Exposed: the cheating parents

Two out of three London councils are forced to take action against parents who cheat to get their children into popular state schools, it can be revealed today. An Evening Standard survey has exposed the lies that desperate parents will tell to get around tough admissions rules for the most successful schools.

At the start of this term parents who gave a false address to get their child into Dulwich Hamlet Primary School in Southwark were confronted by council officers when they turned up on the first day.

Southwark found the child a place at another school and decided to take no further action against the parents.

The case highlighted the pressure on oversubscribed schools - which headteachers said was getting worse.

Of London's 33 local education authorities, 27 responded to the survey - and 18 said they dealt with cases where parents provided documentation that was so suspicious that further investigation was necessary.

Between them, they handled at least 34 cases of parents giving false information in the past year. This was likely to be just the tip of the iceberg as schools were not obliged to report every suspicious case.

When the Evening Standard made enquiries, five LEAs said they did not keep records, another refused to discuss the issue and only three claimed it was not a problem they had to face.

Authorities are now forced to require multiple forms of proof of address including council tax bills, driving licences and child benefit documents. Some even make follow-up checks months after children have started school to ensure the addresses given really were permanent family homes.

Parents may pretend their child is staying with grandparents who conveniently happen to live within a school's catchment area. In the case of some primary schools whose applications vastly outnumber places, that can extend to little more than 100 yards.

Others rent flats or houses in the catchment area while, in the case of church schools, some parents suddenly discover religion and start attending services regularly in an attempt to convince the vicar to give them a reference.

Previous research has shown that a third of headteachers of popular primary schools have been of fered bribes or threatened by parents.

Bev Feather, head of Clare House Primary School in Bromley, was promised ?3,000 if she would "forget" the fact that a couple l ived outside the catchment area.

No council said it had prosecuted a parent for making a fraudulent application. In many cases, a warning that an investigation was pending was enough to scare parents into withdrawing their application.

Those who refused to back down had their places taken away.

Redbridge council was particularly afflicted by this growing problem, said a spokesman. Its schools got good results and were popular with parents from neighbouring boroughs as well as those who lived in the area.

Officers carried out increasing numbers of residential checks as the start of the school year drew nearer. The spokesman said they rose from 121 in May and June to 162 in July and August, although that did not mean all turned out to be suspicious, she stressed.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the problem was prevalent throughout London. "There's no way parents should be allowed to get away with giving false addresses and then expect to get their children into that school. It's totally unacceptable."