Attendance, Achievement and Behaviour
St Crispin's School is a grade II listed building located in Wokingham, Berkshire and has an intake of over 1,100 students and a sixth form centre. St Crispin's focuses heavily on staff-student relationships as a secondary school with a large student intake and a robust set of morals.
With great emphasis placed on attendance, achievement and behaviour, St Crispin's needed a system to help with lunchtime issues on a day-to-day basis that is as dedicated and efficient as its staff and students.
Cucina Restaurants
After employing Cucina Restaurants as their new caterers in September 2014, St Crispin's transitioned to a cashless catering solution. The new caterers chose CRB Cunninghams because they already had many sites using a CRB Cunninghams system.
Two main factors influenced the decision to change to a cashless solution. They wanted to remove the need for students to bring cash on-site and allow free school meal students to use the restaurant without being identified, thus eliminating the free school meal stigma.
Cashless Catering Solution
Alongside these two key factors, St Crispin's wanted a smooth transition to cashless catering with a tried and tested supplier. When asked what influenced the decision process, Debra Briault, Business Manager of St Crispin's, commented, "knowing from communicating with other schools and previous experiences, a CRB Cunninghams cashless catering system would be the right solution for us."
Since the beginning of February 2015, St Crispin's has been utilising a cashless catering system comprising five sleek touchscreen tills and a handheld scanner, all running the CRB Cunninghams cashless catering software, Impact.
Operating across the UK, CRB Cunninghams are providers of education solutions and have systems installed in over 2,400 schools and counting. We provide our education solutions with a wide range of functionalities and support our customers from the initial install process to the aftercare program with our national service and support helpdesk team.
The basis of the cashless system is to help run efficient and effective meal and nutritional programs whilst still reducing the usage of cash in schools and the associated issues.
Currently utilising the system for cashless elements, specifically restaurant swipe card accounts topped up at the school office, St Crispin's School highly regards the CRB Cunninghams cashless system for its ease of use and the noticeable increase in the speed of mealtime transactions.
In addition, they reported great success in keeping the free school meal students' identities hidden and noted the reduced issue of cash on-site. Since installing the new cashless solution, the uptake of school meals has noticeably increased, particularly with free school meal students, increasing the school's income overall.
The Results
St Crispin's are keen to expand their system to encompass library management, print management and electronic registration solutions. Praising the cashless system for its ease of use and speed, the staff at St Crispin's also found the training and on-site support post-installation specifically tailored to suit each group particularly helpful.
Debra Briault described the overall service of CRB Cunninghams as "A tried and tested solution underpinned by a knowledgeable support team who are always willing to help." Thanks to the CRB Cunninghams cashless catering solution, Debra was pleased with the enhancements made to lunchtimes at St Crispin's. She was particularly pleased with the level of support she received from staff and the system's efficiency overall.
