Address of convenience rules - quick question

[londondee]

Hi, Quick question regarding address of convenience rules. I guess schools have different rules... but in general, would you say that applying for a school and moving shortly after making the application counts as breaking the rules? The secondary school I have seen ask for council tax bill at the time of application, and then they ask for what seems to be exactly the same council tax bill from the time of application, NOT the current / most recent one. Does anybody have experience with this? Thank you

There’s no simple answer to the question. Using any address as an “address of convenience” without genuinely living there is likely to be outside the letter and spirit of any local education authority’s admissions policies.

The address used is the one you lived at at the closing date for when you applied.

If you then moved after this date, and many people do, you would then need to supply information with regards to your new address.

Your old address is used for the first round of applications. Your new address can be used for later allocations. You may be asked to provide further information on both addresses to prove that you were not using either as an address of convenience.

Thanks for your comments. My son is on a waiting list for a local secondary school because so many parents moved to get into the school, but moved out directly after they made the application. The school say that they can prevent this happening because they ask parents for copies of the council tax statement, however they only ask for the statement from the time when the original application was made, So it doesn’t prevent parents from doing this - just moving for a short period and then moving straight out again once they had made the application. From my discussions with the school it seems like this is perfectly okay, and for us who live closer to the school, to be sitting on the waiting list indefinitely

Generally if they moved for a short time and kept another address 'locally' then that wouldn't be OK.

What would be OK would be living somewhere for 5 years, it getting a bit small but hanging on in there to move until after 31st October so the child qualifies for the school.

@prh47bridge

If someone can show people got places fraudulently, and they would have got in if not for that, can they win an appeal on that basis?

No i Don’t think so as the school and local authority will not share information or discuss any information regarding people who have been found guilty of using an address for convenience. Also it probably won’t be able to be done within the same year so won’t be particularly useful for waiting lists and this of course we are on the waiting list for a couple of years ...

If there is a problem with this kind of behaviour the LA should have systems in place to catch this. If people are renting temporarily to get a place and moving as soon as they've got the place they wanted the LA should be onto that. Even if it is only detected after offers are made, the LA is entitled to withdraw offers on the basis that the application was fraudulent or deliberately misleading. The admission authority can even take the place away after the child has started at the school.

In theory it would be possible to win an appeal by showing that fraud hasn't been addressed and this has cost the appellant's child a place. In practice it may be difficult to convince an appeal panel.