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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

stupid school have wrongly charged me for school dinners...

156 replies

mumatron · 05/03/2012 14:40

and apparently there is nothing I can do except pay it.

£271.

My dc changed schools a year ago, a few weeks later I had a letter from the local council addressed to 'parents of DS' with a bill for the above amount.

obviously I phoned to query it, the man from the council said he would look into it. I also called the school who apologised and said it must have been an error on their part.

My ds had been in the school for 4 years and had never had dinners, I have never qualified for the free dinners scheme.

since then I have periodically had letters threatening baliffs etc, each time I call the council I am told it is sorted.

Friday I came home from work to find a hand delivered letter from a baliff saying they will be coming on 09/03/2012 to remove goods. This is the second time this has happened. Called the council again and have just been told that after speaking to the school the debt is actually mine and as they have invoices I have no option but to pay it. I can make an appointment with the school to see the invoices they have. what good is that going to do? unless they have pictures of him eating £271 worth of dinners.

I should also add the school never once sent a letter home from school to say that there was any amount outstanding, or that they had needed to give him dinners for any reason.

Any suggestions as to where the hell I go with this?

TIA

OP posts:

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Original poster

mumatron · 08/03/2012 21:51

feenie I wont have already spent the money

lets she is a bit better thanks, although she has developed an allergy to sleep

OP posts:

auntpetunia · 09/03/2012 16:55

Hope you've got your hands on all the paperwork today and are able to sort it out now.

BerryCheesecake · 09/03/2012 18:25

Hope it is all sorted op!

CointreauVersial · 09/03/2012 18:35

What a nightmare.....

maydaychild · 09/03/2012 21:06

Absolutely marking place as I have to know how this ends.
I've also learnt a lot about bailiffs tonight!
Hope dd feels better soon. My dd is poorly too and had a blood scream test today so do join me with a

Fairyliz · 09/03/2012 21:37

I work in a school office and collect the dinner monies and this just doesn't ring true. Our system is to send a note home in bookbag at the end of the week if their are any arrears. Once arrears reach £10 parents would get a text followed by a phone call. If arrears reach £30 I would intercept parents on the playground!
I just don't believe a mistake like this could happen.

Feenie · 09/03/2012 21:40

Not sure what you are saying here, Fairyliz.

And we constantly have arrears which are enormous.

colditz · 09/03/2012 21:45

Goodness me this is an interesting htread!

just bumping (with fingers crossed)

Fairyliz · 09/03/2012 21:55

What I am saying freebie is that everyone makes the odd mistake but not £271 worth. Surely the school would have phoned the parent before it reached this amount?
As this post is in primary education who collects children? Why not speak to parents at school gate before arrears get so large? It is unbelievable that op did not know about debt. Even if child is taking sandwiches and putting up hand for dinner why has no one noticed lunch box?
Lots of unanswered question.

Feenie · 09/03/2012 21:56

Freebie?????????

There are indeed lots of unanswered questions - on behalf of the school though, not the OP.

Original poster

mumatron · 09/03/2012 22:05

Right, finally have a few minutes to update.

Not quite sorted yet but I think the end is in sight.

went to school all they would show me was the invoices, I tried to explain how ridiculous that was as they did not prove anything.

apparently they are not allowed to show me the registers (?) we basically got to the point where I said I had no choice but to take this much further. they backed down and agreed to check the register for me. after seeing the dates of one of the invoices I knew there was a big error as they were charging me for 2 weeks when we were abroad.

lo and behold they had him marked as being in school and having dinners for one of those weeks, I am 100% sure that they have him mixed up with another child in the same with a similar name.

the school are now investigating the matter. they have called the council, who have called the bailiff off for the moment.

I am mightily pissed off tbh. the school were utterly dismissive. I know this isn't the kind of thing that happens very often but they were so rude to me. they expected me to just accept what they were saying as gospel.

tbh, if they had taken me seriously I would have let them sort it out and then just left it at that.

now I will be making complaint. thanks to the info on here I know exactly who to be emailing.

fairyliz exactly why would I make this up? I can appreciate that is how things work in your school but it isn't obviously isn't how this shambles of a school operates.

I can 100% say that ds did not ever bring any letters/notes from school saying about dinner money. I saw his teacher in the playground every day for the 2 years he was in her class. she did not mention dinner money once.

if you don't want to believe this then you know where the hide button is.

I'm sure I have enough imagination to think of more interesting things to troll about.

OP posts:

SoupDragon · 09/03/2012 22:05

Are you saying the OP is lying then, Fairyliz?

Original poster

mumatron · 09/03/2012 22:08

fairy I did not know about it as IT IS NOT MY DEBT what is hard to understand about that?

If I had run up a bill for school dinners and was trying to dodge paying it why the hell would I post on here about it?

head-->brickwall

OP posts:

LemonMousse · 09/03/2012 22:15

Fairyliz You do the same job as me and I do understand what you're saying - it would be impossible for one of our parents to run up a bill of that size without us acting or for an admin error of that magnitude to occur without someone realising.

Feenie we too have had arrears which are enormous - but a constant stream of texts and letters are sent, telephone calls are made and parents 'collared' (pleasantly) in person. If that fails we refer to County Council. The OP does not appear to have been approached before her DC left that school.

I'm not doubting the OP - I'm thinking dodgy admin on the part of the school. Pupils put through as free to 'bump' the ratio of free children? Not being able to prove eligibility of free child in an audit? Very peculiar.

Fairyliz · 09/03/2012 22:26

Can't understand why you didn't pop into school office after dropping off children/before collecting them to ask what was happening? Ask them for dates of when meals were provided, when letters sent. Show you child's record which you have to check and sign every year to show phone numbers, address are correct.
if you phoned office and they told you it was a mistake why not get the persons name and ask them to pop a note into child's book bag to that effect?

LemonMousse · 09/03/2012 22:27

Mumatron Apologies! I took so long to send my last post that I hadn't read the info you'd given above about what you were told today.

So not dodgy admin, just bloody incompetant admin.

If this happened at our school we'd be mortified and full of apologies (not that it would - I am very competent ). They sound horrendous. I would complain, complain, complain!

Original poster

mumatron · 09/03/2012 22:35

Can't understand why you didn't pop into school office after dropping off children/before collecting them to ask what was happening?

maybe because I didn't have any notification of this 'debt' until my dc had left the school? the letters I received were from the council not the school. the first time I spoke to the receptionist (school) she got back to me and said it was a mistake and apologised.

If the school had been sending me letters obviously I would have gone in to query them.

OP posts:

DaisySteiner · 09/03/2012 22:39

Glad you're getting it sorted. What a nightmare! Good job you can prove you went abroad - that term-time holiday might have saved you more money than you anticipated!

Original poster

mumatron · 09/03/2012 22:41

daisy maybe it's pay back because I didn't ask permission to take them out during term time

OP posts:

LemonMousse · 09/03/2012 22:44

Is it a really big school Mumatron? I'm guessing it must be if they can mix two pupils up this way. I can name every one of our children and put faces to all the parents (just under 100 children in all).

Original poster

mumatron · 09/03/2012 22:53

yes it's a fair sized school, about 250ish children I would say.

If i'm right about this then I would say the issue is at least caused by the teacher ds had for two yrs. she is notorious for getting the names of children wrong. she also taught dd and never once managed to spell her name right (a simple name like Katie)

i have given them until Wed to give an update on what is happening. I have a manic few days so can't do much myself before then anyway.

OP posts:

LemonMousse · 09/03/2012 22:58

All I can say is thank God you posted on here before you paid up! This must have been unbelievably stressful for you.

Some other parent is in for a nasty shock - although I suspect that they've had all the texts and letters and just chosen to ignore and that the school have given the Council your details in error when they referred the debt.

Feenie · 09/03/2012 23:03

Feenie we too have had arrears which are enormous - but a constant stream of texts and letters are sent, telephone calls are made and parents 'collared' (pleasantly) in person. If that fails we refer to County Council. The OP does not appear to have been approached before her DC left that school

I know that, thanks! Was questioning FairyLiz's doubting of the OP where she said arrears like that couldn't be run up and it didn't ring true.

We have an incompetent dinner money collector who is in the employ of the LEA, not us, who has let debts of this amount run up - without approaching parents at all. We are powerless, and cannot sack her.

LemonMousse · 09/03/2012 23:12

Feenie I wasn't having a go at you - sorry if it came over that way - I was trying to back up what you were saying in relation to Fairyliz's post.

ScorpionQueen · 09/03/2012 23:13

Glad it is on the way to being sorted.

"Maybe it's pay back because I didn't ask permission to take them out during term time." So this is the new system for fining parents then. :)

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