For which period do I need to live near secondary school for applications

[Mallowmarshmallow]

I am considering renting a property close to our favoured secondary school and move into it for a period in order to get a place at the preferred school.

Does anyone know for what period I would need to have the property?

I realise this is using a situation to benefit me, however we would genuinely move into the property for the required period.

My understanding is that I would need to live in the property at the end of October application deadline, up until the point of accepting the place in March. At which point I could move out. Is that correct?

We had to submit a council tax bill from the previous year, and i thought I remembered something about child benefit (but I maybe not - I can't see how that's relevant!!)
I'm not sure what happened for people that had moved in a more recent time frame.

In Hertfordshire what you are planning is classed as admission fraud and you'd risk being investigated and the place withdrawn. So it wouldn't be the case that you could rent near the school until March and then just move back to your normal address. There is a lot of competition for the "good" state schools round here and the council are wise to people trying to play the system unfairly.

Scroll down on this page for full details:
https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/schools-and-education/school-admissions/secondary-and-upper-schools/secondary-and-upper-school-places.aspx

This inst an empty threat - they do actually investigate and you risk your child being then allocated a school which has places left, which may well not be a school you want and may be in an inconvenient location.

I worked in admissions for a while and can confirm we withdrew places when this was found to have taken place. The child was then just offered whichever was the nearest place available- by that point that could be anywhere. Don’t risk it.

Incredibly, there are posters on MN who deny that the state system is gamed by better off parents who move into catchment areas.

That be will cost thousands! Is the local school really that bad?

I am unclear what you think is being made up. However, it is correct that a place can be withdrawn even after the child starts at school if it is found that the application was fraudulent or deliberately misleading.

No you didn't.

Renting for eg 6 months might cost 15-20k including 2 sets of removals, if successful in getting child 1 in, then child 2 would likely get in through sibling rule.
Expensive ...but nowhere near as expensive as private school, or presumably moving by buying a house in the catchment area of a popular school.

Not condoning it, just looking at the logic that lots would think it was money well spent

It definitely happens.

Very very unlikely unless its a Private school.
This is the sort of dangerous mis information that causes so many problems around admissions.
They had a space, you qualified under their admissions criteria - end of.

Actually I wouldn't much care about this BUT I would worry it would be time, effort and expense that wouldn't achieve my goal. Then if it did I would worry about the place being withdrawn at some point.
LEAs arent stupid, they know this goes on and presumably have some way of dealing with it, especially when it comes to popular schools. Some might slip through but do you want to explain to your child why they have to leave the school they just started and go to one nobody wants and is miles away?

There are parents who buy a house in the catchment area of their favoured school to get a place. Provided they actually live there, that is regarded as acceptable, even if they move out afterwards, although some LAs now guard against people moving out by refusing sibling priority in that situation.

Many LAs now have lists of addresses used for short term lets to get school places and treat applications from those addresses with suspicion. Most, probably all, LAs check applications against Council Tax data and other information to check that the parents actually live at the address claimed and that they don't own a house elsewhere in the area.

Of course, some will slip through the net and will get a place fraudulently. However, a proportion of those who think they have done so are wrong. If the LA discovers that an incorrect address has been used, they are required to consider the application as if it had been made using the correct address. In some cases, the child would still have got a place. So the parents think they have gamed the system and got a place for their child, when in fact all they have done is wasted some money on letting a property.

Occasionally the authorities are over-diligent and treat applications as fraudulent when they are not. I have helped a number of parents in this situation.

Sure. I wasn’t eliding legitimate home buying and dodgy mock ‘home’ rentals.

My point was just that one way or another the well-heeled middle classes elbow their way into better comps. By using their money.

It’s a form of stealthy private education (along with the tutors, crammers, etc.) but allows the bien pensant proudly to declare their ‘principled’ rejection of private schooling.

In our LA they are wise to this as so many people try it for an outstanding school. If you still own a property and yet live in rented close to the school they will use your OWNED property as the address for the application. We had to provide our deeds of sale after we made our application to prove we had actually sold our previous house and hadn’t just rented or bunked in with relatives closer.

I’m sure there are genuine cases (divorce etc.) but in our LA they will investigate to ensure it’s not made up (fraud).

I understand you don’t care about the morality, but you are naive if you think sought after schools aren’t wise to this and don’t have procedures to check.

There is no easy answer to this. It is true that house prices near good schools act as a form of selection by wealth. Random allocation helps to get round this but makes it hard for parents to know whether their child is likely to get a place.

It is still the case that parental income is the best predictor of a child's academic success. The link in England is weaker than it was a decade or so ago, and much weaker than in Scotland, but it is still there.

Round me the practice of buying into the catchment of good comps is routine. It happens for local primaries too.

I was once asked to lie on a form about how long the child had lived at a rented address. I refused. It was very embarrassing. That parent is hardline anti-private.

Some councils have whole teams which look at fraud and home flipping, and which co-operate with neighbouring boroughs, definitely in London, possible elsewhere. Just living in a rental near the school isn't enough (people seem to be surprised to hear this, but it's been the case for a while now)

You need to have disposed of any property you previously resided at - ending your lease and selling up. Obviously if you've moved from Inverness to Penzance and haven't quite sold the Scottish house they're both unlikely to notice and to care. But if you own a family house within reasonable travel time of the school and are also renting a 2 bed bang near a desirable school, then yes this will be spotted.

And the council will take the address you own as the address for admissions purposes.

So, assuming entry in September 2025, you need to get your house on the market now at a realistic price as you need the sale to have gone through by about September (October is the cut off, but you need to build in a safety margin, and sales are sluggish right now) or you need to give notice to quit current lease asap, and arrange your new home.

Also new school places for your DC for yr6 - unless you really want to sound a klaxon

I recommend you stay there until at least the end of the first term of the secondary school. You probably could look earlier than that - any time after allocations as genuine moves are not against the rules. So you could probably start looking for new lease/new purchase late spring/summer of 2025.

I believe this is one of the reasons why looked after children and those are PP are often higher on the priority list then just living in catchment. Although critica for this varies from LEA and schools.

For all those who don't believe me it is absolutely true for which I am very grateful. She is 20 now and only my 14 year old son is there now. It is part of a family of 6 academies.

Since your second post comments on the morality, or lack of, what you’re contemplating, I’m sure you know that it is fraudulent. Could you sell and buy in the area of the school you want?

You need to find your local rules.

Here, if you own somewhere and then rent nearby (5miles or so) and your owned house is habitable, they won’t allow the new address and if they find out what you’ve done they will kick the child out of the school - at any stage, even months in. I know people this has happened to, it’s not just a story.

It is only true in the way you describe it if the academy blatantly broke the Admissions Code (which has the force of law) and its funding agreement and was willing to risk having its funding withdrawn completely. Schools are prohibited from making admissions decisions based on the parents' reasons for wanting the school.

I am sure it is true that you emailed the school your reasons why it would be good for your daughter. I am sure she was admitted. But, assuming she was admitted without an appeal, the two events were unconnected unless the academy broke the law for you, which is highly unlikely. If you hadn't sent the email, your daughter would still have been admitted.

If you were admitted via appeal, it would be different. Then your reasons the school would be good for your daughter would be potentially relevant. If your daughter didn't get a place in the normal admissions round and the email to the school was your appeal case, that is entirely possible.

Please don't lead people to believe that they can get a place at their preferred school in the normal admissions round simply by emailing the school with their reasons for wanting it. That is not how admissions work.

Was only to try and help the op with my past experience.

You would need to dispose of the property you own, or show that you have rented it out to someone on a longer term.

Unfortunately you would be committing fraud otherwise, still, regardless of “genuinely living there”. Your child can therefore lose the school place even if they started y7 there.

DH is at a grammar and just had a year 7 pupil removed for fraud being proven. In March.

I appreciate that and its good it worked for you but as a PP (with relevant experience and knowledge) has pointed out its cause and effect. You DID write to the school but thats not WHY she was admitted on its own.
Its "helpful" anecdotes like this that make things harder, along with "just put one school down they have to let you in" and other rubbish.
Every year people give bad advice by saying "I did this and it worked" but it might have happened anyway and isnt helpful at all