A school in Morecambe has used call automation to slash truancy
rates by two-thirds, writes Karl Cushing
A school in Lancashire is using an automated system to contact
parents when pupils are absent from school in a bid to reduce
truancy rates and raise standards.
"Like many schools in the country we have a problem with
attendance," says Les Turner, head teacher at St Patrick's Catholic
Primary School in Morecambe. Before the school started using its
new automated parent contact system in January, unauthorised
absentee rates were running at 1,200 school sessions, or 600 days,
per academic year.
Turner explains that the area suffers from "seaside syndrome". The
large amount of local temporary accommodation and high population
turnover has had a knock-on effect on the school, resulting in a
25% annual turnover among its 200 pupils.
To combat the situation, Turner and the school secretary began
scouring the registers every morning and calling the parents of
absent pupils. However, this proved impractical and time-consuming.
The school looked at the idea of using smartcards for keeping a
record of attendance but they were deemed unsuitable because they
could not provide an explanation of why a pupil was absent. So the
school turned to a product called Truancy Call, which Turner had
seen demonstrated at a National Association of Head Teachers
conference.
At the end of morning registration, the secretary identifies the
pupils absent from school without parental notification and the
system begins automatically telephoning their parents with a
recorded message. A screening system ensures that only the parent
receives the message, and it keeps re-dialling until it establishes
contact.
The parent can leave a message explaining the absence and give an
expected return date. If they are unaware of the absence, the
system can connect them to the school.
Printouts of overall and individual attendance records are supplied
to officers from the Educational Welfare service who then visit the
parents if necessary.
Turner says the new service has been well received by parents, many
of whom now inform the school of absences in advance. More
importantly, unauthorised absences for the last academic year fell
to 400 sessions, or 200 school days, and Turner expects this figure
to fall by a further 50% for the next academic year.
Following this success, the school has now declared a war on
tardiness. The idea is to incorporate a "why was your child late?"
message into the Truancy Call system and send an SMS text message
to parents' mobile phones informing them of their child's late
arrival. Parents will be able to reply by SMS or telephone the
school.
Turner believes the cost of truancy cannot be overestimated. "A day
lost in a child's education is a day you can never get back," he
says.