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The collection pass
The pass a parent sends to somebody else who is collecting their child — what the adult sees, what the officer sees, and why the code is spoken rather than typed.
Sooner or later somebody who is not a registered guardian has to fetch a child — an aunt, a neighbour, a lift club driver. The collection pass is how that is arranged in advance instead of argued about at the gate.
A parent creates it in the parent portal and sends the link on by WhatsApp or SMS. Whoever receives it opens it on their own phone. There is no account, no password and no app to install — the link is the pass.
What the collecting adult sees
The pass is one card and it fits on a phone screen with nothing to scroll:
- the school’s name, so an adult holding passes for two families knows which is which
- a line saying they are collecting, and the children’s first names
- a six-character code, shown large and split in the middle so it can be read aloud without stumbling
- an instruction to show that code at the gate
- how long the pass is valid for
The code sits on an amber panel, which is the same colour the app uses everywhere for this is the moment to pay attention.
When the collection has happened, the pass changes to say it has already been used — a calm green tick, because that is a normal ending and not a problem.
If the pass has expired, or the parent withdrew it, or the link is damaged or wrong, the card says the same thing in all cases: this pass is no longer valid.
That sameness is deliberate. If a broken link produced a different message from a withdrawn one, anybody holding a stack of guesses could learn which ones were real. One answer for every failure means a pass that is no good tells you nothing beyond that.
What the officer sees
The officer does not need the adult’s phone at all, and never opens the pass.
When the child’s badge is scanned for a check-out, the gate raises an amber banner naming the approved adult for that day and showing the same six-character code, with a plain instruction: ask the adult for this code.
So the check is a conversation. The officer reads nothing out and types nothing in — they ask, and the adult answers from their own screen. Getting it right is the proof.
The banner sits alongside the normal choices rather than replacing them. It informs the officer; it does not take the decision away from them. If the arrangement was cancelled since the phone last synced, the gate says the delegation is no longer active and asks the officer to choose a guardian instead.
When the code matches, the officer taps the button to check the learner out with the approved adult, and the collection is recorded against that arrangement — not against a guardian who was never there.
Why it is built this way
Three decisions are worth naming, because each one was a choice.
The code is spoken, not scanned or typed. A code the officer types is a code the officer can be shown on a screen and copy without looking up. Asking for it out loud forces one second of human contact with the person actually collecting the child, which is the entire point of the exercise.
The pass needs no login. The person collecting is frequently somebody the school has never met and will never meet again. Requiring them to make an account would guarantee the arrangement collapses at the gate and the officer ends up improvising — which is the situation this replaces.
The parent stays in control. They create it, they set how long it lasts, and they can withdraw it. The link and the code stop working the moment they do.