The statement ran to two pages when I printed it on Thursday, which is how I now know that ParentPay has twenty-five payments in my name for this school year. I'd never pressed the Payment history button before. It sits in the corner of the app next to a little picture of a coin, and I had assumed it was a button for someone more organised than me.
The whole year in one list
This is every payment for both children since Alfie's first club block in September, including the summer block I paid for on Monday. School dinners aren't in it. Alfie's are free, and Isla's handful sit in the lunchbox spreadsheet.
- Alfie's after-school multi-sports, 64 sessions at £3 each, paid in six blocks: £192.00
- School photos, one sheet and one sibling pack: £21.00
- Isla's Year 5 trip, a day at an outdoor learning centre: £19.40
- Alfie's Year 1 trip, a farm visit: £12.50
- Non-uniform days, seven of them at £1 a child: £14.00
- Cake sales, eight of them: £23.50
- The minibus to Isla's netball tournament: £4.00
The total is £286.40. I added it up three times, because it seemed like a lot and a little at the same time.
What stands out
The big one is the club. Alfie goes twice a week, on my pick-up days, so I'm the one hovering at the hall door at quarter past four. It's two thirds of the whole list. He does dodgeball and parachute games and a thing with hockey sticks that he describes as 'mostly running', and he comes out pink and silent and starving. I would not call it a bargain, but I'd call it good value, for a boy who has been told since September to sit still for most of the day. The rest of it, the trips and photos and cake sales and non-uniform days, comes to £94.40 across nineteen payments. That's the £1 here and £1.50 there that you don't notice until you add it up.
The trips were cheaper than I had braced myself for. Isla's day came with a packed lunch from home, which I'd have made anyway, and Alfie's farm trip included a ride on a trailer behind a tractor, which he describes as the best thing that has ever happened to him. I'd braced for £25 a trip, and the pair of them came to £31.90 together.
The money in the list isn't spread evenly across the year, either. September and October were the heavy months, with the club block, the photos and a trip all landing within a fortnight of each other, and then it went quiet until the spring. The bills sheet only has direct debits on it, so ParentPay never made it on to the wall, which is probably why it took me this long to add it up.
The app has taken the coins out of the book bags, and I don't miss them. For years there was a rattle in the bottom of Isla's bag and a named envelope with £1.50 in it for some trip or other, written on in felt tip. Now it's a tap on my phone while the kettle boils. I have noticed that it also makes the money easier to lose track of, which is why I keep the statement.
What I got wrong, and what isn't in here
In March I paid for Alfie's trip twice, because both the email and the reminder had a button, and the app lets you press them both. It came back as credit on his account after nine days, which I then used against a cake sale. No harm done, but I did stand in the kitchen and say 'oh no' to the phone.
What's not in the list: uniform, which is August and its own post; Isla's Brownies subs and Alfie's Beavers subs, which I pay direct; the swimming lessons; the packed lunches; and the harvest food donation, which was a tin of chickpeas and a bag of pasta. The letters from school say to speak to the office if costs are a worry, and I've never needed to, but I'm glad it's in writing.
The sums: £192 on the club and £94.40 on everything else makes £286.40, which is about £7.34 for each of the 39 weeks of the school year.
