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Text messaging helps keep kids in school

Text messaging is being put to good use to improve school attendance at a London school.

Staff from schools representing over 12,000 students across Greater London gathered at Holland Park School, Campden Hill Road last week for seminar showcasing how the school has used a text messaging based system to tackle truancy.

Holland Park School has been using a system known as ‘Informer for Schools’ from Leicester based company Voice Connect since September 2002. As part of a package of attendance initiatives, Informer has helped the school reduce unauthorised absence levels by 50 per cent. The school has seen their levels fall from 4 to just 2 per cent and has also experienced an overall rise in attendance to 91.5 per cent.

The school uses the system to text message parents when their child has failed to attend registration. Currently they are able to reach almost 80 per cent of parents by sending texts to their mobile phones. ‘The number of messages that we send out to parents in the morning has halved compared to the number that we sent out a year ago,“ says Attendance Officer Liz Banjo who is person behind the system at the school. The drop is in part due to improved attendance and also because ‘parents are now much better at calling in to the school to report their child’s absence. They know that the school will send them a text if they don’t contact us promptly.“ Since the system was introduced over two years ago, the response has been very positive. ‘The feedback we have received from parents is that the Informer system is a great idea, as parents know very quickly if their child is not in school. I’m looking forward to explaining to other schools how we have bucked the trend in London – which has shown a general increase in unauthorised absence – whilst we have managed to halve ours,“ explains Ms Banjo.

‘Across the UK over the past 12 months there has been a rise in unauthorised absence of 6.7 per cent. Holland Park have worked hard to show their students and parents that they place a high value on attendance at the school – even the occasional day or two of unauthorised absence will be picked up on immediately. We are delighted that they are hosting the seminar and are able to share their good practice with other London Schools,“ says Stefan Olsberg, Voice Connect’s Managing Director.