Grammar school catchment

[Shiny122]

We have owned a house for more than 20 years and lived in the area for several years before we moved out 100 miles away and let out the house to tenants. We want to move back there for secondary schooling. They seem to have changed the criteria or made them unclear: child needs to live at the address 1 year before the start of secondary. We do not want to interrupt their primary and move schools in year 6. They say parent must not own a second house within20 miles distance.. We meet that criteria . Planned to move back for secondary . Cannot see why we would need to do it 1 year earlier as we had the house in the area most of our lifetime and it is in the catchment area. Does 1 year earlier move still a condition here? We will write to the school as well soon..

How will the school know you haven't been living in the house? I am not advocating dishonesty but you do own a house in the school's catchment area. You could tell them you had to move away for work but always intended to come back.

I live on the edge of Bromley, literally a handful of houses away, and that has good good grammar schools which take children from outside their catchment area. So does Bexley (neighbours' children went to grammar school in Bexley).

Don't worry too much, just apply and say you are moving back to your 'home' area.

Its for all schools... you have to apply from the address you live at the October of Year 6.

If you have tenants, that's their home, not yours. Its their name on the council tax bill for example.

You need to get advice from the council, but moving for Year 6 is the "standard" way of doing it unfortunately.

That has been the situation for years. Writing to the school is pointless. School places are allocated by the council, not the school.

Your child will have to sit the 11+ at the start of year 6 so need to be living in the grammar school area to do that too.

As long as the DC is resident at the time of application you will be fine.

The only DC permitted to apply on the strength of a future address are those of Forces families, and they require evidence (posting order or CO's letter)

No LA that I am aware of just takes the parents' word about a move or its timing.

So you have to apply from the address that the DC is living at, and update only when the child actually moves.

That does tend to mean year 6 mainly at the new address (as application deadline is October)

Can you frame this to your DC as an exciting time, to get to meet new friends at new primary, so whatever school they go to chances are they'll know someone?

If the admissions criteria say you have to "live in" the house for 1 year, not just own it, then the local authority will check your council tax records. (They are clearly trying to stop people moving into the area in Year 6 just to get a place at the grammar school, which is exactly what you're aiming to do).

You won't meet their residence criteria unless you move back this summer. It's to keep places for local children. Otherwise families in your situation would speculatively sit the test and decide whether to move back once they got places allocated. In addition, you would need to have moved back by 31st Oct anyway to use the address for applications and most grammar schools do have some form of catchment area/address priority.

I understand your frustration, but it would be fraudulent to use that address until you actually live there. They can check council tax and ask for proof from child benefit, where your doctors is etc if they are suspicious. The 20 mile thing is more to prevent problems the other way round. If you wanted to apply in your current area, you would argue your rented out house is irrelevant as it's so far away, and you didn't just rent it out and move elsewhere to get into a school, with the intention to return once you had your place.

Move back for y6 and your DC can make local friends to move up to secondary school with.

There is no legal way round the standard admission rules saying you have to use the address you live at at time of application.

Is the requirment that you need to live there for a year before the test or just as it always has been for schools across the country that you need to be resident there when applying to secondary? This is not unique to grammar schools. The latter has been in place for a long time, surely you remember from applying to primary that you have to apply from where you are living? In the same way that if you applied for a primary school 15 miles from where you are living you are less likely to get a place than if you apply to the nearest. The deadline for secondary is 31 October. The deadline for registering for the test is sooner and the child may need to sit it as out of area if it is an area where the test is sat in school. I am not sure how else you envisaged applying for secondary school. You could of course take your chances and apply as a late applicant, there might be spaces with people deciding on private places, but that is a very risky strategy.

If you don't move earlier you will not meet the residency criteria. You cannot use the local address for the application until your child physically lives there. The application deadline is in October although there may be a short window to update address after that. Some grammars have out of catchment places allocated purely on score in 11+ but not all and often a very limited number. In popular areas councils do check addresses in case of fraud and other parents may be willing to tip them off.

I presume too that you are familiar with the nature of the test and have plans to help your child prepare? Although an able child should not need too much preparation, it is likely that most of the children sitting the test will have done some sort of preparation, often from the beginning of year 5, some much younger but that is not really necessary. Some of the preparation is about strategy and some of the questions will be based on yr6 material which your child may not have covered before the test date.

If this is Bucks, I thought I read somewhere for 2024 entry to yr 7 you need to be resident by a date in early Sept 2023? I can’t find it now

And in some areas you have to register early for the test, iirc some Kent grammars are May/June for entry in the September the following year.

Rereading your op I think you are confusing two criteria - the need to be resident for at least a year ahead at the local address and for that to be the only property rented/owned within 20 miles. The latter is to stop short term renting in catchment during the process. You need to fulfil both and there may be very limited grounds for discretion ie if parent were in armed forces or a government employee on a posting elsewhere.

An example relevant to my post above for Bucks:
For Beaconsfield High School the admission criteria says you need to be resident by 1.9.23 when I checked just now

Agree with @TeenDivided that moving back a year early allows them to make local friends first which would be a real plus. I do wonder about you level of dedication to the move. What if you DC doesn't pass? Would you be happy with the local secondary modern? Or is the move dependent on passing the 11+?

Looks like you'll need to move back in time to qualify.

I will depend on the school - which one is it?

The deadline for secondary school applications is 31st October. You must apply using the address where your child normally lives at that time. You cannot use a future address. Writing to the council or school will not change that. All you will achieve is to alert them to the possibility that you may make a fraudulent application.

As this is a grammar school, there will be an earlier deadline to apply for the test as they are required to give you the results of the test before the October deadline. This may bring with it a requirement to live in the area earlier.

If you do not move but use the address of the house you are letting out, your application will be classed as fraudulent. If the LA or school find out before offers are made, they will use your current address. If they find out after offers are made, the offer will be withdrawn. If they find out after your child has started at the grammar school, your child can be thrown out of the school, and you will then be looking for a school with a place available - likely to be an unpopular school that could be a long way from home.

I'm afraid you have no choice. You need to move back to the house you are currently letting out and move your child to a different primary school for Y6.

You should read the admissions policy for the school that you are interested in. They all vary.
Equally there may be a county policy re primary address etc.

I agree with @TeenDivided op - since you are planning to move bavk anyway, which not do so for year 6 - dc can meet all the new friends they will know in secondary. I'd see that as a positive tbh.

Aaargh why not do so obvs

Sounds like RGS High Wycombe, in which case the OP would need to be resident by 1st Sep 2023 for entry in Sep 2024. (She's lucky - it used to be April of the previous year, but seems to be September now)

We were asked for proof of GP and dentist records locally for DD as well as Council Tax etc for the property (and with very little notice, on a Bank Holiday weekend - was a nightmare to sort)

@Shiny122 you may be reading an old version of the admissions policy because the "home ownership within 20miles" rule is no longer considered legal and isn't in the 2024 policy. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/grammar-school-ordered-to-tweak-admissions-policy-following-second-home-row/

A ruling by the Schools Adjudicator does not mean a policy is illegal. Only the courts can decide that.

In any event, the Adjudicator did not rule this policy out completely. They simply said that it went further than necessary. This has resulted in the relevant paragraph of the school's admission policy being tweaked to say that, if a parent owns a property within 20 miles of the school that has been the main family home within the last 4 years, the school will not accept the address of a property closer to the school. So the 20 miles rule is still very much in place.

I agree with prh47bridge.

There’s a general provision that an application for a school place must be made from the current address. The admissions authority (the school or the LEA) can’t work with intended new addresses.

In this instance, it sounds as if there are further provisions in the school’s oversubscription criteria about (1) living at the address at the start of year 6, for year 7 entry and (2) not having another home within 20 miles. So, OP can comply with (2) but not with (1).

Oversubscription criteria are not negotiable; you can’t be placed in an admissions category if you don’t fulfil the conditions. So (as I understand the situation) OP needs to move back to the tenanted property sooner rather than later.