making Payments
Cotham Gardens Primary School is a cashless school. This saves the school money and valuable time.
You can make payments online for meals and trips by going via the Arbor Parent Portal or App.
Arbor is easy to use and is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
Payment of School Meals
How much do school meals cost?
Currently school meals are priced as follows;
- 1 day - £2.68
- 2 days - £5.36
- 3 days - £8.04
- 4 days - £10.72
- 5 days - £13.40
How do I book a meal for my child?
All meals must be both booked and paid for in advance using the Arbor Parent Portal or App. If your child receives Free School Meals, you must still book their meal via Arbor.
Booking Meal Menu choices on the Parent Portal or Parent App
How do I pay for my child's meal?
Payments are made when you book your child's meal via the Arbor Parent Portal or App.
School Meals can be paid for via the Arbor App using a debit or credit card. Arbor is easy to use and is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
Payment accounts and topping up the meal account on the Parent Portal
What if I miss a payment?
We are not able to provide a meal to your child where it has not been booked or paid for. In this case we will ring you to ask you to bring a packed lunch to school for your child. The school is not obliged to provide food; its duty is to provide education. The option of providing food is a service that parents either pay for or are eligible for free school meals (see below for details).
All historic outstanding arrears should be settled as soon as possible.
Payment of School Trips
You can register your child for a trip using the Parent Portal or Parent App.
- If you are unable to sign up, please contact the school office.
- Please note that once you have signed up, you will need to contact your school if you would like to cancel participation or would like a refund.
On the Parent Portal
From the main Parent Portal page, click on the Trips field within the Activities section.
The Trips main page features three sections - Upcoming Trips are any trips the child is currently registered for, Past Trips are trips which have taken place and Trips Open are any trips that the child can currently be registered for.
To start registering a child for a trip, click on the desired trip in the Trips Open section.
On the Trip Overview page, you can see details relating to the trip such as date, time and price. Click on Sign Up to begin the registration process.
A slide over menu will appear where you can add consent (if your school requires this) for the trip by ticking the checkbox and ticking Add Consent.
With trips that require a payment, the process is slightly different. When registering the student for a paid trip, click the trip to be taken to the trip overview page. Click the Sign Up button.
There is no option to consent for a paid trip, as the student's place is instead confirmed by the payment made towards it.
A slide over will appear where you can add the amount you will pay. The payment amount will automatically default to the minimum payment.
You can only select more than the maximum payment or less than the minimum if your school has chosen to allow voluntary or variable contributions.
You can then pay now or add the payment to your basket to pay later.
Once you click Pay, Add in your card details, then click Pay.
You may have to then authenticate your identity for the payment to go through. This is a requirement of the recently introduced Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulations.
If authentication is needed for the payment, you will be prompted to authenticate the payment using the method of authentication your bank supports. This could be:
- an SMS code,
- your mobile banking app
- another method
Once we've been able to confirm your identity, the payment will be completed and your card will be charged. You'll see confirmation that the transaction has been successful.
Further information on consenting and paying for trips can be found here.