Cashless Catering : New intake

[fiza]

Not sure where this thread should sit so Admins please move it if necessary.

 

I want to ask those that use Biometrics for Cashless Catering when they register/fingerprint their new Y7 intake. Do you do it before Sept or is it done once they are admitted? SLT want to do it on New Intake Day (in July) when the kids come to the school to get their taster day. In this way the parents can get the login details and top up the accounts ready for Sept.

We are with Cunninghams and they have told us we can do it once students are in Pre-Admissions. The Admissions officer here tells me that we wont get all the details (CTFs?) in time.

 

So should we be doing the biometric registration in Sept and tell the kdis to bring packed lunch until they are registered and parents have topped up?

[john]

We don't sell food via biometics on transfer day but did plan to, however the Law has changed on biometric data you MUST have specific consent from BOTH parents yes both even in split familys if you have the details you had to speak to both! and that is from 1st Sept and has to be back-tracked for all existing data held!

 

So you need to get them consent forms out before September if you want to biometric them

[Sylv3r]

Each of our feeder primary schools come in for a day and has taken place over the last couple of weeks. We've got the registrations all done, consent collected and online details sent out so parents can top up online ready for September if they wish.

[mdench]

We are doing all of ours next tuesday when the kids come in so all the kids are ready for the first day in september

[truebluesteve]

Our new intake come in over several days in June and July and we take their photos for SIMS and do their bio registration (Cunninghams using Biostore) at the same time. We have to do some jiggery pokery so we don't get duplicate accounts (it's a long story) but it all works fine and the kids have their online payments accounts setup too.

[SpuffMonkey]

We don't sell food via biometics on transfer day but did plan to, however the Law has changed on biometric data you MUST have specific consent from BOTH parents yes both even in split familys if you have the details you had to speak to both! and that is from 1st Sept and has to be back-tracked for all existing data held!

 

So you need to get them consent forms out before September if you want to biometric them

 

Have you got a reference for this law?

[plexer]

It's been linked to in the past the changes gained royal ascent.

 

Ben

[truebluesteve]

Have you got a reference for this law?

 

Here's the link

 

http://www.education.gov.uk/aboutdfe/advice/f00218617/biometric-recognition-systems-

 

The OP has got a couple of points wrong -

 

1. It's not retrospective - existing parents do not need to be contacted

 

2. Both parents have to be informed but written consent is only needed from one (although if the other objects in writing then the data cannot be collected)

 

The link is pretty clear.

 

Hope this helps

 

Steve

[Steve21]

We also do the whole years registration during their visits, (in fact this coming week). Then anyone who misses it, forgets paperwork, is lazy etc gets mopped up in September when they actually start.

 

Although no-one uses biometrics till September, even those who are on the visit. It's either bring your own, or manually done for those few days.

 

Steve

[FragglePete]

We do ours on their first day in September; it's a mad few of hours. They have an hour long ICT where they log on, get introduced to the system etc. During that period we have people with laptops doing their finger scans at the front of the class and they come up in turn so we register them.

 

The reason is that they don't appear on Vericool until they appear on SIMS - therefore they have to be on role first, which we can't do until they actually start.

 

It's madness really, as we then have the rush of new Yr 7's trying to load their accounts with the cashboxes we have in the school. We're looking to implement online payments with parentpay this year, to be in place before the September start so not sure how that is going to work if their not even showing on the system yet.

 

My biggest grip with the whole biometrics thing it doesn't work with a small handful of students. No matter what we do, we just can't get a decent reading off their fingertips to get them registered. Why should I have to explain to a nervous Yr 7 who is just started their first day at a proper big school why it doesn't work for them? Majority of them its ok, because their nervous with sweaty clammy fingers which helps improve the scanning.

 

Pete

[john]

Here's the link

 

http://www.education.gov.uk/aboutdfe/advice/f00218617/biometric-recognition-systems-

 

The OP has got a couple of points wrong -

 

1. It's not retrospective - existing parents do not need to be contacted

 

 

There will never be any circumstances in which a school or college can lawfully process a child’s biometric information (for the purposes of using an automated biometric recognition system) without one of the persons above having given written consent.

from the education.gov.uk link

 

When you read that if you went through the previous method of you will write to us and say NO and we will assume YES unless the NO arrives then how do you have written consent from the parent(s) saying yes you may take and hold that data when all you have is no's?

 

We were advised to re-seek and confirm as yes to cover our backs as all it takes is some parent being pushy / challenging and the entire system will be brought into disrepute which we don't need.

[fiza]

Sorry people this thread seems to be going off track. My question was how & when do you biometric register the kids. We have the consent all sorted.

 

The issue is with SIMS. The kids have to be in SIMS to register them early, as in now, they have to be in a pre-admissions group. What data do you use to get them onto SIMS? I dont know the difference between ATFs and CTFs but what happened last year was that the kids were biometric registered in July using data (ATF/CTF - not sure which) but when we got the "proper" data to say these kids are definetely coming to your school this, in some cases, differed from that which was used in July and some kids ended up with duplicate accounts in the cashless system. The original account created in July (which the parents topped up) and then a new account created in Sept when they were "on roll".

Edited June 24, 2013 by fiza

[Linfit]

OK. So you should have details of the pupils who are coming to you in Sept in your SIMS system in an appropriate pre-admission group and this data will have come as an ATF file from the LA (if you are an LA school),which the SIMS manager/pastoral person should have imported. If you are not an LA school the data might have come in as a variety of CTF files or been typed in maually or a mixture of the two - I don't know exactly how it works for schools who are their own admissions authority.

Once the potential pupils are in SIMS they need to be tagged as "Accepted". This is the step below actually admitting them. Your school or LA will specific rules about actually officially admitting them: for example we do not admit pupils until we have physcially seen them on the first day of term. Once they are accepted they then appear in the various other parts of SIMS - in particular you can assign them to Forms and teaching groups, once next years timetable has been imported.

We use Cunninghams and Biostore but we do not enroll the pupils on the system until the first day of term - that is until after they are legally admitted.Last year we set up three tills and got through the whole year group (200) in about an hour and a half. We intend to do the same this year and will do it as almost the first thing when they get with their form tutor: the form tutor takes a register and the pastoral staff admit the pupils who are physically present in SIMS, so that when they come to us to be scanned they exist on roll in SIMS and they can then put money on the system before lunch. We use Wisepay, but pupils are told to bring cash to feed the machines for the first few days.

[fiza]

@Linfit

 

Thanks for the thorough explanation. We were told that students could be in "pre-admissions" and this would allow them to appear in IDManager and Impact.

We dont have any top-up machines in school as we are totally "cashless".

 

When do the ATF files come through? Our admissions officer is saying that all the details will not be available by the time the New Intake Day comes along.

[Linfit]

Ahh. When you get the ATF's is going to depend on your LA. We have had ours since mid May, and then we get weekly updates on changes, but I don't know if this is typical.

If your LA is slower, or the data has to be pulled from a variety of feeder schools, at your end, I can see that it might be later - but it can't be too late: because otherwise how do you sort out forms, teaching groups etc before the start of term ?

I suppose the other point to consider is how your admissions officer deals with the process. If he/she has prelimary info but is holding out for more complete data, like KS2 results etc. They may only want to do the ATF import once so they are waiting until they have the most complete data set. (You can import ATF data repeatedly and the data just merges).

[fiza]

If he/she has prelimary info but is holding out for more complete data, like KS2 results etc. They may only want to do the ATF import once so they are waiting until they have the most complete data set. (You can import ATF data repeatedly and the data just merges).

 

 

That sounds about right. KS2 Results and waiting for Feeder Schools was mentioned.

Will the Admissions officer keep getting ATF data up until Sept?

[Linfit]

That depends on your LA - ours stops at the end of the summer term. However, by around now the data is likley to be changing very little: everyone should know who is going to which school, and you actualy need only a very small subset of data to put a student into SIMS - name, date of birth, that type of thing. Of course, if your school is like ours one of the main sources for updating information is the admission form, which our parents complete when they come to an admissions evening which is the same day as our New Intake Day. This might be another reason why your admissions officer is hanging on.