Parent Pay Details

[Kingof93]

Just would like some input on this.

Im being asked to send money to my sons bank account to then go into his parent pay to cover meals and school trips. I have no issue in doing this as I do earn more than his mother. I have asked to be given the details for parent pay so I can send the money directly as I also do not have access to his bank account so I have no proof that the money is actually being used for school meals and trips etc.

To give context I first asked for bank access when the acct was set up (9 years now) and to parent pay when he started at the school. My ex partner has always refused me access to both. I have until now not pushed back on this and now im doing so she is emailing me the same email about paying repeatedly.

I am more than happy to pay it I just want to see where the money goes.

See, your assumption that she’s not being truthful about whether or not he’s going on the trip ignores the fact that children change their minds and also circumstances change. Both things she told you can be true, he wasn’t going to go, now he is. You assume she’s being difficult when you have no idea what the circumstances were.

If thats the case then a message in advance would be the decent thing to do. I do that much but its not the same for her.

I left work drove over on friday to find an empty house. No notice nothing. Not for the first time.

That’s why you need a separate login so you can see that she’s sent the consent form.

You need to remind yourself that you’re separate households now and should be doing things in parallel because she doesn’t want to co-parent jointly. That’s fine - many parents have to do that and the kids are fine.

If you don’t want emails or requests for money, send one fixed amount every month and tell her no more than that. You can use an online Child Maintenance calculator or go through your bank statements to work out a number. She probably wants to contact you as much as you want to hear from her and this reduces contact a lot.

When you contact school, get your name down for newsletters, reports and other school letters so you can be in the know without having to ask your ex for access. You need to accept that she will not be helpful to you and that you need to organise things separately or in extreme cases take her to court.

A normal person would go to court so that she has to organise things on a different day or she has to swap some days with you.

Her actions show her lack of respect for you as a parent. Her rights do not trump yours because she is the mother but as long as you’re passive, she’ll do whatever she wants.

The default structure of Parentpay is that it takes the details from the parent who completes the original application, as they go in as #1 contact with Parental Responsibility.

Somebody at the school needs to go in and manually create a second parent account in the MIS and then it has to sync overnight (or somebody has to log into the PP server and do it manually, not all schools have it set up to do so automatically) and then they have to go back into it, manually create a new login letter, then send it to you.

It's the least worst of the school payment systems, but that's not saying much.

The 'ordered' status depends upon how the school has set up the payment items.

I think you are being treated unfairly.
She is clearly bitter & difficult
She is getting an excellent deal.
If I were you I’d tell her that you are going to make everything official as she is taking the piss.. this is far from 50/50.
She only has meals & trips to pay for, whereas you pay the house ,bills, tax, fuel etc
You cant even afford a holiday, but she goes off multiple times without a heads up, & you are missing your arranged contact time.
She wont even return your Passport.
You have tried being generous & She needs a wake up call.

With those screen shots, I'd assume she's paid (a deposit) and I'd pay her.

Quick one. Im right in thinking meals are ordered weeks ahead and paid for in advance.

primary school yes. High school no.

But as we've all said, it's irrelevant - she might want you to pay for past lunches or future lunches

Im ok paying. Im told this week he won't eat. But i wanted to check

Not at our primary school, no @Kingof93. The kids are asked in the morning if they're having a dinner that day. If they have a school dinner then the money is deducted from their parent pay account, or it goes into debt if there weren't enough funds in there beforehand.