Currently, our school policy is not to enforce a strict ban on your children making additional catering purchases when they have insufficient funds deposited within their cashless catering accounts. We have taken this approach to ensure that learners do not go without food during the school day. Duty staff make the decision as to whether to authorise additional purchases when there are insufficient funds within a child’s account. This can lead to catering debts rising on individual learner accounts, which we wish to avoid, as it can make it harder for you, as parents/carers, to clear those debts, which are your responsibility.
We monitor learner debt closely and send weekly alerts to those parents / carers of learners with negative balances on their accounts asking that you clear them by depositing funds on-line into your child’s account, not only to clear the current negative balance, but also to cover the cost of purchases your child is likely to make until the next time you intend to check their balance and add further funds. Whilst some parents / carers do take positive action to clear their child’s debt, not all do so leading to their debt growing.
If our current policy on catering debt is to remain viable it is important that you all work with us in promptly clearing any debts on your child’s catering account and do not seek to use it as a credit facility by only adding sufficient funds to clear the current debt and then letting it build up again. We do not wish to introduce the type of stricter policies many other schools adopt, and enforce, which can minimise or eliminate learner debt altogether.
Overall learner catering debt is at a relatively high level and we will closely track whether this situation improves into the Spring Term, as it needs to improve, before making decisions on any required changes to our current policy. Hopefully, we will be able to continue with our current policy, but we need all of your support please to make it work as intended.
You can access your child’s account to check their balance and add credit via the online payment system Scopay here .
If you do not already have an online account, or require further assistance, please email finance@uptonhigh.co.uk.
Learners in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) are allocated a daily allowance of £2.70, which is aligned with the cost of a Meal Deal. The allowance is applied to their account at the start of each day for the child to spend, as they see fit, although it is intended for lunchtime provision. Please be aware that any unused credit is not carried over and does not accumulate. Any purchases that take a child’s spending over the daily allowance are charged to their account, leaving them in deficit. In such instances, parents/carers are required to top-up their child’s account with funds to clear the debt.
If you have any queries about catering debt, wish to make us aware of any particular circumstances, or to discuss the clearing of any debt on your child’s account, then please contact our Finance Team via - finance@uptonhigh.co.uk who will be glad to help.
