To complain the SCOPAY system is sexist?

[Botharms]

The schools here use SCOPAY to collect payments for lunch, trips etc.
My problem is they only send one link out to register, which only allows one parent/guardian to register.
For the second parent to register they have to hassle the school to send a second link and wait for them to get round to it.

With separated parents, the "secondary parent" often doesn't know they've not been sent the email asking them to sign up until it's too late.
For parents who live together the "secondary parent" still has to go in and pester the school, and parents often don't get round to it (it's a hassle and you don't want to bother the school and be seen as a problem parent) - so all the responsibility and admin falls on to the "primary parent".

Where this becomes sexist and appears to break the 2010 Equalities Act is that the "primary parent" is disproportionately the mother - or is assumed to be the mother by the school. So although SCOPAY haven't directly set out to dump more work and responsibility on mums and exclude dads that is the indirect effect of their system.

I know SCOPAY isn't setting out to be sexist, but it's pretty obvious that more childcare/child admin is done by mums, and that with separated parents the "primary parent" is normally the mother (even if there's shared care the school tends to assume it's the mother)

It would be simple to resolve - just send out 2 registration links for every child, or at least send out 2 links for every child with 2 registered adults.

The school ask at the outset who the primary parent is so that’s easy enough.
The issue I have is that because only I have access, I pay for everything by default.

A pp has given the perfect answer. Set up one email for the child then you both get notifications and links for them.

Its your school. Mine uses scopay and we both get the emails.

We do have one login but thats different and you and your ex could agree on that.

This year mum submitted the school application forms for child 1 and put her name first, I submitted the forms for child 2 and put my name first. I'm getting a slew of informational emails from [email protected], so am on their system, but mum got both registration links. This was a problem as I had to message mum late Sunday to ask her to put money on the accounts, and it was just luck she wasn't working and that I got through to her.

Legally there normally shouldn't be such a thing as a "primary parent". Normally two adults legally share parental responsibility as equals. Although there is often an imbalance on who actually does the bulk of the work, SCOPAY & Co shouldn't be making this worse.

I'm saying it's sexist because the SCOPAY & school system is meaning far more mums than dads are sent the registration mail.

The only people being sexist are the people who choose who the "primary parent" is. So, the parent who filled in the form.

This was a problem as I had to message mum late Sunday to ask her to put money on the accounts, and it was just luck she wasn't working and that I got through to her

Why didnt you just ask for the password so You could put money on the account?

You are making a huge issue when there isnt one

This.

so easy.

Surely to goodness you log on once a term and put a few hundred quid on there or whatever, it's hardly ardous.

But you parents fill out the forms 🙄.

The choice of who to put on the list first comes down to you.

You could easily have set up a joint email for school related stuff. It's not the schools or the comms app to do your thinking for you.

Shared email address for child only stuff is genus idea.

Primary parent = first point of contact, that's fair enough IF the children spend more time with one parent than the other; more problematic if they don't. However, the fact that one parent may have the children with them for more of the school week doesn't mean the other parent ceases to exist or to have a right to information/chance to input. It shouldn't be complicated to include them both. I mean, what if they're with dad all week because mum is out of the country? How does he find anything out? Or if mum is ill, or is just one of those wildly disorganised people, or her phone was wiped during an alien abduction? (Happens a lot round my way.)

It doesn't make it any better putting dad down as primary carer, the issue is still going to arise. Not the most important part of it perhaps, but IMO it is de facto sexist because in the majority of cases it WILL be the mother who is put in first, because it WILL be the mother who does the bulk of childcare for more reasons than one, not always under either parent's full control, whether they are still a couple or not.

Sounds a good idea but I'm dubious about shared emails in the case of some parents. I can just envisage XH (assuming he even looked at an email, it doesn't come naturally to him) deleting something because he didn't think it was important or didn't want me knowing about it .Then of course I'd have to sort out any problems later because I "should have known". 🙄

I could do that for my youngest as I'm married to his mum, but I'm divorced from the older 2's mum so sharing a mail would be weird - and having separate accounts helps us keep track of who's spent what so every now and then we can add them and other expenses up and split the costs.

I already get all the notifications… so many notifications… scopay, dojo, parentmail, facebook, whatsapp. Which adds to the irritation about only one link for scopay per child.

If nothing else OP thanks for the reminder that I needed to put some money in DD's scopay account. 15 quid not "hundreds" as a PP said - I feel sure that most people log in weekly/fortnightly to keep pace with the spending rather than tying up "hundreds" of quid at a time, that might never get spent.

I see your point OP and I think in your case, asking for the password for your Ex's scopay account is the way forward. It's a good thing for her, because it shows her you will be paying some of the costs.

If upsets you so much, set up a joint account with the child's other parent that either of you can access and give that to the school to register on the system.

My son's primary and secondary schools used Scopay and I thought it was a great system. It didn't add to my mental load or "life admin", so I can't really see how it's discriminatory in adding to a mum's burden. I would say the biggest burdens schools could remove would be silly uniform rules followed by having dressing up days! Not asking people to pay for things via Scopay rather than sending in a cheque or cash.

Hehe, they've just started secondary school where they choose what they want to buy and they're very excited by this. At the moment we'll be putting on £5 - £10 at a time. Once they're used to the system and to budgetting we'll start putting more on (and suggesting they make packed lunches sometimes).

Also, why so many notifications? Mute the whatsapp and FB groups and look at them when it suits.

Ex or not, having a joint email address for your joint child seems sensible to me.

Good god. Ridiculous how some people are so desperate to be victims.

I feel your pain. School in theory take two mails but only contact one. We go through rounds of giving the second mail address and being told it’s sorted but it never is.

I can kind of see your point but I think it's not a difficult problem to solve.

I used to be the primary parent as I was a SAHP. I then started to work full time and my husband became the primary parent. We fill in forms with him at the top and his contact details as the primary contact details. Two years running he's had to go into the office to request that they actually send him emails as we've realised they've ignored it and I'm receiving all of the emails he needs to see while I'm at work. That was pretty annoying.

If the school makes you feel like you’re a problem parent for asking for a second link, then the school is the problem. We requested everything goes to both of us and the school just did it. We were not made to feel like we were hassling them, but if we were, I wouldn’t have cared anyway. There may be times you have to stand up for your kids and you’ll have to get over the school making you feel like you’re hassling them. Just do what you need to do to suit your lives.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with sexism against all.

*at all

I'm not bothered by this. I use parent pay and it's similar Ex made a big hooha about changing it to his email address which the school did. I have the email/ password and just log on to pay for stuff. It's mainly lunches for the eldest, younger ones get free meals (everyone up to P5 where we are), and trips. It's mildly annoying as I think they'd send notifications when running low. Also I don't get receipts. High school so food prices variable/ they can also buy snacks etc so can cost nearly a fiver per day! Honestly I've just put in a bit of a buffer and check weekly, takes two minutes.

Ex transfers the money for lunches to DS's bank account which he can't actually use (they've given up cash and don't accept contactless for the moment). So he mainly saves it which bodes well for the future.

Do you have access to your ex husbands actual email? I use parentpay and receive email receipts for payments and also dinner money reminders.

I always found that even where we listed DH first, I got put as the primary parent. Similarly, for finance things, he got listed as the main person even where we put my name first.

I'm surprised that so few people have experienced this, as it is very common to find systems that auto default to sexist stereotypes.