ParentPay issues with dinner money? and free school meals

[piratecat]

Hello, dd just started at secondary and had free school meals at primary.

Were told it just carries on over to secondary with our local area, no need to reapply.
Nothing has changed, re tax credits income with me.

Anyhow I topped up the account, and having looked dd is overdrawn, and only the money I popped in has been used plus the small amoutn she has gone into minus.

There is no sign of the free school meal money.

If you use this system, does the free school amount actually show up on the account per day?

will have to top up again and ring them monday. tia x

Unfortunately I am unable to help with your question as I don't get free dinners anyway, as my question is related I thought I would add it on to yours. I just managed to create an account to pay for dinners online, what a farce!

I am able to look at what has been paid for each day. How much does your child go through each day/week? My delightful child is managing to get through just over £4 a day! At this rate I will need to take on a second job. The canteen is open from early morning till school closes it seems and so they are able to nip in when school finishes and treat themselves to more stuff (currently milkshake at £1.20 a go is what mine seems to prefer each).

It wouldn't be so bad if it was proper meal, but spending around £2.30 a day on drinks is going to bankrupt me. I will be having a chat later. Just wondered what everyone else does. I am sure they could take in packed lunch but that isn't cool I imagine and I Know it would just go to waste.

Hi OP- i'm not sure if this is the same in all areas but my best friend was telling me that she only gets FSM for her primary aged DD but her secondary age DD has to pay for her own. she said it was something to do with the hours she works and the tax credits. could this be the reason for your issue?

Russianblu, I know we can ask DS's school to set a limit on how much he can spend each day. I presume all school's are able to do this.

Hi OP last year with ds yr 7 I had to fill a form in....??differnent LA from primary school??.. but haven't so far this year but FSM is coming up on his account. One day he spent £2.30 and £2.33 was put back in .

At other ds's primary I was told it just carries on automatically...I did not need to do anything.

Def check with school.....did you get a form with your "welcome" pack ?

Hi, you need to reapply for the new school. The school will help you with who to contact. Ds is getting £2.80 on each day. I didn't have send anything they did it all for me.

piratecat - I think you need to apply at the secondary school.
RussianBlu - this is why I prefer money - the dc get a far better "feel" of what they are spending, if you only give them a set amount per day. They 'grasp' that if they spend £1.20 of it on a milkshake at break they won't have enough for a meal at lunch. With what is in effect (for them) a credit card, they just think the money will be there.
Mine (last year) were getting £2.10 a day, and have all come home with the message that dinners have gone up a bit so can they have £2.20 per day. Fine. Up to them, to then make decision about choosing not to have a pudding one day and saving that towards a drink another day. No possibility of them spending over £4 unless they've saved it up over several days.

I put enough on the Parentpay to last until Christmas. DS knows he's allowed to average £2 a day, so far he's stayed below that (in terms of funds he actually has £2.05 per day but he doesn't know that).
He takes in a snack (usually something we've baked) and drinks from the school water fountains.

hi there, thanks for all your replies.

It's some glich somewhere as (to follow some of the points you mentioned)

Our council does offer free secondary school meals, so not that. On their website it says.
"You no longer have to reapply as we are able to carry out an audit check from time to time on your eligibility status, however as soon as your circumstances change, for example you start to receive Working Tax Credits or you stop receiving any of the qualifying benefits above, you must notify DCC by phoning 0845 155 1019 and then we will inform your child(rens) school. "

Nothing has changed. I am lone parent in receipt of qualifying benefit, which doesn't involve WTC as haven't found a job.

DD is on their list, as we were given a letter in July asking that if she were to take part in one half hour extra curricular lesson the school receives a pupil premium. Met the head in July who was saying it helped the school alot when I signed dd up.

This is the only school in town, and closely linked to the feeder primaries.

So will ring in the morning to see what's happened.

Luckily i had topped her fund up!

Russianblue, i was also very surprised at the cost of what dd has already consumed, it worked out to about £3.20 a day. I can look on ours and see where the money has gone too.

We had a little chat! I said that she can take a half a filled water bottle each day with squash in it and have that at break (saves 70P), and she also takes a little snack from home (biscuit type).
I would prefer she didn't pay for one at lunch, but i don't want her to feel different. So buying one for lunch is ok from now on, as long as she remembers it's one a day only.

Even their meal deal of a main and dessert at £2.50 is quite a bit, as they don't even get a drink with that. No fresh water on offer either.
They have 3 water fountains, but not much good if you are in the dining hall!
Have put another £20 into the fund, and just hope it gets sorted tomorrow. They owe me money now!!

just looking back through, that was an epic post wasn't it! Might help someone else though with yr 7's.

I thought the daily spend was £2.00 on FSM? Think it is here anyhow.

Same LEA from primary to secondary. Didn't realise the FSM money was lunch only, so thanks. Will tell dd there is no point at any other time (even tho she could use my top up at break or snack time )!

One thing that is strange is that the money doesn't roll over.

have reapplied online. thanks. will also ring them in the morning.xx

OP it may well be the case that the secondary school has opted out of the LA system for FSM which would account for the apparent glitch. Very easy to sort. You could look at the school website today to see what it says about applications for FSM. If it's as I suspect, that the school has opted out, then you should be able to apply electronically via the website. This system checks your status electronically and forwards details of all those eligible to the person responsible at school, who then flicks a magic switch to ParentPay.

thankyou Fairdene, i will check that now. Making a right fuss aren't I!

Our school has a card system, and I thinks works something like this for FSM.

1. Cards are effectively 'topped up' every day with a set amount ~£2.20
2. This money can only be spent at lunchtime, not break time
3. There may also be restrictions on what can be bought, e.g proper food only.
4. The money doesn't roll over, and you don't get it if you're absent.

I do not 'permit' my DD to buy drinks at school. I expect her to take in a water bottle and fill up during day if necessary. Similarly snacks for break, she takes those in. I am sure there are many families with similar rules. Don't let your DD suck you in too much with 'everyone does'. Yes, everyone queuing up at break to buy things does, but I bet there are loads around who have brought their own.

thanks teen.

DD enters a pincode at the till, so it's a similar thing.

Have packed a break drink and snack for her. Money to be spent at lunchtime only!

I think changing school might be classed as a change in circumstance for them.

Our secondary school apparently credits the money to the parentpay account each day as it's used, a max of £2.10. It can't accumulate and doesn't show on the parentpay account. I know, because I've had to query this, having just applied for FSM for the first time and wondering why the money wasn't showing in the account.

thankyou loopy, i was told the same, that you don't see it on the statement.

hiya, just checked the balance and the county council have put £7.80 in as of today?

certainly wasn't in there yesterday.

It took a few days before the ParentPay was up and running properly when DS started school.

Don't worry about her not having an endless budget for £1-20 milkshakes. They all go mad with the novelty of it for the first few days (DS had a bacon sandwich before school, a pizza slice and a smoothie at break, lunch and then something else on his first day, I nearly had a fit!) and then stop bothereing - yakking in the playground beats queuing in the canteen. A bottle of water and a biscuit from home will be fine.

thanks Blu, it is all a novelty, you'd think they were off 'round town' the way dd describes it.
Trying out different eateries and routes!!

We're really mean in this household....DS gets £10 put onto Parentpay for school meals every month, so he knows he can only average one meal a week with that.....rest of the time he takes a packed lunch. At least that means that most of the time we know he's eaten something reasonable!