Cashless Catering.  Keypoints for students:

We no longer use cash to pay for snacks and meals at the tills in the school canteen. There is a state of the art cashless catering system, using a system of ‘swipe cards’ – similar to the kind of top up card you use for your mobile phone.

The system benefits you in a number of ways:

- a reduction in queuing times
- you will no longer need to bring cash to pay for your food and drinks
- points will be awarded and recorded against your account when you choose food items that are classed as Healthy

The key points of the system are as follows;

1. You will be issued with a personal swipe card which can be credited in a variety of ways.

• Your Parents/Guardians can send in a cheque made payable to “CHS School Meals” which will be entered on to your account by the Finance Office staff
• Your Parents/Guardians can send in cash notes which will also be entered on to the system as above.
• You can top up your card using the revaluation units situated in the Canteen. To do this you swipe your card through the card reader, which will display your name and current cash balance, then insert coins into the slot and press the red button to complete your transaction. The units accept £2 -£1- 50p – 20p – 10p coins and can also be used to check your cash balance without depositing any money.
• If you are entitled to free school meals your card will be credited daily with the amount allocated for a free meal. This amount can only be spent at dinner break. Any under spend or missed dinner will not be added to the next days balance. You can add extra cash to spend more than the free meal allowance or use at breakfast or break times by using the revaluation units.

2. When you have chosen your meal or snack you will be asked to present your card to the till operator who will swipe it through a card reader. The terminal will then display your photo; name, class and current cash balance, the amount spent will be keyed in to the system and deducted from this balance.

3. If you forget or lose your card you will still be able to get a meal. Report to Student Reception (bottom of the Art stairs) at break time and you will be issued with a temporary authorisation slip for that day. Students with temporary slips will be served from 1.00pm onwards.

4. A history of cards issued will be kept and persistent offenders will be charged to replace lost or wilfully damaged cards.