To only pay for school dinners when I get a text from the school?

[NumberZ]

We’ve been told that arrears of 2 weeks worth of dinners will mean that the pupil will have to bring school dinners in and will not be given a school meal.

I’ve always waited for the ‘reminder’ and paid it anyone else?

It's much easier now my two are at secondary school. I just have an auto top up set up to put another £50 on when it gets to £5. But when they were at primary school I used to to pay for a term in advance - if must be a pain for the staff to have to go chasing a load of parents for overdue lunch money.

@Serendipity79

Just seen that its Parent Pay - you don't need to pre book the meals, and most primary's wont ask you to because kids often have a mix e.g. pack up once a week if they don't like Fishy Friday - but you can definitely load credit onto the account

It seems like every school does it differently- at ours my DC has 2 hot dinners a week and takes a packed lunch 3 days a week. Not the same days every week - she chooses the ones she wants depending on the 3-week menu rotation, I book them and pay in advance. Seems to work perfectly.

We start getting reminders when funds get low. I just load a year at a time, but my dd doesn’t buy daily so it isn’t a huge amount

I wouldn’t let it go negative. If they won’t let you just load enough for the year or term, I would at least do it once a week.

Sounds like miscommunication. You don't prebook meals but can load credit on the account to cover meals

I always make sure my dd has money in her account. Schools can’t afford to subsidise families because you are too lazy to pay on time

By putting money on your child's account on parentpay, you're not prebooking actual meals; you're just allowing your child to buy meals on any days she decides she wants one, otherwise she can still bring in a packed lunch.

If it's parentpay then you dont prebook meals. That's all they mean. You load money into the account under their meals section and they spend it whenever they order a meal. You dont need to book the meals.

Go onto parentpay and look at the options on your child's account. We have the "school meal" and "milk". Meals are £2.10 each so I load in £21 and that's 10 meals. I do that after every 10 meals they've had at school. Milk is 20p so I load that ip with £10 or so and just let it go down.

Money always in the meals section of the account. No prebooking meals.

The text message is like... bad. It's like debt collecting. Theyr tezting you because your accind is in the red and you haven't bothered to pay them.

Primary currently has ScoPay, we get given a termly menu and have to order by Thursday lunchtime for the following week. If paid you have to have enough money loaded on to cover the meals you order. You can order for a half term at a time or more. If you don't pay you can’t order and if you don't order you have to send a packed lunch. If nothing is ordered and no packed lunch is sent, they feed them whatever they have left from school dinners and you have to pay for the meal plus a late fee. They are moving to MCAS soon, I assume it will be similar.

Secondary is School Gateway pre-loaded fingerprint account. I load it each Monday with the budget for the week and it doesn't get topped up until the next week. If it's not topped up they either don't eat or can go to student reception and ask me to be called to top it up. Packed lunches can also be taken.

This has reminded me that I preloaded both my kids' lunch cards with about $100 not long before Covid, and school meals have been free ever since, so I should see if I can get that money back.

We pay at beginning of week for upcoming meals. Would hate the school chasing me in arrears .

Someone in the school office has to send that reminder. Don’t be a dick- pay what you owe!

@Imissmoominmama

Someone in the school office has to send that reminder. Don’t be a dick- pay what you owe!

It’s automated

If you are not sure how the system works it’s best to ask the school. They can tell you when the right time would be to pay the money.

I'm often in arrears. There's supposed to be a notification when there's only a couple of meals worth left, but since the pandemic it's not been working and I seem to have lost the ability to know what the date is and do regularly occurring things of that sort on time.

We book and pay for ours a term in advance.

I've always paid in advance, then ordered meals via the website. The most recent company the school switched to preferred a direct debit to be set up to be paid in arrears so I did that.

With the pay in advance companies, they only allowed arrears of a couple of days before not feeding the child. I'm not sure how you feel it is acceptable to leave it until you have to be chased up to pay for your child's lunch.

Why?! I pay for a week in advance on a weekend ready for the week at school! There was one time that I forgot, the school would never deny them dinners but they swiftly send reminder to pay on the Monday. Not sure how long it would take for them to be ringing asking for the money - never let it get that bad.

Our school uses parent pay, we have to have meals booked by 9.30 at the latest. We order and pay whatever meal the dc want on a Sunday night. It's hardly difficult to top up the account, click on child's page, meal bookings, then add parent account credit.

The text reminder comes from a member of staff telling you that you owe money. They probably send lots out and it will drive them mad. I would put enough money on for the week.

A reminder is telling you to pay because you haven't so basically you pay late every time. Just pay at the beginning off each week.

I'm on parent pay, and top up for school meals at the start of the week.
Don't understand how you think you aren't able to do that

As someone who works in Education - you are annoying. You should be paying in advance, not in arrears. School budgets are down the toilet and you're making it worse.

Mine are at secondary and I usually remember to top up their online wisepay account. Occasionally they (my kids) let me know it's running low and I top up. They can see how much money is on there when they do the thumbprint. Once dd had to go and borrow money from head of house which I paid straight back. It would be good if wisepay sent an automatic email when you got down to the last £5, but maybe that would be too advanced.

Our borough uses a different cashless company, but it sounds similar to some already mentioned here. A big difference is that they no longer allow an account to go into debit. So many parents used to do this and it caused real issues. Now, if the account is at zero, or a meal would take it below zero, the parent gets a phone call inviting them to either top up, or send in a packed lunch. We won't leave children to starve, but if their parents have not paid, they get something like cheese and crackers and a piece of fruit.

Is this it because this seems like you would still have to log in and pay?