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.

AFAIK, Mrsdevere, it's open-ended, ie any child who had been adopted.

Thanks MrsdeVere and admission, all hypothetical as DFD is year 11, I'm just interested, so thank you anyway.

It's not an SS arrangement so even if DFD was a year younger she wouldn't be covered under the new rules.

What really makes me angry is that according to the rules, my foster daughter lost out on a place at the "outstanding" school with good results and no "major problems" by a couple of metres. In all previous years, she would have been allocated a place. As it was, she lost out and ended up at the crappy school where she was influenced by certain characters and went majorly off the rails. I know that parents try to avoid the school she's at however they can, so there is no doubt in my mind that parents attempted what the OP proposes. I'm not saying my foster daughter lost out on a place at the good school to the child of someone like the OP, but it's a definite possibility.

Now, had she lived closer to the crappy school and further away from the 'good' school she'd been in catchment for all years previously, she would have gone to the crappy school according to the rules and there would never have been any question about it. I accept that. But the fact is that according to the rules, fair or not, any other year she would have been within catchment for the good school, and it's highly likely she lost out to someone renting to get into the good school, because of the contrast between the two schools which became dramatically worse in the couple of years leading up to her parents having to apply.

I'm not saying that the rules are fair, but I am saying that she could have been robbed of a place at the good school by a parent breaking the rules which are in place. If DFD hadn't gone to a school with a drug problem and with excellent pastoral care like the good school (her parents haven't been interested in her for a long time), she may well have not gone off the rails like she did. I'm not saying she wouldn't have done, but due to the environment she would have been in, it would have been less likely.

I accept that parents just want to do what's best for their kid and don't care about breaking the rules, but this is how it looks to the parents on the other side of the fence. It's equally crap here too.

Admission is correct, and there is no post-adoption time limit.

"Tethersend- does "looked after" apply to private fostering over the age of 16?"

Mrs.DeVere is correct in that the child must be subject to a section 20, full care order or, under the new code, have been in the care of the local authority and have subsequently been adopted or are subject to an SGO.

However, that is somewhat academic as Looked After Children do not automatically get priority for post-compulsory education.

I think a tie-break system of random allocation is the only way to effectively deal with the polarisation of schools.

Tiggytape I agree. I also think we need to be doing more to improve the schools no one wants- there's a reason no parents want to send their child there.

What irritates me is that the parents who cheat the system to get their child a place would be the first on here complaining if it was their child who lost out, and yet they are the ones causing other children to lose out. I don't understand how these people can sleep at night, I really don't.

I am genuinely shocked at the amount of judgemental comments that the OP is getting. For what it is worth OP, I do not blame you in the slightest for wanting to do this. My DS is only a baby, but we will be moving house in order to hopefully get him in to our primary school of choice. For us this will be a permanent move, but only because we can't afford to rent another house in the area and keep the one we have got.

All of the people who are so opposed to this, is it because you all live in areas where the school system works for you? I am currently in the catchment area for one primary school which has a bad reputation, and one secondary school which is in special measures- not ideal for my DS.

I grew up in a ridiculous area which had multiple good secondary schools within walking distance of my house, yet two were faith schools and two were grammars, and I didn't get a place at any of them. My only other options were to go to a school which was in special measures, or a school which was an hour away on the bus. My parents were not happy about either, so they financially crippled themselves and sent me to a private school. Luckily for me, they were able to do this, but a lot of people can't, me included. No one should be forced to lie/cheat/pay/move to get their child into a suitable school, but the reality is that some people have to because the alternative doesn't work for their children.

Doodle I'm absolutely not happy with the way the system works here, as Ive illustrated through the case of my foster daughter.

I do however feel that she was robbed of a place at what would otherwise have been her catchment school if it wasnt for people like the OP cheating the system. I'm not saying it's fair, but if you live in the catchment of school a and don't want your kid to go there, then move. If you genuinely take my child's place because you live closer to school b than her, then I can't argue with that because that's how the system works. But if you rent and pretend to live closer than her with no intention of staying in that house, then you can't have it both ways, you're breaking the law and you're depriving my child. My foster daughter matters too thank you.

one secondary which is in special measures, not ideal for my DS.

Doodle I'm intrigued, why is it not ideal for your DS, but absolutely fine for someone else's child? Because that's the implication.

But I really don't think you can blame people for wanting to cheat the system, because the system is ridiculous. It doesn't make someone a bad person for wanting the best for their child, it's all anyone wants. I do appreciate that there are two sides to this argument, but it is the system which needs to be blamed, not individual people.

But in the process of getting what's "best for your child" you've broken the law. As I said before, if you genuinely live closer to a good school than my DD and get her place, I can't argue with you. If you rent to take a place from a child like her, then I can and I will.

I'll ask again, why is a school in special measures "not ideal" for your DS who lives in the catchment area, but perfectly acceptable for my foster daughter who would be in catchment for the nice school if people didnt cheat the system?

The school that is in special measures isn't ideal for anyone's child! I never implied that is was?! But why should my child (and other people's children) be forced to go there because of our postcode? I deserve for my child to go to a good school just as much as the people who are in the catchment for the good secondary school in my area. (Both schools are of equal distance to my house- so I fail to understand why one is available to me and the other is not.)

pansyflimflam - Around 1400 fraudulent applications are detected by LAs each year. In some LAs this isn't a problem at all but others find significant numbers of fraudulent applications.

Doodledumdums - If you cheat you are forcing another child to go to the special measures school who would otherwise have got a place at the "good" school. You are saying that your child's needs are more important than obeying the law and more important than other children's needs.

The special measures school will be getting lots of attention to ensure it comes out of special measures quickly. You may well find that in a year or two it is better than the "good" school.

OP I am not condoning your actions but I 100% understand them. Since 1 March I have wondered where on earth we have gone wrong. We live in a town with very good schools and have not managed to secure a place in any of them. We have been pushed out of town to a school which has just come out of special measures. We subsequently visited it and found it to be a complete misfit for our son.

One of the schools which is the nearest has a rule which I have never heard of before. Once it gets oversubscribed it looks at the distance to an alternative school and if you are nearer to an alternative school than the next pupil on the list you get pushed down. The only snag here is that the alternative school is full! Mad rule and I don't understand what business it is of the school to look at how near you are to the alternate school if that alternate school is either very full/oversubscribed/complete misfit/one I may not have put down on my application form for my child.

So yes we are facing a bleak outlook and everything hangs off an appeal. I can understand desperate parents.

Doodle- you said that the school in special measures was 'not ideal for my DS.' That in itself implies that it's not ideal specifically for your child, and that it's closer to being ideal for another. If that wasn't what you meant then I apologise.

That aside, as PRH said, anyone who rents while still owning their own home with no intention of remaining in the rented property any longer than necessary to get their child into a 'good school' they would not have been given a place at from their actual home is cheating the system, and therefore breaking the rules and indeed the law. By doing this, you are depriving a child who would otherwise have had a place at the good school of just this, and forcing them into the failing school. I am NOT saying that the system is fair, because I don't think it is, but as things stand it is the law in this country when it comes to choosing a school for your child. Therefore, by breaking the law to get your child into a better school than they would have otherwise been allocated according to your postcode, you are implying through your actions that the failing school is not good enough for your child, but perfectly fine for someone else's. As guardian to a child who missed out on a place at an outstanding OFSTED rated school by a couple of metres from her actual home in an area where this cheating the system goes on, I am going to take it incredibly personally, particularly given the things my foster daughter has been caught up in at this school which she would have been statistically less likely to encounter at the outstanding school. Sorry.

According to the law, if you live in an area in which your postcode dictates you can get into a failing school but not an outstanding one, then you have these options:

1. you can move house (as I've said before, if you permanently relocate to a house closer to school A than my child, I cannot and will not argue with you, because you are acting within the law and the rules)

or 2) you can go private. I accept that's not an option for everyone, but for some it is.

If neither of those are feasible, then that does NOT give you permission to break the law and deprive someone else's child of a place at a good school , for the reasons I outlined above. Sorry. I'm not saying it's fair, but it's the law, and in this country we are bound to the law. You can campaign to improve the standard of the school you are allocated. You can appeal. You can work with your child's teachers to ensure they get the best possible out of their education- as a teacher in a failing school I would love it if the parents were more on board. But don't break the law and take the place of a child who should be entitled to one according to the rules, that's immoral and unfair and indeed criminal.

All this talk of "cheating" and "fraud".... The system is blatantly unfair. Why the hell shouldn't people "cheat" if otherwise they would get assigned a rotten school on the basis of their postcode?

And if all the people in the bad postcode got "legitimate" places at the bad school by moving into the catchment, as some of you seem to be suggesting, what then? The overall problem doesn't go away. There are still a fixed number of places at the good school, so someone has to lose out.

Yes but sometimes the 'good' school is perceived as such because it's historically the one that people move/cheat/lie their way into and these parents tend to be the ones who are more switched on or committed to education. The chaotic families, the homeless families, the refugees, the traveller families, they all tend not to be in a position to sign a church register for three years or rent a flat in catchment for six months. So they get assigned the 'bad' school in disproportionate numbers and while many are high achievers, statistically these groups are more likely to underachieve at school. The 'good' school meanwhile gets supposedly better and better because of what Fiona Millar calls the 'drift to posh' in admissions.
Allowing switched-on people to cheat is not the way to tackle the varying quality of schools. Quite the contrary.

PS Mrsdevere I agree with you re. the income inequality in islington. I find it quite depressing.