New Media Awards 2007 Atos Origin

Truancy Call Limited – Call Parents

http://www.callparents.com

Nominated in Education award category.

Truancy Call Limited provides three telecoms-based services for schools – Call Parents, Truancy Call and Text Someone. Call Parents (www.callparents.com) is designed to enable schools to send text messages or telephone calls to all the parents of pupils within the school with just a few simple clicks. Alongside this, a specific class, year or group can be selected and the parents given a specific message.

1 nomination from readers

  • Call Parents is installed in hundreds of primary and secondary schools in the UK, and enables schools to send a message to all parents with pupils at the school, via text message (SMS) or by an automated phone call. The system enables schools to keep parents/guardians constantly informed of all school activities, whether it is a message following up on a letter given to the pupils to take home or just sending a simple information message updating parents on forthcoming events in the school.

    The system reads live pupil contact information direct from the schools management system and can send specific messages to parents of a specific class, year or group. Ideal for school closure warnings, messages can also be sent about cancellations or delays to events, emergency notifications, parents’ evenings, returning from a school trip and letting parents know when report cards have gone home.

    When a text message is sent, the school will receive confirmation that the message has been sent to the parents/guardians mobile number. Each text message will automatically include the schools name and number so that if they have any queries they can call the school directly. The reporting system on Call Parents provides school with instantaneous feedback on who has or has now received the all-important messages, thus allowing the school to take further action with parents/guardians who have not received your message.

    In February 2007, Call Parents was used to send more than 60,000 text alerts to parents up and down the country as schools closed due to the heaviest snow fall for seven years. Using Call Parents ensured that schools could alert parents of the closures quickly using text messages and automated phone calls.

    Call Parents also removes the burden on school support staff have to make all those calls and ensures that these important messages from school to home are sent directly to parents, thus avoiding any confusion that may surround a school closure, delays or emergency notifications.

    Nominated by Tara Sinclair, 25 May 2007