Move to Schoolgrid from 1st June
King Alfred’s switched to Dolce as our catering providers on 23rd February 2026. Dolce was the successful contractor selected by the Trust to provide meal service across the Trust’s Secondary Schools. Since taking over this service, the quality and diversity of the offer to our students has improved significantly. At the start of the contract we took the decision not to move to Dolce’s preferred payment system as we felt it was too much change at the same time for our students and parents. However, we now need to make this change.
From Monday 1st June, ParentPay will no longer be used for school meal payments – Dolce uses a system called “The School Grid”. This system uses payment ‘fobs’ rather than biometric thumb prints and also allows students to ‘self-serve’ in much the same way as we now do at supermarkets. This will significantly increase the efficiency of service and reduce queue times for our students.
Accounts will be set up by the Academy and parents will be emailed details on how to register their child/children to allow them to purchase food from the canteen on Monday 18th May. You must activate your child’s/children’s account so they can purchase food from the canteen from Monday 1st June onwards. We are doing this during the end of term to allow parents next week to contact the school if there are any registration issues.
Each student is issued a fob that is unique to them. They must take care of this, and it is their personal responsibility as there is a replacement charge of £1 per fob.
The system is easy to use and quick to set up – all credits are instant so top ups are immediate (unlike ParentPay).
You can set a daily limit on your child’s/children’s account so that you can keep spending in check, and also look online to see what they have purchased to eat. We have set a default daily spend limit of £6, but you can alter this as a parent.
The Academy will no longer be able to accept card payments in the canteen.
ParentPay will no longer be used for catering payments from Monday 1st June. Please ensure if you have auto top-up activated on ParentPay, you deactivate this as soon as possible.
Balances from ParentPay (for school meals) will be transferred to Schoolgrid on a rolling programme after the May half term. There is no need to email the Academy to request a refund or transfer of funds– all transfers will be processed in June/early July at the latest.
Trips and any payments not related to school meal purchases will still be paid for via ParentPay.