School want proof of address for child

[AmberTraybake]

Hello,
i have recently moved home and the school are asking for proof of address. I can provide this for my self ( council tax, insurance letters) but struggling for my daughter. I sent bank statements which were rejected.

They will accept child benefit letters. Will HMRC send me a letter to my new address when I change the address for my child?

Surely proving the council tax address is enough?

They want proof of where my child lives as well.

If you sign into your Government Gateway account you can print off proof of entitlement to Child Benefit from there (and update address details too).

The school want a letter :(

GP?

You certainly used to be able to ring the Child Benefit helpline and get a letter in the post to prove entitlement for the purposes of school applications, but I don't know if they still do that now they have the online version. Worth ringing them to ask? School should really accept a copy of the online proof - that's what it's there for! The letters they used to send out were very scrappy and could have easily been faked, anyway.

An obvious starting point for this is WHY do the school want this?

What year is your child in? Seems really odd theyd ask for proof. Or have they not started yet?

Does your daughter have a bank account?

Surely if you can provide proof of your address, and child's birth certificate, that should suffice? From my own experience there isn't much ID my DC have, other than savings account statements. The school must know this!

This sounds ridiculous.

Do you have your child's birth certificate handy? That should name you as her mother, so alongside your proof of address (which you have already provided) then that should be sufficient, surely!

Is there any paperwork regarding custody of the child, which would indicate that she lives with you (you don't mention a father being on the scene)?

Why are they requesting it?

You don’t need a written letter

Log into Government gateway account, go to Child benefit section and click on ‘proof of entitlement’ this will then generate a document showing all the details for you/child/home address

when we moved house we did not need to provide proof of address, they just changed it on the system, I suspect the OP has used one address for application and now has moved and school want proof

I had no idea how to do this until very recently as I’m sending off documents for DC1 who is starting secondary in September!

I just used the council tax letter which was in my name and they accepted it without any issues.

Ask school for some suggestions of what they would accept

GP or hospital letter, benefit letter, savings account?

The school are pretty strict about this so want proof for parent and child, because the child could live with the other parent or relative.

That IS a letter.

I know lots of bank accounts are paperless now but if you have a savings account for your daughter, I think the bank can print out an addressed statement in branch?

The school rejected my DC’s bank account. The school doesn’t accept them

Well then you have to call the school and ask them what exactly they want as they will know that children don't have many official letters sent to them.

They can be as strict as they like. Unless they have reason to think the child doesn’t live with you (and actually so what?) there won’t be any consequences.

I'd get pretty arsey about this, they are overstepping by not accepting bank accounts and your proof of residency. Is it an Academy? I'd be tempted to complain to the local councillor in charge of Education.