Cheating the System

Don't assume that a school is good because they have a good OFSTED report or good exam results. Many schools are also good at 'cheating' the system and manipulating the data. How sad that I've had to write that but it's true.

netflixfan, it was on another forum. The poster had been confided to by somebody who had cheated the system and didn't know what to do about it.

During the reign of Mrs. T., I was a school governor. One of the things we had to do was to come up with an admissions policy as catchment areas were supposed to be a thing of the past! Seem they're back with a vengeance!

A Scottish Council recently reported the parents of a pupil to the Crown Office for possible criminal proceedings, after concerns that documents used by the family to prove where they lived were fraudulent.
I also knew of a case where parents desperate to gain admission to a high achieving secondary school for their child in a different local authority in Scotland from where they lived , rented a house in that area for a short period of time and furnished it to look as if they were living there. They were caught out, when the education department made a home visit after being tipped off.

how do you know about this, icanhandthemback? I thought the system was confidential.

Exactly Luckygirl. we need solutions rather than problems! But what really makes a good school? My DS was very unhappy and bullied at his highly rated secondary school and eventually we got him moved to another LEA school further away. This was the saving of him.

His own children go to private schools because he cannot bear the thought of the same thing happening to them.

It's a reflection of the selfish society we live in. We all want to do the best for our children but to do it by lying and cheating totally wrong.

Unfortunately that list of ingredients does lead to a "bad" school that I would not wish my GC to be at.

Any school in that boat needs more resources to deal with its challenges, rather than just being downgraded so that parents avoid it like the plague if they can.

I don’t think there are ‘bad’ schools; there are schools that struggle through weak leadership, high turnover of disillusioned teachers, intakes of children with poor English language skills who are in many cases not properly socialised (some who have never been in any formal school system!) so do not know how to behave, and very little support from parents who themselves may be poorly educated and who don’t think they have a role to play in their child’s education.

If the system wasn't discriminatory against British families who live within the catchment area by not placing that criteria at the top of the list for acceptance for a school place then I suspect many would not feel the need to 'cheat' The fact that travellers' children and 'looked after' children are set in the top two places is ridiculous. Travellers should travel and looked after children often just reside temporarily so locals should have priority, in my opinion,

We come back to the crux of the problem - there are some bad schools; and who would want their child to go there just because it was their catchment school?

Raising the standards of all schools is the way to go. There would then be no need to "cheat." How to achieve this? - I have no idea; except more money might help for better facilities, better support of new teachers, smaller classes etc.

It is a shame that parents judge schools by their OfSted rating. This was a little political game that was introduced so that parents could judge the "market" (groan) when what is really needed is the sort of school inspectors that also had a role as school support. If they found a weakness it was also their job to find a way of helping the school to eliminate it. Not as now where a weakness is just a downgrade that reduces the number of pupils wishing to go to that school and sets up a negative spiral.

Bollocks to the market principle being applied inappropriately!

As a teacher if I found out a child's parents had put grandparents house down on form just to get child the place I would report it. Children who do live close by and should have a place at the closest school to them often miss out because this is actually a common problem. It annoys me that the parents pull this deception and then when caught out, often by the child telling the teacher they have to pretend to live at grandparents, the parents then appeal on the grounds it will be disruptive for their child to move after settling in. I don't think cheats should gain out of deception as at least it is condoned or at worst encourages it. Not all parents have cars and so some have to walk long distances or travel with a small child by bus to get them to school further away.

Meant to say, had they applied to that little village school, they wouldn’t have got in because it’s well out of their catchment area. The second child only got in because of sibling rules! How crazy is that?

The system may be 'barmy' but it will not be improved by people cheating. Have the parents no thought for their child's embarrassment if caught out ? I once worked in a school where a pupil'd parents had to be phoned on the first day and it became apparent that they had lied to obtain place. The child had been assigned a class and some books had been given out but she was still required to leave. She had a full uniform for our school.
If some of you think this was harsh think of the child who was first on our 120 child long waiting list who started the next day.

Every day so

My GCs were with us from 7.15am to 18.00 every days the parents could get to work. We were also first call for any emergencies, so if a child was injured or ill, we collected them. Because of that, they thought it would be best to have a school near us. (Their parents couldn’t afford a house near us.)
My DD went to the school nearest us and asked about places, giving their circumstances. She was told “No problem, just put us first on the list.”
When allocation time arrived, they had lied. Not only could they not have a place at the school where she had asked, but because she had not put them first, there were no places at the local schools near them either. She was offered a place at a little village school 3 miles away further on from us (about 10 miles away from them). Fortunately, we can drive and it turned out to be a good school, but she wished she’d lied and given our address as hers.

I used to work in the admissions department of an LEA and cannot see what is ‘barmy’ about schools having catchment areas - it is surely better for everyone that children go to their local school. Admissions policy remains the same, but the borders of catchment areas increase or decrease in accordance with the number of applications. The system becomes lopsided when the brightest children are creamed off to ‘good’ schools which attract the best teachers - leaving the dregs for children whose parents are not so pushy. Everyone wants the best for their child, but the system of determining what a ‘good’ school is deeply flawed. A mediocre school may appear successful with good ratings but in many cases the ‘value added’ is a better test of how good a school is: a school in a deprived area may encourage a child to improve several grades from their starting point whereas the school that starts out with brighter children may only improve the children by one or two grades. It is fraudulent to put a false address, and if discovered, parents would certainly face sanctions the least of which would be for the child to lose his or her place.

I assume, saggi, that in the school where 41 different languages are spoken the children do all speak sufficiently good English for efficient teaching to be carried out? If not, it must have a catastrophic effect on their Ofsted ratings, and that speaks volumes.

This pees me off with a CAPITAL P ! Have one daughter with two children - one a 5yr old who started school last September -- SHE LIVES OVER THE ROAD FROM ME -- older daughter with four children, including a new-born and another granddaughter, almost 5 yrs old at the time last September -- WHO LIVES THREE ROADS AWAY FROM US.Have one junior school on different sites wanted both granddaughters going to the same school site as my older daughters first two children BOTH my granddaughters went to the same nursery and believed they would be going to the same school BUT authorities sent older daughters little girl to same school site as siblings and other granddaughter to other site.I found this very cruel -- we are within similar to each other and both sites.We had no redress in law to fight it -- we could not say that my younger daughter had NOT been offered her first place school because they class two completely separate buildings in separate roads as ONE SCHOOL.Very difficult having to explain this to my granddaughters -- also makes pick up/drop off and visiting difficult -- if both daughters need help with this -- can't be in both places at the same time -- they had a grandparents visit and I had to spend half my time in one class and make my way up to the other site not easy as I have limited mobility anyway so anyone cheating the system really isn't being fair to others-- having said that -- all schools should be so good that their places are actually sought after.

All four of my Grandchildren are in schools in their catchment area. The Senior school is borderline failing on the Ofsted reports yet my eldest GS, 16, is thriving. However there gas been a catalogue of failures with my 11 yr old GS who is ASD/ADHD with additional complex learning difficulties. We have been fighting for 18mths to get him into a local SN school and are being blocked at every turn. (The LEA judged him to be - "too intelligent to go to SN schools" in 2017! ).
My 10 yr old GD is thriving in her Junior school while her 6yr old sister
Is attending a local faith school because, due to severe life threatening food allergies, she cannot attend a school with no dining room.
Fortunately all schools are in their catchment area but my daughter would be, and is, prepared to take her children to whatever school is best for them, in or out of catchment.

This is the 'other side' of school assignments! (We find out in early May if my GS gets a place at SN school.)

For well over a year I was going once a week to help an Eritrean woman with her English, which was actually pretty good. She wasn't 100% happy with the school her elder child was at, and kept on and on at me to help get her into a closer one that had a better Ofsted rating - and was very sought after.

I could never make her understand that no amount of my writing to the head, or phoning her, or begging, would make the slightest difference - it all had to go through the council's official channels, taking into a/c catchments and waiting lists.
It became extremely wearing trying to convince her that it wasn't that I was unwilling to help, but that given our system, my badgering the head teacher would do no good at all.

The problems have arisen because not all schools are under the Local Authority.
And I agree that primary pupils being schooled out of catchment is crazy, as that also stops other children going to their local school.
Local schools for local kids.

Principle are great ....for this at the top of the pile!! Those at the bottom can't afford them!!

Poorer people live in poorer areas....that's economics... poorer areas produce poorer schools...that's obvious... I don't blame anybody for trying to step up their child to a better school. They've all seen where 'playing by the rules' gets them....nowhere!! My daughter lived in a poorer area by choice but the school her son would have gone to had 41 different languages spoken !! She moved to a 'better' area and her son got into a good school .... having the money helped her ... this system is rubbish, and while money KEEPS on buying priveilage I for one will not condemn people for trying to better their childrens' chances!

Luckygirl. It will never happen. As they say, "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others!"
Some people will always be willing to pay, or cheat, to get their children a better education. It's just tough on the ones who are poor and honest.