To wonder why schools use ParentPay when it's so fucking awful for parents?

[DoughnutPrincess]

Yet another weekend attempt to book school lunches for the week ahead, yet more random timeout crap & having to load up a desktop because their website doesn't work properly on multiple iOS or Android devices we have in the house. I'm seriously at the end of my tether every fucking week of having to use their poorly designed, poorly implemented "product".

Does the system work better for teachers or something? I could understand why it's being bought if it's a better system for teachers/school staff, but surely I'm not the only parent who uses it and finds it an unintuitive, terribly designed and run piece of crap? Who is paying them ££ to inflict this on parents?

I've been using it for the 3rd year so far and we have years of having to use it for school lunches ahead 😭

I'm another one not recognising the issues; it sounds horrendous! I've had 4 children at 2 different schools using it and don't think it's any better or worse than other platforms we've had to use over the years (ie at primary/before the boys' secondary adopted it). That said, we haven't had to use it for meals, only trips, so perhaps that is where the issues are.

Have you tried clearing your browser cookies in chrome?

I'm having nightmare with it.
2 children both left the schools. Need a refund from what was left in there accounts. Can only be actioned by the school apparently. 1 child no longer appears (she left in march so that isn't the issue) but school didn't respond regarding a refund.
Other child is likely to be deleted soon, still awaiting a response for that one.

I simply can't understand why the school needs to action a refund for what is left in the child's parent pay account.

The errors are intermittent. You give up and up back in an hour and it works 🙄

In the case of many schools round here, ParentPay is the choice of the catering company, so schools using that company use that system.

So wait a second, their business model is focused on punting their shitty system to catering companies, it's not necessarily something a school or council has decided?

I was going to feed back to the school to ask if other parents have issues in the hope when any contract review is done then they can consider alternatives but it sounds like that might be a dead end / pointless then 😔

It's awful! It regularly just clears booked lunches for no apparent reason and we all get passive aggressive emails from the school despite them knowing the issues with parentpay

Yeah we tried doing a term fully once

It cleared some!

Same here, I hate parentpay.

I've got 1 kid moving primary->middle and another middle->high.

All 3 schools use parent pay and I was told they'd just need a code from the next school to change the account so didn't worry that there was a bit of money left in each account (prob around £15 in total).

Now both kids have all been deleted/archived so that money has disappeared and I cant prove how much was in there. Parentpay say they cant refund any money unless it is actioned by the school, the school say they cant refund as the kids accounts no longer exist, the helpline just say its up to the school and around and around...

I'm very new to it but we don't have to pick lunches. We just top up with £13 per week (which is the weekly cost of lunch)

Haven't had a lunch yet though as DC1 is a new starter!!

Always found it ok.

I thought it was only me who needed to use desktop! Me and DH have lovely bir on the flash side phones and we can't get it to work on either so use a very old laptop 😆

It's nothing to do with teachers.
Don't blame us.

I refuse to use it now after it kept £15, kid was still at school it just evaporated between terms!
Cash every week now.

Interesting I am in Scotland and I never get asked to select a pudding, it's just not an option at my dd's school, which I find a bit sad, an odd pudding would be nice.

If you’re ordering in advance for the week, how do you know if your Dc will be hungry enough for pudding or not?
Never had any trouble using it with my DD on an iPad.

It's worth feeding back to the school.
They might be in a Trust or LA contract so may not be able to change anything quickly but they can take it into account/ pass on the feedback when appropriate.

Given it wasn’t long ago that we needed to write out cheques and put in different labelled envelopes I’m happy with parent pay

I use it. Never have a problem. Would rather this way vs cash!

Secondary school pupil. I use it to send payments to school, and nothing else, and have never had issues in 4 yrs ( i dont have to maje lunch choices).
The only thing that annoys me is our school have a £5 minimum transfer. Sometimes he just needs £2 or 3 but I HAVE to add 5!.

Agreed about Arbor. My child's high school switched to that last year and it's awful. Even the staff hate it.

Our school sent us an email a couple of weeks ago warning that this weekend would be very busy for parent pay and to top up in advance. Maybe do that next time.

No I don't use any payment function

Yet it still tries to make me set up single click payments when I log in every time

In Scotland for the first several years primary school dinners are all free

So it's like it's been tested in England and Wales presumably?

I don't (can't?) add any money onto it which is another level of complication it can't handle

how do you know if your Dc will be hungry enough for pudding or not?

It depends on the lunch choice really - if we've selected soup, DC will want pudding. If it's the beef and Yorkshire pudding and potato options then they don't want it but we've no option to submit the stupid UI without a selection.

We're meant to be a bit more aware of food waste these days yet their system can't cope with NOT ordering the mandatory pudding

There's not even an option to select it then cancel 1 but after

Or add a note to the school or anything

Been using ParentPay at DCs school for the past 6 years & not had any issues other than it occasionally not loading the full terms worth of lunch options.
I order the lunches at the beginning of the term. KS1 children get free school meals so we don't pay for those, they're set up with no charge; we pay now for DDs lunches & use 1 Click to do it.
Other payments are added like trips etc & works fine.