Important Information
Notification of Absence
Starting from Monday 11th September we will be running a college SMS absence notification system. The aim of the system is to provide you with timely notification if your young person is absent from college. Please note that you might still receive an absence notification text even if the absence has been reported in advance. In this case no further action is required. For more information, see the FAQ section below.
Who is classified as a young person?
This is anyone aged 18 or under (or those aged under 25 in receipt of an EHCP) on the 31st August 2023.
Why is the college using this system?
Attendance at all lessons is a requirement of study at ESCG, and we hope that by notifying parents and guardians of absences when they occur, problems can be corrected before they escalate.
How will the notifications work?
When a register is marked within the first half-hour of a timetabled lesson, if your young person is is not present, a message will trigger automatically notifying you of their non-attendance. Please note, in cases where a teacher does not mark the register during the session, no notification will be sent.
How frequently can I expect notifications in the case of absence?
At present, you will receive one notification per timetabled session that is missed. This is with the view that a missed morning session for example will see you notified, and able to act on that information in real-time before further sessions are missed.
Will I be texted in the case of a pre-arranged absence such as a medical appointment?
If the tutor has been notified of the absence in advance (prior to the day), hopefully not, provided this has been logged in advance by the Tutor as an authorised absence you should not receive a notification.
If you accidentally receive a notification and you know they are absent, we apologise in advance.
What will the Message be?
<First Forename> is absent from their lesson at <Session Start Time>. If you have already notified us please ignore this message. http://bit.ly/escg-absent-sms
The bit.ly link will bring you back to this page.
Does the message mean that my young person did not show up to the whole lesson?
The notification is sent only once the student is actually marked as absent. This means if your young person turns up to their session after a register has been taken, they will still trigger the absence notification. It is college policy that students are in attendance at the start of any timetabled session to not be considered late.
Following feedback we are now sending a follow up message to advise that your young person has now arrived and been marked in as "Late". This message will be:
<First Forename> has now been marked late. For more info about this please refer to http://bit.ly/escg-absent-sms
What should I do if I receive an absence notification?
If you receive a notification, in the first instance we encourage you to contact your young person for context, to ask if they did indeed miss the session and why. In the second instance, we request that you contact your young person's teacher or tutor for more information. We politely ask that you contact their teacher or tutor directly to reduce traffic on our reception desks. To reiterate, this is a new system, and we do expect the chance of false positives, so check with your child in the first instance.