School have revoked offer - not sure what to do next.

[Anxsi]

I'd like some advice and guidance on school admissions and appeals please.

My child is due to start secondary school in September, but the school revoked their offer on the basis that we were not living at the address used in the application.

We had been looking to buy a property in a particular area and completed the purchase earlier this year. We kept the council informed, and once we completed the purchase, our child was placed at the top of the waiting list for this school.

However, we haven’t moved in yet because the house needed repairs, which are longer than we anticipated & it would have been difficult & unsafe to live in the property while the work was being done.

The school discovered that the house was vacant and called us to clarify the situation. I explained that the house required refurbishment and that we had not yet moved in.

The school then withdrew the offer on the basis that we were not currently living at the address. The school said our child would remain on the waiting list and would move up once we had moved into the property, but couldn't give any indication of when he might be admitted, as it would depend on a place being available.

The school has said that we have the right to appeal, but I’m unsure whether it would be worthwhile. I don’t want to damage our relationship with the school any further.

I’d really appreciate some advice on what we should do next. Please be kind - my DC no longer has a secondary school, and its very stressful.

Have you claimed any sort of council tax reduction for a home undergoing renovation or something?

Where are you living currently?

If you are still in your old house I can understand why it might look dodgy. If you are somewhere clearly temporary I’d think that should help your chances as it doesn’t suggest admissions fraud.

Move in. Even if you have to put up a tent in the garden - move in. Get your DCs address changed at GP, dentist, bank etc. pay council tax as living there. Register to vote there. Move in this week.

I don’t see any grounds to win an appeal here tbh. You are not living at the address applied from and never were. There has been no admissions error.

As I said above I would move in asap. Water can be turned back on. Is there a toilet and somewhere to wash? Can you rig up cooking facilities?

Every day that goes past there is potential for more places to be given off the waiting list ahead of you and after a certain point there will be no more movement on the WL. So even if you get to the head of WL in July after works finish, there may be no spaces that come up by then.

It depends on what your alternatives are I suppose but if this is the school you want, I would not risk waiting.

No, nothing like that.

Can you not inform council tax you've moved in and pay from that date at your new address. Put up beds in your new address. Meet the school to get that decision revoked, if they are at all reasonable, and have your place secured for September. If you are registered with the council tax to be living there and are paying, then legally you do live there. Where you sleep won't impinge on that.

Thanks - that is what we are going to have to do. This is the school we want.
Wouldn't the school consider the circumstances behind why we didn't move in, and an explanation of reasons?

I am not suggestting you did anything deliberately wrong but you applied from an address you were not living in and it seems that you were offered a place based on living there so now its been withdrawn.
There is nothing to lose by applying but I doubt you have grounds

We are already paying council tax at our new home, but that isn't sufficent for the school. We need to be living there and it needs to be our home

If you are registered with the council tax to be living there and are paying, then legally you do live there. Where you sleep won't impinge on that.

Not correct, the child needs to reside there, and OP may well need more than bills to prove that - especially in this situation ie where the OP said DC lived there when DC in fact didn’t.

The school is legally required to follow its own admissions criteria. This means it has to go off where your child actually resides (assuming you were applying on distance and not on other criteria eg sibling/exceptional need etc). It is not allowed to be flexible on the application of the rules no matter how sympathetic it may feel.

Otherwise others who didn’t get in would quite rightly be aggrieved and could themselves appeal as the school would not have followed its own admissions criteria.

This is really odd. How do they know? Someone must have reported you. Or has the council alerted them as you are paying council tax at two addresses?

Anyway, you'll need to ask the school what proof they will accept that you have moved in.

Renovation is a red herring. That wasn't the question.

The question was where is the child living and it was somewhere else.

Where ARE you living at the moment? In another property which you own or in some kind of temporary arrangement? Where is your post being delivered? Have you changed anything - bank statements, driving licences etc - to the new address?

I can kind of see the school's point of view tbh, people do all sorts to get a school place and as far as they are concerned you might put this house up for sale again as soon as the work is done without ever having had any intention of moving in.

Does the Primary School provide a data record or report to the new school presumably they send over SATS results?

Yes of course.
What did you imagine?

Note; you only need to move in for as long as it takes to get the offer and accept it. Then you can move out again if you need to.

NB there are no guarantees a WL place will come up at this stage, even if you move in and become first on the WL. It might be worth asking the school about their usual WL movement over summer, before moving into a building site.

Where do you pay council tax?

Tbh OP I think you knew work needed to be done and this is now the consequences of your actions. You’ll have to move in and plead your case.

Hi - we applied based on distance. I didn't know the rules were applied so rigidly. Isn't there any flexibility or discretion allowed, even if someone is appealing.

There is no flexibility or discretion allowed- school have to apply their admission criteria precisely.

Where are you currently living? With family? Rented accommodation? Do you own another property?

Just move in. Loads of people live in properties whilst having renovations.

There isn’t flexibility because there is another family equally keen on the school who live a few metres further from the school, and they have the place now.

v curious how the school /LEA found out - perhaps someone on the waiting list told them

I doubt it. Local Authorities have really wised up to all the scams people use to try to get their kids into popular oversubscribed schools they are not really entitled to go to. I remember looking up the admissions page where I used to live and they were really clear about their rules - they had thought of just about every wheeze parents could come up with and described how this was not permitted and the child's place would be revoked. House prices in good catchment areas are so ridiculously high, so many parents try to find work arounds to get into the schools without having to permanently live in catchment. If I remember right, I think our old authority would even revoke a place if they believed you only temporarily bought to get a school place. They would certainly kick kids out of school who had started if they had evidence parents had scammed their way into a place. So I am not sure about what pp said about just needing to move in until your son's place is accepted is always correct. I presume the school you want is highly oversubscribed so they probably are strict on the rules.

As PP said, from the LA point of view you may have decided to buy this property to look like you were in catchment but intended to do it up and sell on and never live in it as your main home.

That is why we should have done. I feel like such a fool

I think if the school is really the one you want I'd be doing everything I can to move in, even while it's not ideal. What about the current situation of the house feels "unsafe"? Or is it just not a pleasant idea of moving in is it is? What work is left to be done?

For context we have two young children and are in the middle of a 13 week build. We've had prolonged periods with no water during build hours. Noisy and dusty environment with live wires hanging about the place (i.e a typical build site!) We haven't had a kitchen now for four weeks, unlikely to until five weeks time. Limited access to a washing machine. We haven't got family near by and can't afford to rent anywhere else. I'm not going to pretend it's been easy and without it's challenges, but we're seeing it as a necessary situation to get us the house we want long term. In your situation I would be questioning whether losing the school place is worth it if it means moving in earlier that you'd desire.

It sounds like the school are saying if you move in now they will look to reallocate the place to you? So I'd be inclined to take a few deep breaths and then seriously work out when is the quickest you can move in to try and resecure the place. Hope isn't lost yet, but it's not likely to change if you don't fulfil their criteria of you living there.