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Groupcall Messenger helps raise the alarm the moment a student is unaccounted for. As registers are logged into the MIS, Messenger can send out automatic communications to all contacts for unauthorised absences, asking for an explanation. In the event of a truant, the parent or guardian will be alerted as soon as possible, and action can be taken immediately. In the awful event of a missing child, police can be notified and searches can begin straight away.
Through Groupcall Emerge, teachers can now access their MIS data on any device, be it phone, tablet, laptop or desktop. This information includes everything from registers, to attendance, to timetables, and more. By being connected to the MIS at all times, teachers can flag missing children immediately, as time is ever of the essence. All Groupcall products integrate with each other, allowing action to be taken on Messenger as soon as it is captured on Emerge.
Flakefleet Primary School was missing attendance targets for the past five to six years. At the time, their last Ofsted report stated that they needed to "Improve the attendance of the small minority of persistent absentees to increase their rates of progress and so raise their attainment".
Mike Barnes, former Headteacher at Flakefleet, explained: "Ultimately, we needed to source and implement an effective parental communication system that would encourage parental involvement, be simple to integrate, improve efficiencies and provide cost savings - no small feat!"
After implementing Groupcall Messenger, Flakefleet Primary School has now been recognised as having the most improved attendance rate in the area, going from 7% to 0.2% in unauthorised absences.
Mike maintains that the main contributing factor to the school’s improvement is because of Groupcall Messenger's alert feature, which enabled the school to automatically send a text, email or voice message, in any language, to a parent or guardian’s mobile phone or landline, alerting them that their child has not turned up to school, or a particular class.
The Warriner School is a mixed secondary school that has used Groupcall Messenger for 8 years.
With Messenger’s ability to flag up when a child has not been registered, it means that same day contact can be achieved, with the school able to text parents to inform them of an absence. They used to contact the parents by telephone but can now easily send a text and get a response within 2 hours.
Thanks to this, the Warriner School has a unauthorised absence rate lower than the national and local average with a 0.83% unauthorized absences against the 1.1% registered in Oxfordshire and the 1.4% in England.
The Warriner School is extremely satisfied with Groupcall’s service and Messenger’s benefits: The school’s administration manager, Leigh Barmby, commented: “There is huge scope for how we could use Messenger but at present we are just thrilled to have implemented such a valuable solution.”
Groupcall Emerge allows you to access and interact with an up-to-the-minute copy of your school's MIS data instantly, even when the school's MIS itself isn't available.
With Groupcall Emerge, your MIS data is available in the palm of your hand for access anytime, anywhere - across different devices.
Whether it's taking attendance in the school, on the sports field and on school trips, logging behaviour incidents and achievement events whilst on the move, or recording assessments without levels for SIMS from the comfort of your own home.
Emerge can be used in an emergency where the school system may be down or access to the school is restricted, thus ensuring staff and student safety is prioritised at all times.
Using Emerge to handle registration is proven to save valuable teaching time. Where traditional paper registration can take an estimated 8 minutes, class registration with Emerge takes approximately 30 seconds. This equates to an extra two and a half hours teaching time per teacher, per week.
Groupcall Xpressions is the free parental app within Messenger, which makes communication between a school and parents even easier.
Parents can download the app on their on mobile phones and tablets. As all messages in Xpressions are free of charge to send, this significantly reduces the money spent on paper, printing and postage.
