Phase: Primary
Local Authority: West Dunbartonshire
St. Eunan’s Primary on going cashless
The Clerical Assistant at St Eunan’s Primary School, shared how going cashless with ParentPay made a difference to life at the school saying: “Having ParentPay implemented in our school has been a major plus for us, reducing the amount of admin resource needed for handling cash.”
She added: “Tracking payments and debt is now much easier with the system. We’ve also found that we don’t have to be changing food on dinner sheets since that can all be done on ParentPay.”
How does St. Eunan make the most of ParentPay’s features?
Within ParentPay there are various features available which can be utilised depending on requirements of schools: “We record lunches and breakfast clubs which is easier for both parents and staff. Doing this through the system also vastly reduces our food waste.”
The Clerical Assistant at St. Eunan’s continued: “We have also set up a school shop using ParentPay which allows parents to purchase school uniform even if they haven’t activated their ParentPay account. We also use ParentPay for getting trips permissions and payments from parents. This allows us to track which parents are in credit/debt.”
How parents found it during COVID?
Covid-19 brought about changes to schools across the country and thankfully some of the changes West Dunbartonshire saw were for the better. The Clerical Assistant also states: “Before Covid-19 a good amount of our parents preferred to pay by cash but Covid allowed us to say we are now a totally cashless system and proactively put parents minds at ease.”
Advice to schools looking to introduce ParentPay
Schools may have different plans for how to go cashless and how to introduce their staff, students, and parents to the idea.
The Clerical Assistant at St. Eunan’s says: “When your school first gets ParentPay, I would advise admin staff using the system to watch all the tutorial videos and take time to go around the classes on the morning of going live to make sure the teachers are able to log onto ParentPay before the children arrive.”
She added, “With SEEMiS, updating and uploading data is very easy to do and very straight forward. Plus we have had support available to us throughout our journey with ParentPay which is great. Any issues or questions we had was addressed quickly.”
Download the PDF version of St. Eunan’s Primary’s journey with ParentPay.
