Turned away from breakfast club! AIBU

[Mumsgotaheadache01]

So every 2 weeks I book and pay for blocks of breakfast club for my child. She goes every morning as I work. I turned up as usual at 7.50 this morning and popped her into her school reception and checked her in. Only to be told that she wasn't booked in on the list this morning. I questioned it and the receptionist said that it had been cancelled by payer. I then checked on my parentpay app and it said that my payments were cancelled! So that's obviously why it had removed my child from her bookings. I had certainly not cancelled her chilcare. I have over £50 loaded onto parentpay. So have absolutely no idea why this has happened. I was told that my little one could not come into breakfast club. So I had to sit in the car with a grumpy cold child who had had no breakfast, be late for work and wait for normal school drop off time. Am I being unreasonable to be upset by this . And wonder why parentpay would just cancel my booking like that. And to be really worried and anxious that this might happen again for no reason.

Well why not say that in your OP? You made out you both had a horrible time being ‘cold’ ‘grumpy’ and ‘no breakfast.’

If you’re going to back track and say she had something to eat, had heating on and had fun then switch up 🤔

Everyone jumping on to make the Op feel as bad as they possibly can, standard mumsnet. Both the school where I work and my daughters school breakfast club would take a child and have done that isn’t booked on, especially in this weather. Also, my own daughter has fruit and a cereal bar or piece of toast every morning for breakfast and does just fine until break time 😂

@TheTruthHurtsDontIt my thoughts exactly with the pearl clutching

Was there nowhere nearby where you could buy a little something for your daughter to eat so she didn't start the school day hungry? As you had to wait before she could go in, that would have been good use of time.

Find another way to pay in future.

The school breakfast person was mean not to let her in, it must have been obvious that an error had been made.

Complain!

That is indeed the exact problem I’m talking about - a school viewing and treating children in that way. People seem to have been somehow trained to believe that this is the normal way to relate to other human beings. It is not.

Don’t be ridiculous, lots of schools start at that time.

That's terrible OP. Not sure as well why the school
wouldn't let you in if they had space?!? I'd raise that with them and when you find out what happened, the issues with parent pay. Thee sorts of issues shouldn't prevent parents being able to rely on childcare and get to work on time.

Didn’t you consider going to a garage - pretty well all of them have a hot snack and hot drink counter now? Or a drive-through? Or even popped into a supermarket cafe for a warm-up and a bite to eat?

And the car would warm up as you drove round?

It’s been bitterly cold here, though with little snow, and I know the country as a whole has been viciously cold… the Parent app / breakfast mix-up thing shouldn't have been your main priority at that time.

Im sorry OP, I can’t follow your line of thinking here?

The school should have let your daughter in regardless of any errors with the payment. Planning for the future perhaps it would be appropriate in similar weather conditions to keep supplies in the car as advised in winter months in case of breakdowns, traffic incidents etc. such as warm blankets, snacks, water and perhaps a flask with a hot drink.

Very unkind of the school not to let her into the breakfast club when she goes all the time, particularly with the weather so bad. Even if she'd never been before they should have let her in if there was room, which OP says there was.

I'm shocked that so many people are judging you - a banana and cereal bar is of course enough to tide her over, but I think for some pps it's judgement that you're using the breakfast club at all, rather than making her a breakfast frittata with eggs from your own hens.

Damn, the perfect mum police are out!!!!!! Hahahaha pathetic !

8.55 here for both local primaries.

For fucks’ sake, what a cunty response

Why should they have?

The OP ha already said the car was actually warm and there was food available

It's absolutely fine for a one off, in fact it's more than my child usually eats for breakfast

OP that is really annoying, and you weren’t over dramatising you were just telling the story. I’d have been well pissed off and further pissed off by all the do gooder sense of humourless knobheads on here!

So she posted this for shits and giggles???!

You don't have to "buy" it. Nobody is bothered.

Rubbish, it was clearly a frustrating situation! I'm sure the OP and her child would rather not have had to sit in the car all that time.

Anyone normal would be pissed off!

Totally agree, I’ve been astounded at some of the responses here. This seems to be the sentence that posters are denouncing OP on:

So I had to sit in the car with a grumpy cold child who had had no breakfast, be late for work and wait for normal school drop off time

Just try re-reading it in the context of what the school were effectively expecting her to do. That’s what she was trying to get across. The school didn’t care that this child who attends breakfast club every day was being turned away to wait, in unusually cold conditions, potentially with no food, and that the mum was going to be late for work through no fault of her own.

It’s totally normal to get your initial frustrations out first when introducing a story, and then to flesh out more detail later. This is not ‘drip-feeding’ or changing a story. The people whose posts read like fantasies are those going on about popping into a cafe etc. Totally unrealistic near many primary schools.

OP: the tech and the school both let you down today, and you have every right to need to vent about it here.

ParentPay is a very flawed system. It is dreadful and I resent paying on what I know to be an unreliable platform. Breakfast club is about far more than food. It's about routine and little things. In my youngest's case, going in each day and being greeted by the same people and playing chess with his little mate while their respective mummies were at work. The OP's child was cold only because it's cold outside. They had food. It just isn't right that Breakfast clubs turn children away. Any child. I think it's a massive training issue. Things have got a little out of hand here. This is probably just a staff member who needs some training. I am uncomfortable with all of the criticism of the OP. I'm feeling a little bit of judgement about mum's who use breakfast clubs here? Also, it's standard here (SE England) for primary schools to start at 9am with gates open FROM 8.45. Even Molly Ringwald says lay off the OP.

And what about the OP needing to get to work too? I think I'm right in saying that she had a class of children waiting for her?

Hardly an "unfed child", if worst case scenario was that they had to wait until 10.30. Hardly malnutrition!! 🙄

Well clearly you never worked at our primary school. It started at 8.50.

Wanna disbelieve me too then?

Then they shouldn’t use a notoriously glitchy system for payment!

How can they provide the service that’s needed of them if they use crappy tech and then aren’t flexible when it glitches?

Maybe they're contractually tied into it? Or maybe a replacement hasn't been made available yet?