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Secondary education

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Original poster

Would you snitch?

76 replies

Smelliottsmum · 05/03/2018 18:20

I am pretty sure that a mum from my son’s school has lied about her address to get her child a place at a berry in demand secondary school. As the crow flies we are quite a lot nearer to said school than she is. My child did not get a place.
I’m tempted to report them. Just wondered if anyone else has done so?

OP posts:
cantkeepawayforever · 05/03/2018 19:57

Don't use it as part of your appeal - just send it now, as a normal decent concerned citizen would / should.

Then you can prepare your own appeal, hoping that you are at least on a level playing field with other appelants.

gussyfinknottle · 05/03/2018 19:58

Ha ha. It's usually me posting that people should snitch on liars and frauds.
I'm so beaten down by the admissions process (and trying to hide that from my dd) that I am not my usual self.

BackforGood · 05/03/2018 20:11

'snitch' ? Are you 12 ?

If I thought someone had lied to get a place, then yes, I would report it so the LA could investigate. Then the person whose place it rightly should have been could have the place that should be theirs according to the rules. Of course, as others have said, it is possible your information isn't complete, and there might be a valid reason according to the criteria.

Rewn7 · 05/03/2018 20:23

”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

It’s not ‘snitching’... it’s doing the right thing.

savoyCabbage · 05/03/2018 20:27

I would. I know someone who put their parents address and someone reported them. They got a letter asking them to provide evidence, which they couldn't, and their place was withdrawn. They were allocated a place in their nearest school and a girl who didn't get a place in the school in the village she lived in ended up getting a place.

Glumglowworm · 05/03/2018 20:27

If you report it and there’s a genuine reason the further away child got in and your child didn’t, then there’s no harm done and the council won’t take away the other child’s place just because you said so. You will likely never know what that reason was though (and rightly so).

If you report it and the councils investigations discover that you’re right and there was fraud, then the parents of the child who loses their place have brought their misery on themselves by cheating. It sucks for the child who isn’t the one at fault, but they have their own parents to blame for that. The council won’t take away the place because you said so, they will investigate for themselves but they likely won’t know to do so unless someone tips them off.

You may still not get a place either way, but at least you’ll know you lost our fair and square.

Does the school definitely measure distance as the crow flies? If they use another measure like safe walking route, are you still closer? And check the point on the school that they measure to, especially if it’s a big site.

TeenTimesTwo · 05/03/2018 20:28

Absolutely.
If it is all above board then no harm done.
If the person eg lied by using a grandparents address then you will have enabled a more deserving family.

BitOutOfPractice · 05/03/2018 20:31

How do you know she's been awarded it based solely on address? There are other criteria (eg looked after children, children with additional needs, children with siblings in the school already. just as examples

TeenTimesTwo · 05/03/2018 20:37

The OP doesn't need to know for certain.

So the OP might be wrong, but it doesn't matter.

All the OP has to do is say 'X got a place and I was surprised as they live at Y address but we didn't get a place and we live closer. I am not aware of them qualifying for a higher category than us.'

Then the council will check. If they discover that X was eg adopted then enquiry closed. If they discover that X claimed to live at Z not Y then they will do further checks.

MumTryingHerBest · 05/03/2018 20:43

BitOutOfPractice How do you know she's been awarded it based solely on address?

OP doesn't need to know under which criteria a place has been allocated. The relevant information will already have been obtained during the admissions process and, if a place has been allocated fairly, no investigation will take place.

Ditzyitzy · 05/03/2018 20:59

I was in the same situation when DS didn’t get a place at the school I’d applied for as we were too far away when a girl on our road had got a place. Her parents hadn’t lied and offered to give me a copy of her acceptance letter which I sent to the LA along with a screenshot from google maps showing they also lived 0.8 miles away. You can appeal the decision if you have good reason.

Original poster
Smelliottsmum · 05/03/2018 22:07

Thanks for all the advice.
Think I’m going to just query it with the council. More to make sure they’ve not made a mistake on our application. Like you say if it’s all above board then no harm is done 😊

Ps for the person who asked am I 12!! .. no but I sure wish I was!

OP posts:
BitOutOfPractice · 05/03/2018 23:25

I wasn't saying she should know. Quite the opposite.

I'm saying that the op is assuming they got in fraudulently. But they may have got in under different criteria than distance from the school which gave them a higher priority than the op.

cantkeepawayforever · 06/03/2018 07:25

No, the OP is WONDERING whether they get in fraudulently.

Some people do, every year. They get caught when decent people query it with the relevant authorities.

If there is no issue with the application, the relevant authorities will know and will take no action.

When you report ANY potential crime / suspicious event to the authorities, there may turn out to be a completely innocent explanation, and that is absolutely fine. It doesn't mean that the public should always ignore all crimes.

BitOutOfPractice · 06/03/2018 07:35

She's not wondering if it was fraudulent. Shes "pretty sure". The thing she's wondering about is whether to report them for a fraudulent application. But she doesn't know it's fraudulent.

SoupDragon · 06/03/2018 07:45

Would your child get allocated the place if her child suddenly became ineligible?

As others have said, probably not but at least one child will: the child at the top of the waiting list. The last child to get admitted from the waiting list would get admitted when they would otherwise have missed out by one place.

MumTryingHerBest · 06/03/2018 08:03

BitOutOfPractice But she doesn't know it's fraudulent.

What makes you so sure OP doesn't know if its fraudulent.

I was told outright by a parent that they were intending to use a friends address for their application. I didn't report them as their child didn't get a place at the school they were hoping for.

NoStraightEdges · 06/03/2018 08:15

Absolutely tell the authorities. They can then investigate and if all is above board-they got their place rightfully-then no one is being cheated out of a place.

If they didn't get their place rightfully then the council/LEA can weed out the cheats.

Firefox1066 · 06/03/2018 10:40

OP, as long as you have good grounds for your suspicion and it is based on something tangible then yes, you should report them.

If however, you are ASSSUMING that they have committed fraud (on the basis that their child got in and you can't see how) then I don't believe you should be "reporting" them.

I don't subscribe to this "if they've done nothing then no harm done" philosophy at all. Where exactly does it all end? People maliciously reporting others based on their own spiteful assumptions?

Councils have limited resources and they should be used where there are tangible grounds to suspect fraud imo, not on the whims of the school gate gossips.

OP used the term "pretty sure" at the beginning as such, he/she should take whatever evidence exists and report to the council.

Gileswithachainsaw · 06/03/2018 10:48

I don't subscribe to this "if they've done nothing then no harm done" philosophy at all. Where exactly does it all end? People maliciously reporting others based on their own spiteful assumptions?

Well they would need some grounds to report for you can't just ring up. I mean you would need a name and an idea of where they lived for starters. And which school they got. And no one's talking about being spiteful.

People do lie..That it's a fact. Lying to get a place is theft and fraud. That's a fact too.

If people get reported and places withdrawn long-term less people will try because they know they will get caught. Or procedures will be adapted to make sure it's harder to be fraudulent.

And it's not wasting resources. The work should have been put in the first time they are only doing what they should have done befire.

And im.sure finding places for kids who didn't qualify for a school they should have done is harder work . The parent who lied would have qualified for another school which would mean less hassle to allocate

tiggytape · 06/03/2018 10:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

KingsHeathen · 06/03/2018 11:04

But the child if the liar will be published, when surely the child of such venal parents needs all the help they can get?

How does one (seriously) provide evidence to an LA that someone rented a house in catchment but doesn't live there? Stalk them, and stake out the house?

KingsHeathen · 06/03/2018 11:06

FFS- fat finger syndrome!
the child of the liar will be punished (by losing their place)

MumTryingHerBest · 06/03/2018 11:08

People maliciously reporting others

So you are saying that anyone who queries the allocation of a place that they suspect may be the result of an error or fraud is malicious?

The people who lie to get a school place are malicious. There is no way they can be unaware that another child will have lost out on a school place due to their actions.

something tangible

Like a child living further from the school being allocated a place, for example?

I have seen a number of forum posts (here and elsewhere) where people have queried why a child living further from the school has been allocated a place when their child has not. On a number of occassions it has resulted in the child being allocated a place due to an administration error.

Shattered04 · 06/03/2018 11:11

I'm curious about something (this is mostly theoretical!) - tiggy you may know?

Second round allocations usually additionally include people who have moved to the area since the deadline for late applications passed, or other things along those lines.

The first child who didn't make it in on distance would go in the mix with all the people who moved late to the area. Chances are very high that if there are latecomers in the second round of allocations, the latecomers would get a place first as they'll probably live closer.

A few months down the line, somebody getting a place fraudulently has that place withdrawn. If they had not applied fraudulently in the first place, that just-past-the-cutoff child would have got the place in the first round of allocations.

However, by this point as there may well be latecomers higher up the list than that child, they'll get the new place that becomes available.

Or would the council do the decent thing and give it to the just-past-the-cutoff child who should have got it originally?