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.

Our LEA have prosecuted people for doing precisely this (Essex).

Ok, let's try this from a different angle. All of you who agree with what the OP is proposing or have done it yourselves, what if you were the parents of the child who had been in catchment comfortably for the good school for years, but lost out by a couple of metres. You then find out that parents have been cheating like this, so your child most likely lost out to their child.

Talk me through how you'd feel about that please.

Lots of people move house because they want their child to go to a certain school, just like people move house to be convenient for work. The only difference is that OP doesn't want to make that move permanent.

OP you need to do everything as if you were moving permanently. The main thing is that you actually live in the rented accomodation, as otherwise it will be fraud.

Once your DD has started school you are under no obligation to remain in the catchment home - it would be a bit blatant to move away before the first half term holiday though.

It is not fraud and it is not illegal as long as you are actually moving and it is not a temporary arrangement.

Why is this more unethical than paying for years of tutoring to make your DC appear more intelligent than others, or for the entire family to fake a belief in god for a decade?

Having worked in Council Tax it would be the CTax angle that scuppers anyone trying to have two properties at once, it is known as second home discount and clearly demonstrates you are living in one property but own another.

We had this lots with people moving temporarily for jobs where the commute is too far but their intention was always to return to the "family" home.

Secondly, we don't have a "catchment" as such here, it is a if there enough places everyone gets in, if it is oversubscribed then it goes on priority and as the crow flies proximity to the school.

We lived very close to an outstanding primary, where both my children attend. We needed a bigger house, we were in a 3 bed and needed a 4 bed and so we moved house.

Our closest secondary school is outstanding, that was sheer luck, nothing to do with planning but we have been here 3 years and ds1 is in year 5. I would be incensed if someone rented to beat my son to his place in the outstanding secondary.

"All of you who agree with what the OP is proposing or have done it yourselves, what if you were the parents of the child who had been in catchment comfortably for the good school for years, but lost out by a couple of metres. You then find out that parents have been cheating like this, so your child most likely lost out to their child. "

But if the OP bought a house further in catchment, so getting a place "legitimately", the child on the edge would still lose out. Is this actually any better for that child that loses out? If so, why? Because the OP didn't "cheat" an unfair system? Because they spent more money to achieve their aims? Or what?

Why are people moving house permanently - who can afford the inflated rent or house prices due to proximity to a great school - not considered to be cheating children out of their rightful school places?

As I've said before, I cannot and will not argue with people who move house permanently, because that is allowed according to the rules. Renting with no intention of permanently moving into that home is not allowed so I can and will argue.

I am never going to budge on that, because I will not stop fighting my foster daughters corner. Ever. I'm simply the parent on the other side of the argument whose child you are robbing of a place if you rent. Sorry.

You do realise the number of people who live their whole lives in rented accomodation? I don't and will never own a home. I have moved house more times than I can remember, at least once a year since I left my parent's (council) house at 18. Living somewhere in rented accomodation which turns out not to be permanent is not fraud in itself.

Renting out an owned property and renting somewhere else for you to live while you try and sell off that property, is also not fraud.

Marinagasolina..don't foster children or cared for children have priority places? In most schools SEN statemented children who name the school or cared for children DO get a priority of a place if you can prove it is the best school for them. Don't worry!

Renting in catchment area to try to gain a place when having no intention of remaining in the area is cheating the system and is rightly investigated carefully by LEAs. The very fact the OP 'dressed up' her question to the LEA indicates that even she on some level knows it is is morally reprehensible.

Also, in some areas, thanks to families doing this, some DC's end up with NO school place, or one that is impossible to get to.

Simply because families with 3/4 DC's rent one of the 1-bed flats right next to the school, for the duration of applications.

So someone who isn't in the catchment for any other school, but is right on the outskirts of the catchment for the school where large families have rented an unfeasibly small flat end up with either no school place at all, or one that is the next closest 'as the crow flies' (how our LA determines admission distances), but is too far to walk AND is two buses away that with dodgy connections would require you to LEAVE the house at 6.45am to get there for 8.35.

It also means 4yo's or 11yo's waiting around for 30 minutes in the town centre for the next bus.

All because someone decided to try to 'play' the system and rent a tiny 1-bed flat for a large family near to the local school.

Thankfully, my LA has got a LOT stricter on this - those flats are now 'blacklisted', and ANY application from them is treated as potentially fraudulent, meaning that practice is almost disappearing.

The issue is that only two secondaries out of 7 in my town have even a 'good' rating from Ofsted. And the GCSE percentages at the other 5 are dire. They are genuinely 'bad' schools, in ALL senses of the word.

Multiple teachers in GCSE years, in and out of SM, name changes, HTchanges, SLT changes, yet still no real improvement, bar one of them.

So we are heading on the way to a 3/4 split if good schools and REALLY bad ones.

Posted too quickly there!

The other 4 schools have noted bullying issues, thieving problems, drug taking is rife, nobody wants their DC's there.

I lucked into a social housing HA house on a private estate practically on the doorstep of one of the 'good' schools. I wouldn't leave this area until ALL of my DC's have got into Secondary - and as DS3 is just 2yo, that will be quite some time!!

Doing what the OP suggests is immoral, and leaves someone else's 4yo or 11yo having to travel way out of catchment for their local school, and not having local friends.

It's made worse in areas like mine that doesn't even HAVE enough school places for every DC...

Schmedz, looked after children only get priority if they are in the care of the local authority (or were, and have been adopted or subject to an SGO)- private fostering arrangements mean that the child is not in the care of the local authority, so does not get priority.

On the other side tiggy, if you put on your school forms the address of a house you owned but did not currently live in, which was both on the market and had another family living in it with a verifiable tenancy agreement, you would certainly be commiting fraud.

Yy tiggy- this happened to a friend of mine who rented a flat whilst waiting for her shared ownership flat to be finished- she had bought it off plan, but the company went bust, meaning that at the time she applied for her son's school place, she was unsure if and when it would ever be finished.

In the end, it was finished two months after school places were offered and she moved in. Another parent whose child hadn't got a place at the school her son had, reported her to the LEA who came in very heavy-handed threatening prosecution and investigated for months until finally dropping the case. It was a very distressing time for her.

I should add, the flat she moved into was ten minutes' walk from the school, but would have been too far away to get a place.

Schmedz- the trouble is that my foster daughter is now in year 11, she's only been with me for about a month. When she was in year 6 she was still living with her parents in a house which had been in the catchment area for the local outstanding school for years, but the area reduced rapidly that year and she missed out by a couple of metres. She ended up at the crap school everyone tries to avoid instead- this is why I get so angry with people trying to cheat the system because I know this goes on in our area, so it's highly likely DD lost out on a place at the good school to these people given there were a couple of metres in it.

My foster daughters life has been completely upside down over the past year or so because she got involved with drugs at this school- the school she narrowly missed out on a place at has no where near the drug issue this one does. So I do have to wonder if her life would have turned out differently.

Even if she was year 5 and I was about to apply for a secondary place for her, she wouldn't get priority because she's in a private fostering agreement, private fostering does not get priority because she's not classed as vulnerable (that's a whole separate issue I could argue all day about). Plus I don't actually know what we're in catchment for here, because I don't have my own kids so it's never been an issue.

The point is, the system isn't fair for many reasons. But just because its not, that doesn't give parents permission to break the law and rob other children.

Why not ring up your local authoritiy and ask them. They're the ones who know the rules.

If you are still paying council tax on your old property the council will be perfectly well aware of what you're doing
Do you seriously imagine you're the first person to come up with this ingenious ruse? It doesn't work.

One of my greatest friends (of 30 years) did this 2 years ago. She emailed her close friends to let us know how smart she was being.

I haven't spoken to her since and doubt I will.

Shame as one of her DSs is my godson.

Please accept that people, including those close to you, will really judge you for this.