Should Schools Notify Parents When Students Arrive?
It sounds obviously good. But head teachers ask sensible questions before they switch it on, and they deserve straight answers.
Most head teachers agree in principle that parents should know when their children arrive. The hesitation is practical. Will it mean more work for staff? More calls from anxious parents? Mistakes that cause panic? This article takes those questions one at a time.
"Will it create work for my staff?"
Only if it is done by hand. A school that tries to text or call every family each morning will give up within a week. Notifications only work when they come straight from the gate record — the child is scanned, the parent is told, and no one in the office lifts a finger.
"Will parents call more, not less?"
In the first week, some will — mostly to say thank you, or to ask how it works. After that, schools find the opposite. The questions parents used to ring about ("did he reach?", "what time did she leave?") are answered before they are asked.
"What if the message is wrong?"
This is the right worry. A message that says a child arrived when they did not would be serious. That is why the message must come from a real scan at the gate, with a time, and why a mistaken scan should be correctable at the gate before it reaches anyone. The record should never be edited quietly afterwards; corrections are recorded as corrections.
"Is this a privacy problem?"
A parent being told where their own child is, is not a privacy problem. Sending that information to the wrong person would be. The questions to ask any system are: who is linked to each child, how is that link made, and who at the school approved it?
In GatePass, only the guardians the school has linked to a child receive that child's notifications. Try it free for a term.
Start free"What about children who do not arrive?"
This is where schools need a clear policy. A calm message to the family that the child has not arrived yet, followed by the school's usual follow-up, is far better than silence until the end of the week. The tone matters: inform, never accuse.
So — should you?
If the messages come automatically from a trustworthy gate record, yes. The work falls, the calls fall, and parents gain the one piece of information they value most. If they would depend on someone in the office remembering, not yet — fix the record first.
Common questions
Can a parent switch the notifications off?+
Parents choose whether to keep the app's notifications on, like any other app on their phone.
Do teachers have to do anything?+
No. The arrival is recorded at the gate, and the message goes from that record.
Ntale Livingstone
Founder, GatePass
I started GatePass because no parent should have to phone the school to find out if their child made it there. I write here about what really happens at the gate, in the register and at home, and what we're building to fix it.
