Free college meals

[Cheekymonkye]

Ok guys , I just want to know if I am overreacting.

my daughter has enrolled in college (16)

when we went to an open night , they explained about the free school lunch and travel for anyone earning under 35k . I was so very pleased as we always miss out on things like this because we are always just over the threshold.

on enrolment day , we went down to student service, and the lady there kindly helped us fill out the form, we gave her our universal credit statement , and everything as far as we knew had been sorted .

having heard nothing by Monday, I rang up student services.

very nice man on the phone , explained they needed evidence uploading from our claim ,dated in the last 3 months and not to worry about lunches this week , as the college provides all lunches this week while all this sort of stuff gets straightened out. (I did tell him I gave the lady my claim but anyway, it needed redoing )

so I printed out our latest statement, took pictures of it and uploaded it. As the form was a bit glitchy and I had to try twice , I sent my daughter with a copy to take into student services today, just to be safe .

got home this evening, daughter took the statement in , but was told as it had been uploaded she just needed to wait , and sent on her way.

I had an email saying they didn’t accept screenshots or pictures of statements online (how else do I do it ???)

and worst part, daughter hasn’t had any lunch , as she got to the cafeteria and the staff said there was no free meal .

i have rung up college, and passed to another member of staff because the person I needed had gone home , however she was quite sure they needed three months statements , not a statement within the last three months

so I have tried to print out the second statement and the printer has packed up and I only have two months worth not three .

by now I could absolutely breath fire 🔥 I’m so cross and I don’t know how I can calmly sort this out.

I feel like I am being made to jump through unnecessary hoops / not being told the correct information to a point where I need to complain. do you agree or am i being a difficult parent .

daughter doesn’t want me to apply anymore as apparently now it’s embarrassing and the kitchen staff will be judging her 🙄

i do understand that i cant hold college responsible for the broken printer 😆

What kind of statement is it? A bank statement?

if so you should be able to down a copy and send them the pdf

Don't print the statements off just save them on your computer as a PDF and upload them or email them or whatever you need to do.

You can download UC statements. Maybe tell them you dont have a printer or go to local library or ask a friend to help? Last year my daughter qualified. Situation has changed this year so she doesn't. I think it was 3 months though I can't be sure. But they had her sorted by the time it started. We took them down in person as that was what they requested. She also got a free bus pass for the year. It was a great help. Good luck with it

Why are you printing it, surely you can export it as a pdf and upload it?

But the no food is a bit shit, can you send her with pack up tol it's resolved?

Thank you to the people who mentioned a pdf . I have never done that before, but I went back on and had a faff about with it , managed to save the statement as a pdf , save it as a file to my phone , then upload the pdf file to the application.

I could only do one so let’s see what happens.

she can take a pac up tomorrow

I have obviously just got wound up over it all and lost my patience.

Is this specific to your area or do all colleges offer this?

I've never heard of such a scheme tbh - it's probably unreasonable not to have had a back up plan (money or packed lunch) just in case there were any start up glitches.

Once this is sorted I'd also write to student services (or equivalent) at the college setting out everything you've written here. It's not ok to treat people like this. If they offer free meals to whatever cohort they need to have a simple, clear and bombproof process for checking and implementing claims. If you're battling, how are people coping with EAL or no access to tech?