News - Groupcall - Parental Communications

Groupcall receives national award for Improving Public Services

Groupcall, one of the leading providers of a text and voice alert systems for schools, has been named as a winner in the 2008 National eWell-Being Awards at an awards ceremony at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.

The eWell-Being Awards are the UK's only national awards to celebrate the social, economic and environmental benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and aim to identify and promote the most innovative uses of ICT by local authorities, businesses, third sector organisations and academic institutions.

Groupcall was named overall winner in the "Improving Public Services" category, with the judges' citation saying that the company's Messenger system provided "a perfect example of the effective application of ICT as a solution to a social problem. Low cost and effective resulting in a 30% reduction in truancy in Scottish schools."

The Groupcall Messenger system, which is already in use in more than 1000 schools throughout the UK, both primary and secondary, allows schools to send text messages (SMS) to the mobile phones of parents, staff and other school contacts or voice messages to landlines or mobile phones, or emails in any language for a low monthly subscription fee. The system was developed in consultation with primary and secondary schools and provides unauthorised absence chasing and general parental communication all in one integrated desktop solution. The Groupcall system reads pupil and attendance information live and in real time from the school's management system.

"We are really honoured to have been recognised in this way and for others to acknowledge that our services have a contribution to make to increasing school attendance and improving child safety," explains Managing Director, Lawrence Royston.

"Messenger is making it easier for schools to make contact with parents on the first day of absence to check the reason for non-attendance, where otherwise lack of resource may make this unachievable. In so doing, it helps monitor the safety of pupils by enabling all absences to be quickly investigated to ensure they are genuine and known about by parents. It has also provided an inexpensive and robust method of contacting all or groups of parents in the event of an emergency or change to the normal school day."