Giving a fraudulent address for secondary school place

[Claireeo]

Hi, I just want to hear others experiences or thoughts on this please.
My daughter hasn’t been given her 1st choice school. She is 1st on the waiting list. One of the parents has given a false address to be in catchment. I know she has lied as we followed her home on the school run several times. She’s lives further than us to 1st choice school.I have also done a land registry check on the house and it’s still in her name. She has said she split up with her husband and has now moved back all in the space of 6 months. If she has moved back should that address be used? Is it something that should be reported? Also another thing-pan is 270 and they also let some in on appeal. They have told me that the student number is currently 270 but shouldn’t it have gone up due to successful appeals? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks

Shame that I had to split my message and shame on titchy calling me a teenager.

I didn't call you a teenager - I said the language you used made you sound like a teenager.

Now you've explained that English isn't your first language that's fair enough, you probably wouldn't have known that.

Just for reference terms like 'grassing' tend to be used by people with limited maturity and ability to reason.

You also not read what I written carefully enough. I am saying that giving Awards for being an informer is appaling and toxic practice and I do say that mentioning fraud is acceptable.
Has anyone actually said awards should be given to people though?

All this talk of grassing, informer, totalitarianism is a bit much.

If fraud is unacceptable then it's reasonable to make the LA aware if someone has grounds to think a place has been awarded fraudulently.

Pick whichever word you like that sounds ok to you: fingering, squealing, whistle blowing, informing as long as you will understand my message that awarding for ( put the preferred word here) is a very very bad method to control society.

Especially, that it may be found out that a child is EHCP, they have shared custody and many things that the OP doesn't know. That is why I use the word" mentioning" ( to LA) rather than full blast drama with drums. It is easy to be carried away at some forums, groups but reality can astonishing.

Nobody is on about controlling society!
Talk about a tin foil hat.

Schools had admissions procedures that have to be followed.
Places should be awarded based on honest applications and proper implementation of those procedures.

If someone suspects fraud they can report it to the LA. Fraud is not a victimless action and society is worse off if everyone turns a blind eye.

It's very simple:

1. If someone has grounds to suspend fraud they can report it
2. The relevant authorities can investigate and make a decision based on the evidence

Nobody has mentioned full blast dramas.

Yes my dear, in the context of awarding a place for the whistleblower who is in the queue, happened to be first

>If fraud is unacceptable then it's reasonable to make the LA aware

Neither I written anything otherwise.
I am simply against encouraging actions that the waiting list playing detectives to push themselves up in the queue in expectation of the place. If it comes by accident, to anybody then it makes sense to mention to LA but sorry...I am an independent thinker who finds it odd that the OP is driving behind the accepted child and her parent. It asks me to wonder: if this one will be having justification who will be next target.

Yes my dear, in the context of awarding a place for the whistleblower who is in the queue, happened to be first

For someone being very patronising, you miss the point that regardless of who reports suspected fraud, if fraud is found then the place goes to the next person in line.

What would you suggest happens?

Someone is top of the waiting list and the rightful holder of a place, but that child doesn't get the place they're actually entitled to because their parent flagged a fraud concern that turned out to be fraudulent?

Or anyone can report suspended fraud, unless you're high on the waiting list and then you can't?

Or we all turn a blind eye and hope that suspected fraud accidentally gets uncovered, and only in certain circumstances should the LA be made aware that another child has been wrongly denied a place?
😆

If a place has been awarded fraudulently then it doesn't matter where it's OP or anyone else who mentions it. The Local Authority will investigate and IF fraud is found the place can be allocated to the rightful child.

Normally I would say to mind your own business but this actually is your business!!As a Mother of a child that was directly impacted by other people lying about address I 100% would report!We did and the ombudsman got involved and my daughter finally got the place at the grammar school she had worked so bloody hard to get into!Our local schools do now chuck children out if the parents have lied and I wholeheartedly agree!

I would 100% .Its fraud!

>It's very simple:

I am pretty sure that it is to LA to confirm if it is simple to spend time on rechecking what checked because disgruntled parent on the waiting list blows the whistle. I also trust that there are professionals who follow procedures and know who to award the place as they have conveyancing officers in place. They follow procedures.

>Talk about a tin foil hat.

Thank you for your kindness. Put that hat on the head of conspiracy theorists who follow parents back home " because they go the same way". I will stop following topic here as this is not the level of conversation I would like to follow. Bye.

Exactly this

@flutterby1 agree. The more I read these threads the more I get annoyed. The victims are always the families who don't have money or who don't know how to cheat. It's the opposite of the parents who don't fully understand the system & end up with a school they really don't want

Honestly I wouldn’t look up land registry & make it my business to report someone..I have better things going on

The more I read these threads the more I get annoyed. The victims are always the families who don't have money or who don't know how to cheat. It's the opposite of the parents who don't fully understand the system & end up with a school they really don't want
I agree.

I can't get on board with the it's not ok to lie about it, but don't get involved outlook. When a fraudulent place is awarded, another child misses out on their rightful place and not every area has a full selection of great school options

Please report it

I hate cheats

There are always one or two that we find using fraudulent addresses based on a tip off from the pubic. But it is much easier now before the child had started than later - and places are withdrawn after children have started. Parents can be very good at providing basic evidence but when it is more fully investigated, things unravel.

You'd be surprised how often parents brag about getting places from fake addresses and are then surprised when we investigate and withdraw the offer. They will rent a flat or put themselves on the council tax for a family address (most often grandparents) and so they pass the basic checks - but when we have an allegation, or there has been a recent change, we can ask for more address evidence.

It is not fair on other children. It also only takes a member of the admissions team seconds to look an an allegation and know whether the child was allocated based on a higher criterion. OP will never hear the outcome of the investigation - but it is important that people tell us so that the right children are being offered places.

It might only take seconds to see if a child was allocated a place based on a higher criteria but it cane take much longer to prove your relationship has broken down and you are now living elsewhere with your children. People can look at your nice middleclass 4 bed house and find it hard to believe you are choosing to live in a grotty two bed flat with your children. It can drag on for weeks putting a family in difficult circumstances under even more pressure. It is a horrible thing to do if you don't know what is going on.

@Iwasafool - that’s not the circumstances of the family OP is concerned about however. In that case OP says the mum and child are back living in the family home having possibly conveniently only lived at the other address during the actual application process. So not shitty at all to ask the LA to look into this.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, sure in rare cases it may turn out to be a woman who left her husband coincidentally just at the best time for school applications and changed her mind very quickly coincidentally just when the place was offered but it’s also significantly more likely it is and always has in fact just been a duck.

How do you, or the OP, know why the parent and child moved out of the family home? Break up aren't always permanent.

Does the OP really know they moved out, she said she followed them home and then when people commented on that it turns out she followed them to her own house and presumably they could have gone anywhere after that.

It is a spiteful thing to do on the off chance, if you actually know the facts it is a different matter but a bit of school gate gossip and seeing the direction they drive home isn't proof.

It’s absolutely not spiteful and you are massively over invested in this.

School admission fraud is rife and is one of the biggest barriers to social mobility as it’s the kids from lower income families who end up losing the school places to which they are legally entitled to grabby richer families who game the system. That’s why it is important that suspicious circumstances like this one need to be investigated.

The child in this case no longer lives in the same property so even if the break up was genuine at the time, she is back in the former matrimonial home and so the worst that is going to happen here is that that child will be sent to the appropriate school for a child living at the address they are now living at.

Doesn't matter if you move after the places are allocated, well that's how it work where I live.

Does being over invested mean pointing out how harmful false allegations can be to another child. How unfortunate.

Maybe the barrier is the other way round, kids in the nice areas get the better schools and the kids in the rundown areas get stuck in a sink school. Of course that doesn't fit with your argument so probably over invested to suggest it.

False allegations are found out pretty quickly and do not harm a child - nothing would be taken away without conclusive evidence a fraud had taken place.

There are many ways to prove that circumstances are genuine - fewer ways when not (although not going to disclose everything on here as do not want to create a guide to cheating at admissions). We do have access to council fraud team who can look at records and financial history that admissions do not have access to - we can't ask them to check everything but they can quietly check in the background when we have reason to doubt an address - so we can see if a place has simply been rented or bought but not actually lived in etc - but unless we're alerted to concerns we have no reason to investigate.

Only wealthier parents tend to have the opportunity to rent or buy to secure a school place. It is not an option for the more disadvantaged pupils and so it does create an unfair playing field.

You can spot all the people on here who pulled the same stunt, can't you??

😂

A child's entire future can be dictated by the quality or suitability of their education.

This may well be a considerably better school which is why someone may have committed fraud to get their child in at the expense of someone else.

That's not petty.

Personally I think you should have to leave a school at the end of your current key stage if you move house, so the DC of the family buying your house can get their DC into that school 🤷🏻‍♀️

That would stop this nonsense.

I was renting. We deliberately rented a house in the desired secondary catchment (and lived there!) to get DC1 in, as we house hunted to buy- again, in catchment.

That rental property turned out to be 'insurance' for a nearby, well off, out-of-catchment family. We were warned they would want it back by a certain date (to get bills etc in their names, addressed there during the admissions period, we now know).

Anyway, someone, not us, dobbed them! I got to know mums at the primary who told me.

Their DC went private.

Hi OP, just wondering how it all turned out? Did you child get a place in the end