truly poor can miss out, maybe some other posters who can afford to buy their way to a good education outright by buying a house in the catchment area should think on about that, instead of feeling hard done by when someone uses the rules to their benefit

anyhow, no advice for the op but certainly not criticising her for trying. the number of local govt officials being made redundant here, id be amazed if there was anyone left to investigate.

Every child deserves a good education but when the places are allocated as they are then there will always be unfairness.

My DS might deprive a child of a place in the outstanding school nearby if I choose to send him there. He will take priority over a child who lives nearer simply because he is autistic and has a Statement of SEN.....and it means finding the best school locally which can meet his needs. As it happens that is NOT "the outstanding school nearby" but the less prestigious one further away because it's half the size of all the other local schools and has a good name for pastoral care.

However in the absence of that school I might indeed choose the outstanding school (if I felt they were the best option for DS) and deprive another child of a place.

"so long as you abide by the rules, which could mean renting for a while, and you genuinely live there."

Merci, the point it that if you rent for a while, while owning / renting another house, and you have rented wholly or mainly to secure a place with no intention of that being your sole residence or home, then you are NOT abiding by the rules....

I know someone who bought a house in a good school catchment area for the purpose to get their child into the school. They didn't actually move it. They then let it out to other families so they could get into the school. They were caught when they got an application from the same address three years in a row.
The address is blacklisted now.

"offenders"
"fraud"

those posters do realise this isnt a crime don't they?

Definition of fraud:

"- Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

• A person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities."

I'd say wrongly claiming a rented property as your main residence, having moved into it temporarily for the sole purpose of gaining a 'better' school place than your permanent residence would give you, fits into the definition, wouldn't you?

But teacherwith2kids- it doesn't really matter does it? It's a civil matter, they're not going to be charged for it, they won't be punished for attempting it. The consequence is their children don't get into schools they weren't supposed to get into anyway, which isn't a punishment, it's just putting them back in their original position.

Not making a moral judgement, just sayin'

I am an advisory teacher for Looked After Children, and Ofsted have made it very clear that we should only choose schools rated as good or outstanding for children in care.

Devere I know exactly the primary you're talking about and it's bizarrely homogenous. I think it's better now they've made distance as crow flies (ie thus taking in the, literal, wrong side of the tracks.
However secondaries are bigger and given how socially crunchy (ie poor next to rich) London is, it's rare to get that exact situation. If catchments are legitimate, then whole estates shouldn't miss out. Somewhere like Camden girls is actually pretty mixed. However, as someone above says, the safe streets nearby tend to be the more expensive ones or the dodgily rented flats. So the ones who lose out are the poorer ones.
I know two families who decided to do their lofts, fancy extensions, big 500 k gut job on their houses in time for applications, moved out to catchment flats while work went on, and then moved back into fancy pad place. Both got their kids into the primary/secondary no prob and presumably the siblings will follow.
I'm sadly sceptical that this is being dealt with by authorities.

Tethersend- does "looked after" apply to private fostering over the age of 16? So does that mean that if my foster daughter was a year younger I could get her into the "outstanding" school she missed out on a place at by a couple of metres as a non-looked after year 6?

Serenity,

Well, the usual punishment here is that the child doesn't get into the (not particularly bad) school that they would have got into had fraud not been attempted - because there aren't any places left there once places have been allocated to the people who applied there properly and didn't attempt fraud.

Instead, they are allocated to the nearest school with an available plan once ALL other applications have been processed .. and that one really IS poor.

It's worse for children who get 'found out' later - there are very few in-0year places available anywhere, so they get shipped even further afield.

So there is a punishment, if you want to look at it like that - their children get to go to a significantly worse school than they would have done had fraud not been tried.

Marina, the answer is that until last year the definition was that you had to be a looked after child but it has now changed to looked after children who is in the care of the Local Authority and also children who have been looked after previously but are now adopted under the terms of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 or become subject to a residence order or special guardianship order.
Don't know whether that helps or not but that is the official definition.