MGM Case Study - Kildare College, South Australia

Kildare College, located in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, is a Catholic girls’ secondary college. It caters for approximately 500 students, who typically live in the local area.

Founded by the Brigidine Sisters, Kildare aims to give its students opportunities to experience success in learning and to exercise leadership through their contribution to the life of the school.

While Kildare did not identify truancy as a major problem, the college wanted to streamline its attendance management processes.

Press reports and information from other schools had made Kildare staff aware of a new absence management solution called messageyou™

Developed and implemented by Adelaide company MGM Wireless, messageyou is an automated solution that sends a text message to the mobile phone of a parent whose child is absent without explanation on any given day. This gives parents the opportunity to text back or phone in to confirm the student’s whereabouts, contributing to an effective attendance management system.

Kildare’s decision to implement messageyou was based on a combination of factors including student safety, the need for a streamlined process, and the scope for improved communication.

“While the primary use of messageyou is to manage unexplained absences, the opportunity exists to expand to general messaging such as reminders, and improve our general communication,” Business Manager Paul Hawkes said.

“The college prides itself on being a place where students are provided with a safe and proactive learning environment and messageyou is helping to contribute to this.”

Each morning, after absentees are reported by class teachers, messageyou seamlessly queries the school’s attendance database and text messages are automatically sent to the parents of absentees. Parents then phone in or reply by text to confirm whether or not they are aware of their child’s absence.

Before introducing messageyou, Kildare had tried several approaches to reporting unexplained absences. “We tried out our own systems such as frequent phone calls,” explains Mr Hawkes.

“It was very much a hands-on, labour intensive process.”

To introduce the system to parents, a letter was sent home asking them to participate and confirm their preferred mobile number. This was accompanied by comprehensive notices in the school newsletter during the month preceding implementation.

Installing messageyou involved synchronising with Kildare’s existing MAZE school management system. MGM Wireless took care of this processand organised training for the college personnel who would be using the system.

Paul Hawkes found it a remarkably easy transition, “Very little training was required, all we really had to do was carry on with our normal absentee process and let messageyou pick up the relevant information automatically,” he said.

messageyou received an overwhelmingly positive response, with 95% of parents electing to be involved and supplying their mobile numbers.

School staff echoed these sentiments and Paul Hawkes attributes this mostly to making sure that everyone was involved in the decision making process.

“There has been no negative reaction, because throughout the process everyone was consulted via emails and personal memos.”

messageyou has also encouraged staff and students to be more diligent in monitoring attendance. Early on, there were a few occasions when parents received a message despite their child being present at school.

“In each case this was due to an error made in marking our attendances or a child not signing in after arriving late,” explains Mr. Hawkes. “So messageyou has also been effective in highlighting the areas in our procedures that needed to be tightened up.”

Since the implementation of messageyou in June 2005, the College reports that general absences have reduced by 20%. The most significant result, however, has been documented as a 50% reduction in the number of unexplained absences at Kildare.

“Since the introduction of messageyou, we now have everyone doing the right thing,” Mr Hawkes said. “Students are being more closely monitored, making it less likely that they will even think about skipping school.”

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