...to loathe and despise dd's school site, Wisepay and Parentmail

[Jux]

OK, perhaps not the site quite so much but it's ghastly, doesn't work properly on an iPad - floats about on the screen, links don't work blah blah - but Wisepay and Parentmail? The school are paying them presumably, and they are crap. Particularly Parentmail.

Wisepay - first, doesn't use PayPal; then pretended it didn't know my card despite my having used it many times this year (and yes, there is money in the account), then took me off to Verified by Visa (loathe them even more) which then crashed my machine. I don't know whether I've got the tickets or not, but I know they sell out very very fast.

Parentmail - supposed to send you stuff that is relevant to your child/children. No, it doesn't. It sends me a random selection of crap from the school (at least it sticks to the relevant school). I got stuff about Y10 trips when dd was in Year 8, subject trips which dd isn't doing, information about things which only the 6th formers are involved in. Piles and piles of junk. And I have to click on each bloody email from them and then click the link on each email only to find out that oh no it's for Y7s or something. Hours of my life are wasted on this crap service.

Hate hate hate.

And breathe.

[Chopstheduck]

I refuse to use wisepay! I still insist on cheques. They don't like it but at least I know that things have been paid correctly, and have records.

[Lomaamina]

I feel your pain. I hate junk mail, let alone the palarver with the payment. We use Parentpay and it seems to work well. Could you suggest a switch?

Emails come directly from the school without any muddles in 4 years of school so far.

[Ihatemytoes]

Parentpay doesn't send me anything that's not relevant to my DCs. I think it's fab!

[Joysmum]

We have parent pay and it's been nothing but brilliant.

I love getting parent mail too. No excuses for not getting letters home from school and a record of the info sent and received so no more, 'nobody informed me' excuses from parents who haven't properly read the letters they were given because they know about one of 2 subjects on a letter.

[Jux]

Joysmum, if only! I can but dream of getting relevant stuff from school and nothing else!

So now, anything from Parentmail goes straight into junk, and I just check the school site as regularly as I can considering it doesn't bloody work properly on an iPad grrrrrrrr.

To think that I was utterly delighted when the school said they were going paperless. Ah, such naivety! Oh, for a return to those halcyon days of innocence

[AnyFucker]

Yep, WisePay is crap and I don't trust it after what I believe to be a mistake was made. Unfortunately, there is no trail to follow. Only a few quid for dinner money went "missing" but that's not the point and I am back to the old fashioned way of sending a cheque/cash into school.

[KatnipEvergreen]

I find Parentmail fantastic, far better than letters home in bags. I would say it's the school administration that are crap, as if you are getting irrelevant messages they are not using it properly.

[MrsDavidBowie]

Love both parent pay and parentmail.
It's your schools fault if you are being sent out non relevant info....talk to the administrator

[OpalQuartz]

I wonder if your school has not set up Parentmail properly or it is an old version or something? We have Parentmail and I don't have any of the problems you mention, although I do use it on a laptop rather than a tablet.

[whatdoesittake48]

Parentpay is great - easy to use and fast. But parentmail...hmmm. Kinda crap. I agree that having to click on a link makes it hard to use and near on impossible on a mobile. the attachment just hangs and never loads.

but agree - the system could be used better by the admin staff. More advice on how to use it would be an improvement.

[cashmiriana]

Sounds like the school haven't set it up properly.
You need to check that the groups shown on your child's account are correct. We've got missing and wrong groups on there (e.g., shows old tutor group, and wrong sports clubs) so emails can be hit and miss.

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

Parentmail is fabulous.

We get one e-mail a week on a Friday with all the stuff for the week attached. It is clearly shown which items are relevant for which year group so you aren't opening unnecessary attachments.

The also use a text service, which they tailor more specifically, so changes to pick up times/location for a particular club would come out via that and just to the relevant parents.

[LaGuardia]

Parentmail2 is in use now so sounds like your school still using the old version which is shite.

[Jux]

No groups on dd's account. No groups to choose from, except her Tutor group, which is not relevant for most things anyway, unless the only thing that matters is where they do registration and where their room is. It's complete rubbish. Even so, you'd think that it would at least stick to the right Year instead of absolutely any year!

Furthermore, sometimes I'll click a link to a letter and only half of it downloads.

I don't really want loads of paper coming home, but it is much better going onto the school site, looking at the information page and scanning down all the letters which are posted there, opening the ones which are relevant. Sadly, not every letter is posted there, just most of them.

As for Wisepay. Why not PayPal? Everyone in the world uses PayPal. Except them. Idiots. (I could rant on forever about this.)

The school's own site is probably done by pupils so I'll forgive a little on that front.

They're not going to welcome a suggestion from me about using Parentmail 2; they're very protective of their crap computer systems.

[Y3MBailey]

I know this is an old thread but I thought it worth replying too.

The reason schools use Wisepay (I am a teacher) is that one of wisepays actual USP is that it does not store any personal info after the transaction is complete.

This is necessary as we cannot store card information as a school.

[Pseudonym99]

If you change information on parentmail, does it pass this information to the school? I ask, as our school seems to have changed the parent who they ring in an emergency, and we haven't told the school anything. The only thing I can think of is one of us has logged into parentmail to change a mobile number, and parentmail has passed that information to the school and the school has made some sort of assumption. Surely it is illegal for parentmail to pass information on under the Data Protection Act? If I want to change the information school holds about me, I will tell them myself! I might tell them to ignore anything parentmail tells them.

[bruffin]

Never had a problem with Wisepay but it would be nice if it took paypal. We have GO4Schools which is supposed to email you if there is a information about your child, but doesnt always!

[OwlCapone]

I regularly use Wipsepay on an iPad and go through Verified by Visa with no problems at all.