WHAT IS A CASHLESS SYSTEM?
A cashless system is used for payments to the academy. This means that no cash will be taken at the tills in The Purple Diner.
Each student is allocated an account, which will have a separate dinner money section enabling students to purchase food from the diner by finger recognition or PIN number.
Payment can be made in two ways:
- ONLINE, by debit or credit card using the ParentPay system. (www.parentpay.com)
- PAYPOINT – parents wishing to pay at a convenience store will be issued with a bar coded letter, initially, and a plastic PayPoint card will be ordered, which can be reused as many times as required.
The first card will be provided free of charge but replacement cards will incur a charge of £2.50. Please also note that replacement payment cards can take up to two weeks to arrive, during which time you may use the bar coded letter. Please be informed it might take up to 48 hours to credit the account. We can only provide a lunch for those carrying a receipt of their payment.
A full list of local stores offering this service can be found at www.paypoint.co.uk/locator.htm.
The nearest stores to the school that offer this service are:-
| Tottenham Food & Wine 104 Northumberland Rd, London, N17 0TS |
L & D News 120 Park Lane, London, N17 0JP |
Nish News 7 Northumberland Park, London, N17 0TA |
| Cresseys News 193 Park Lane, London, N17 0HJ |
Park Lane Mini-Market 54 Park Lane, London, N17 0JS |
PAID MEALS ACCOUNT
This section holds pre-paid amounts of money to be used for the purchase of food items within the school. Information about funds on each account is held on a secure server and stores details of money paid in and purchases; it logs the exact date and time the money was spent and what food was purchased.
FREE SCHOOL MEALS
The usual free school meal allowance will be credited to your child’s account on a daily basis, and they can use the system in the usual way. You may ‘top up’ so that additional items may be purchased if you wish. Please note that any unused free school meal allowance cannot be carried over to another day.
HOW ARE STUDENTS RECOGNISED BY THE SYSTEM IN THE CANTEEN?
Students, whose parents/carers have given written permission, will have their finger or thumb scanned using a non-invasive electronic scanner. This finger scan will be used to convert some co-ordinates of the fingerprint into a number and store that number on the system against the student’s account. No register of fingerprints is kept and it is impossible to reconstitute a fingerprint from the numeric reference.
To purchase items or check their balance, students press their finger or enter Pin number on an electronic reader.
There will be electronic readers at the till points – to purchase items and to check balances,
BIOMETRIC REGISTRATION
Each individual’s finger and thumb prints are unique. The Biometric cashless system will store only a section of the print as a unique number and not as an image. The system does not store the image of the finger scanned. The stored co-ordinates are only of use in matching part of the individual’s print and cannot be used for the purpose of reconstructing a print.
HOW DO I CHECK IF I HAVE CREDIT ON MY DINNER MONEY ACCOUNT?
Parents can check the balance online at any time by logging in at www.parentpay.com
Students can check the balance by placing their finger on the scanners located in school – outside the Attendance Office or at the till points in school.
CAN MY CHILD RUN UP A BILL ON THE ACCOUNT OR SPEND TOO MUCH?
No. There will be a daily limit of £5 on each student account to allow those attending at break time and lunchtime to purchase enough food for their needs. You may nominate a lower limit for your child’s account and the school office would be happy to arrange this for you.
HOW DO I ACCESS MY ACCOUNT?
Duke’s will sends you an activation letter containing details of your personal user identification and unique password and details on how to activate your account.
The secure online system offers you the opportunity to make payments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Payments are credited to the accounts instantly. If you have more than one child at the school you can merge their accounts to create one login for all your children, or operate separate ones if you wish.
I DON’T HAVE A HOME PC SO HOW CAN I USE PARENTPAY?
You could use a computer at your local library or internet café to access ParentPay (www.parentpay.com ) or anywhere you can gain access to a computer with internet connection; such as a friend or relatives house, or possibly at work (with your employers consent).
Alternatively you can use the PayPoint card outlined above.
WHAT ABOUT OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
ParentPay holds a very limited amount of information about you and your child solely for the purpose of administering payments, as agreed, between you and the school catering service. Neither the school nor ParentPay uses your personal information other than for the agreed purpose and we do not share or give information to any other organisations. Both the school and ParentPay operate under the strict guidelines set out by the Data Protection Act 1998.
ParentPay will NEVER contact you by phone, email or mail and ask you to divulge confidential information like passwords or card numbers. If you are ever contacted by someone claiming to be from ParentPay, please contact us immediately on 0845 257 5540. Similarly you would only be contacted by the school if we needed to provide a meal to a student with no credit – it would never be from ParentPay.
IS IT SAFE TO MAKE PAYMENTS ON THE INTERNET?
ParentPay uses leading technology to process your card transactions securely, and you may chose to set up additional security measures on your cards with your own bank. All communication between ParentPay and your bank is encrypted and neither ParentPay nor the school has access to your card details.
Many people regularly make online payments through this system and others without incident. However if you prefer not to use internet payments or wish to make cash payments only you can opt to use the PayPoint card explained above.
For more information please visit www.parentpay.com
If you cannot find what you need or have any other queries or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us on 0208 275 4836.