Truancy Call nets another High School

E-Government news site, PublicTechnology.net has news that Truancy Call have gone live with another school in the UK. Slowly… slowly we’re seeing the adoption of text messaging across the real world and I’m pleased to read more and more about this sort of thing.

Joseph Leckie Community Technology College in Walsall is tackling unauthorised absence with technology by installing the automatic parent notification system Truancy Call.

Truancy Call allows school staff to implement first day contact with parents of absentees via email, SMS text and voice calling to obtain a direct response from the parent without the need to invest in new telephone systems, additional phone lines or a new computer. The system is also helping to safeguard pupil welfare in the area as both parents and the school are aware as soon as a child is missing.

It’s really helping reduced administration time in school, which I imagine, can only be a good thing:

Richard Thomas, Deputy Head teacher at Joseph Leckie Community Technology College, said, ‘Installing Truancy Call has made a real difference to our unauthorised absence levels. We have had a very pleasing reaction from the parents as the system reminds them that they must inform the school straight away if their child is absent. The system has also cut the amount of time we spend contacting the parents. Previously we had to call all the parents individually but now we press a button and Truancy Call does the job for us.”