Allergies & dietary
Allergies, treated like the safeguarding matter they are.
On most systems a child's allergy is a note in a free-text box — easy to mistype, easy to overwrite, invisible to the kitchen at the moment it matters. In Rafyo an allergy is a structured record with a severity, a source, a verification state and rules about who is allowed to change what. Everything below is a mechanism, not a promise: it is what the system does when nobody is watching.
Structured, not scribbled
Every child's record uses the fourteen statutory allergens, each with a severity on file — from life-threatening with an adrenaline pen prescribed, down to mild. No ambiguous text boxes. Until a family tells you, a child reads as "not confirmed" rather than "no requirements".
Severe can't be quietly weakened
Lowering or removing a severe allergy needs school-office sign-off. Until the office confirms, the kitchen keeps protecting the child. Changes that make a record safer apply instantly.
Parents confirm what you hold
Families answer a plain-language reaction question, verify records the school entered, and receive a receipt email for every change — including ones they didn't make.
Your safeguarding lead is in the loop
A named review role owns the approval queue and is emailed the moment a severe allergy is added or a change needs review. Every dietary change, by staff or parent, lands in the audit log under its own type.
Every entry says where it came from
The office can record an allergy directly — when a diagnosis arrives by phone or in a letter — without waiting for the family to log in. Each entry is marked with its source, school or parent, and with whether the family has verified it, so nobody has to guess how a record got there.
A receipt for every change
The family is emailed whenever a child's dietary profile changes, including changes the school made rather than them. It is how a parent finds out that a record about their child moved, without having to think to check.
Anything the school entered is reviewed on next login
A record the office added is not treated as confirmed. The next time that child's parent signs in, they are asked to review it. Checkout asks for a child's dietary needs before their first order if there aren't any on file — a one-time step rather than a form nobody opens.
Alert emails carry no pupil name
An alert that a profile needs reviewing used to name the child in its subject line and set out the allergy and its severity in the body — onto staff phone lock screens and mail previews on shared screens, where it stayed. It now says only that a profile needs review and asks you to open Rafyo. What changed and for whom is behind your login, in the audit log.
A request to weaken a record
The kitchen keeps protecting the child until the office says otherwise.
A change that makes a record safer applies straight away. A change that makes it less safe waits. Nothing about the child reaches the alert email — only that something needs review.
Built for the standards schools are held to — the fourteen statutory allergens, a full ingredient list on every meal — with an audit trail behind every change.
Dietary change request
Needs reviewWillow B. — Peanuts
Requested: lower from severe to mild
Entered by parent · not yet verified by school
The kitchen keeps avoiding peanuts until the office confirms.
Kitchen list · Tuesday
Willow B. · Chicken satay
Contains peanuts — SEVERE ALLERGY
The same allergy, from three sides
The parent sees
Each child's allergies and preferences on their card, with a severity they set themselves — and a prompt to check anything the school entered before it counts as confirmed.
The office sees
A dietary editor on every child, an approval queue for anything that would weaken a severe allergy, and an audit log entry for each change with who made it.
The kitchen sees
Each child's needs against the meal they ordered — red for an allergen clash, amber for a preference, and a marker on anyone not yet confirmed. A severe allergy reads SEVERE ALLERGY on the sheet, the print-out and the Excel export alike.
See a school day with Rafyo
A 20-minute walkthrough with a real menu, a real register and no slide deck.