Parent Pay Details

Not at our primary school, no @Kingof93. The kids are asked in the morning if they're having a dinner that day. If they have a school dinner then the money is deducted from their parent pay account, or it goes into debt if there weren't enough funds in there beforehand.

primary school yes. High school no.

But as we've all said, it's irrelevant - she might want you to pay for past lunches or future lunches

With those screen shots, I'd assume she's paid (a deposit) and I'd pay her.

I think you are being treated unfairly.
She is clearly bitter & difficult
She is getting an excellent deal.
If I were you I’d tell her that you are going to make everything official as she is taking the piss.. this is far from 50/50.
She only has meals & trips to pay for, whereas you pay the house ,bills, tax, fuel etc
You cant even afford a holiday, but she goes off multiple times without a heads up, & you are missing your arranged contact time.
She wont even return your Passport.
You have tried being generous & She needs a wake up call.

The default structure of Parentpay is that it takes the details from the parent who completes the original application, as they go in as #1 contact with Parental Responsibility.

Somebody at the school needs to go in and manually create a second parent account in the MIS and then it has to sync overnight (or somebody has to log into the PP server and do it manually, not all schools have it set up to do so automatically) and then they have to go back into it, manually create a new login letter, then send it to you.

It's the least worst of the school payment systems, but that's not saying much.

The 'ordered' status depends upon how the school has set up the payment items.

A normal person would go to court so that she has to organise things on a different day or she has to swap some days with you.

Her actions show her lack of respect for you as a parent. Her rights do not trump yours because she is the mother but as long as you’re passive, she’ll do whatever she wants.

That’s why you need a separate login so you can see that she’s sent the consent form.

You need to remind yourself that you’re separate households now and should be doing things in parallel because she doesn’t want to co-parent jointly. That’s fine - many parents have to do that and the kids are fine.

If you don’t want emails or requests for money, send one fixed amount every month and tell her no more than that. You can use an online Child Maintenance calculator or go through your bank statements to work out a number. She probably wants to contact you as much as you want to hear from her and this reduces contact a lot.

When you contact school, get your name down for newsletters, reports and other school letters so you can be in the know without having to ask your ex for access. You need to accept that she will not be helpful to you and that you need to organise things separately or in extreme cases take her to court.

See, your assumption that she’s not being truthful about whether or not he’s going on the trip ignores the fact that children change their minds and also circumstances change. Both things she told you can be true, he wasn’t going to go, now he is. You assume she’s being difficult when you have no idea what the circumstances were.

It’s about £8 for a certified copy of the birth registration via the General Register Office. Just spend the £8 and get one. If I was divorced I wouldn’t give DH the original.

I think that some of the replies have been harsh and a reflection on individual circumstance of the poster.

You are far too passive OP but having stuff like the parent pay account means that you can be a more involved parent and know things like when a school trip is happening or what the child picks for break and lunch.

Your ex clearly likes arguing or sees you purely as an atm who should be transferring money on her way so but in her defence, your passivity creates that image.

Send one fixed amount every month (maintenance) so there’s no anrguing about money and negotiate things like the right to take the kids overnight to see your parents. Passively complaining and obeying your ex will get you nowhere. Not being proactive risks your kids developing the same opinion of you as your ex- an ATM and nothing more.

For goodness sake, if it's your DC you just apply to the registrar to get a certified copy of the birth certificate. You can set your DC up with a bank account and your parents can pay into that. I'd be very angry if I found my ex had been taking money from grandparents for DC but they never got it or it wasn't saved for them.

OP, another point here is to consider the payment. if you are genuinely paying all these costs then arguably, no, you don't need to pay the extra. obviously, you can if you can afford it and want to. In which case, I think the point is that either you give her th emoney or you don't. You don't need PROOF of whatever it's been spent on.

But I think overall, the best thing is to continue as you say you plan to - finalise and formalise the financial and contact arrangements. You dont' seem to mind paynig a big chunk every month and so I assume money is not an issue for you, so I'd suggest that you work out what you have been spending and continue to pay that or a similar amount ... just formalise it.

Ditto re contact - formalise how that works and under what conditions arrangements cna be changed.

Meanwhile, get involved in the school. if she doesn't appreciate your approach, I can see that's an issue and I couldn't say if it's your fault or hers, but at the end of the day, you're not together anymore so she doesn't actually get a say in how you talk to or about the school, and vice versa.

I have just gone onto my account but I cannot see anything that says 'ordered' so cannot help you there. However, things that I have paid for and hasn't happened yet says 'Paid'.
There are some things that are set up by the school to be paid in installments - this says payment due - with the date due and amount - hope this helps.

Is it the parent Pay login details she is not giving you? You can definitely have 2 'bank cards' paying into the same account. Both myself and my husband put money into my son's account whoever gets to do it first when we get the low balance alert.

Perhaps ask for screen shots of what is on parent pay. Then at least you'll know what they are and how much.

Well, you can get it. You need to formalise contact and maintenance agreements.