• Truancy is on the increase in the UK. Each day over 50,000 children fail to attend school without the knowledge of parents or teachers.

• In 2004 two schools in Wales implemented an SMS system to notify parents of unexplained absences. Truancy rates dropped by nearly 40%. [figures from IC Wales report]

• With over 90% of parents owning mobile phones notication by SMS is the most effective means of communication available

• The system can also notify authorities, such as truancy officers, of an absence. This can be either by text message or email

• SMS provides considerable advantages over voice calling:
  • in a large secondary school there are, on average, 50 absences each day. School administrators can send a message to all of the parents of absent children in less than a minute - a massive time saving on calling each individual parent
  • text messages have a much higher success rate in reaching a parent than voice calls. Where a phone is out of range or switched off, the message will be received within seconds of it coming within range of the mobile network.
  • as well as reducing truancy rates txt4schools can also reduce the costs of truancy management. At less than 10 pence per message it is one of the cheapest methods of communication available
  • typically schools can save up to £5000 per year on reduced administration and telecommunication costs
  • txt4schools offers a low-cost solution

Managing Truancy with txt4schools

txt4schools electronic register system can fully automate this process.
A central computer stores all the information for pupils, their class and parents contact details. This database can be updated centrally to show specific information, such as notified absences. Teachers are issued with a handheld PDA to take their register which is wirelessly connected to the central computer. They simply select the register for that class and check off the pupils - explained absences will automatically show on the list.
Unexplained absences are noted by the teacher. txt4schools automatically updates the information on the central computer with then sends an unexplained absence message to parents of missing children.

With traditional registers the school administrator receives a list of absent children. They log-in to txt4schools and select the relevant parents' from the contacts database.
A single message is composed (this message can automatically include the child's name) and it is sent out to all people.
Parents can reply by SMS (using a keyword and shortcode number) or phone the school.