What Information Should a School Attendance System Record?
An attendance system is only as useful as what it records. Here is the information that turns a register into a record you can rely on.
Who the pupil is
Name, class, and whether they are a day scholar or a boarder — and for boarders, their house. This is what lets the right teacher and the right matron see the right pupils.
When they arrived and left
The date, the arrival time and the departure time, recorded at the gate. Times turn a tick into evidence: they show lateness, early departures and exactly when a pupil was last on the compound.
Whether they were late
Measured against the school's cut-off automatically, so the record is the same whoever is on the gate.
GatePass records all of this from a single scan at the gate — your first term is free.
Start freeWhy they were absent
Planned absences agreed with the school, sick days and other reasons, so that an explained absence is not treated like an unexplained one.
If they were sent home
The reason, the time and who collected them. This is the record families and schools most often need to look back at.
Where boarders are at night
The nightly roll-call, sign-outs and sick-bay stays — the boarding school's second attendance.
Where the class was
School trips and off-school activities, so pupils who were out with the school are not recorded as absent.
Common questions
Does it record staff too?+
Staff can scan in and out at the same gate, so the school also knows which staff are on site.
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.
