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Punishment for Parents Lying to Get a Place

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:38 pm
by sherry_d
In case you have missed the story here it is

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8334503.stm

What do you think of punishing parents maybe a fine for telling fibbies about where you live to get a place. I must say I feel its one area again where the govt and local authorities seem to push the blame elsewhere.

They have to address the postcode lottery for schools. If you arent fortunate enough to have bags of cash to buy a house in the catchment area of the so called school, then your child will just languish in the local terrible school.

Having been a single parent in my life at one point, living in errm a very bad part of town, I was still very much interested in my DD' education and there was no way I would have taken my DD to the local school. Seriously I would have even considered going to prison than for DD to go to that school

Seriously the fine needs to be £10 000 for parents to be detered, but my suspicion is it will be a couple hundred quid

At the end of the day, there is no need for telling fibbies but what would you do when you cant afford the BIG pounds to live in the area.

And of course all the faces who were moarning about local places being taken are the lucky few who are able to afford living in these areas. So if you live in a council estate your kids should should stay there.

Me thinks the current system of how school are allocated is VERY wrong in that its keeps the poor from the rich and its unfair to keep poor kids from privileged schools and thats what these ministers and council should address.

if the child loses the places because of fibbies from parent what more do they want? Its applying the rules, I know some people who have told fibbies and it seems most get away with it. So really if they want to crack down then they just have to apply the rules `that already exist. I doubt many headteachers want to be in the news for that

Rant over

Re: Punishment for Parents Lying to Get a Place

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:58 pm
by SunlampVexesEel
sherry_d wrote:Seriously the fine needs to be £10 000 for parents to be detered, but my suspicion is it will be a couple hundred quid
A fine/worse would only apply to those you lied on their form about their circumstances. The obvious applications... e.g. Temporary Split, living with inlaws etc. are easily spotted. The majority of real cases I know about involve renting in the area during the application process (easy for serial renters and not impossible for owners); these applications would be unaffected.

The lottery idea, discussed in the same review, makes my skin crawl.

Regards
SVE

PS

Our local school has no catchment and is entirely selected based on the 11+; no amount of lying would sort out our challenges!

Re: Punishment for Parents Lying to Get a Place

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 4:13 pm
by Sally Herts
SunlampVexesEel wrote:Our local school has no catchment and is entirely selected based on the 11+; no amount of lying would sort out our challenges!
Ah, but what about those with equal marks? There may be a tie of several children with the same score vying for the last place... Are they then further selected on the distance criterion? :lol:

Re: Punishment for Parents Lying to Get a Place

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 5:41 pm
by SunlampVexesEel
Sally Herts wrote:Are they then further selected on the distance criterion? :lol:
Nope. Not the Boys as far as I can read from the admissions criteria.

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 6:58 pm
by Sally Herts
Off topic now, but I wonder how they separate boys who tie then? Our area does it by distance from the school.

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:18 pm
by SunlampVexesEel
Sally Herts wrote:Off topic now, but I wonder how they separate boys who tie then? Our area does it by distance from the school.
I believe they go above PAN for tied scores, but the distribution is such they are not a huge number of ties. For the Girls the ties are indeed broken by distance from school.

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:03 pm
by sherry_d
That sounds like a farer system

Its based on ability and not where you damn live.

It will be interesting to see if the fines will put off people. I saw a dad swearing he would just suffer the consequences but I bet maybe if I was living in the good school catchment area, I will be livid if my child doesnt get in

In the states its even much worse, you dont even choose, you simply go to the nearest school and school get funding from property taxes, so wealthy areas have more taxes and more resources = better schools. So most people just end up resorting to indies

Now just hoping DD makes it into our local gramma, the thought of the local comp makes my blood boil and hoping maybe we would have won the lottery for an indie if she doesnt make it

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 11:46 pm
by familyinthevalley
sherry_d wrote:
In the states its even much worse, you dont even choose, you simply go to the nearest school and school get funding from property taxes, so wealthy areas have more taxes and more resources = better schools. So most people just end up resorting to indies
In Canada you go to the local school as well. It is funded though from the regional education office which collects funding from the whole of an area, so not dictated by the catchment area make up of the school.
Each school ends up with it's fair share of high achievers, under achievers, disruptive students, well behaved students, students who don't care and students who do their best each and every day. The teachers don't have to put up with being physically or verbally abused. The schools have no problem calling in the police if an incidence of crime takes place on school grounds.

The high achievers are encouraged and streamed ahead. I would take a Canadian high school over an English comprehensive/high school any day - and because of my local choice of comps, I'm ever so grateful for the grammar system here!

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:37 pm
by flossie
If there were decent school available to all parents not just the ones who can afford to move in to a desirable area then there would not be this problem in my opinion.

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:39 pm
by Ed's mum
I agree Flossie.