Cashless Catering

Sir Bernard Lovell Academy operates a cashless catering system.  The cashless system allows you to top up your child’s on-line account using Tucasi, which is also used for on-line payments for school trips.

Your individual access code to activate your Tucasi account will be provided in September when your child arrives into Year 7.

The cashless catering system recognises each individual student, holds individual cash balances, records cash spent and cash received, and records details of items purchased.  Similar systems are widely used at schools across the local area.

Benefits of the cashless system include the following:

• Improved security for handling cash transactions in the school

• Students will not have to remember to bring cash

• Account limits can be set 

• Parents can see what money is being spent on

The academy sets a daily spend of up to £5.00 which would mean that no food above this limit can be purchased.  Parents and carers can request that the daily spend is amended for their child and should email the Kitchen Manager via the main school email address enquiries@sblacademy.org.uk if they wish to do so.

The system works in exactly the same way for all students, including those entitled to a free school meal (FSM).  For FSM, the amount allocated is £2.73 per day, credited just before lunch time begins.  At the end of each day the balance is re-set to £0 regardless of whether the amount has been spent.  Parents in receipt of FSM can choose to supplement the funds available to their child’s account so that their daily spend is up to £5.

Parents/carers can log into their child’s on-line account at any time to check the current balance or to view details of purchases made.

The cashless system uses finger imaging technology.  The system scans certain points of the finger and creates a mathematical representation. This is the information compared at each scan. There is no way that the system can be used to recover a finger print as it does not store a copy.  For further information about Finger Imaging please see the FAQs by clicking here.

Students will need to be registered for the cashless system.  Please check the consent boxes on your Data Collection Form.

If you do not wish for your child to have their finger image registered we can issue them with a card to use as an alternative identification method.  There will be a deposit of £5 required for a card which will be refunded if the card is returned when your child leaves the Academy.