Cashless Catering

At the heart of the cashless system there is a computer controlled by Civica. This allows the system to recognise each individual student, hold individual cash balances, record cash spent and payments received, and record what food is purchased, on any specific date and time.

Benefits:

• Convenience - no more looking for change every morning
• Alleviates many of the associated problems with the use of cash in schools, i.e. loss, theft and bullying
• Queuing times reduced through speed of service
• Anonymity for free school meal students
• Students acquire life skills by being responsible for their own account

Data Handling

Certain data will be held on the system to enable accurate operation. This will include your child’s name, registration group, photograph, account balance and meal entitlement. This data will be handled under the guidelines of the Data Protection Act and only used by parties directly involved with the implementation of the system.

How do I pay for school dinners?

• ParentMail – see separate information sheet – the preferred method.
• PayPoint – at a local store, using the barcode supplied by ParentMail.

Student Daily Spending Limit

A daily global spend limit of £5 per day is automatically set by the system. This is the maximum a student can spend on their catering account in one day. The daily spend limit of £5 can be adjusted to an alternative amount if required. Please can we ask that you contact finance via e-mail, finance@theappletonschool.org with details of the students name/form and amount required.

Dietary Requirements

The system can prevent your child from purchasing certain foods. Any requests can be made using the enclosed orange form and returned to the school.

What if a student does not hold a sufficient cash balance one day to pay for a school dinner?

No student is refused a school dinner because they have insufficient funds on their account. The school will allow the student to loan money for ONE day. Students should report to the Finance Office at break time or lunchtime to make arrangements for this. A text message will then be sent home asking for arrangements to be made to repay the loan by the following day.