Nuisance kids, nuisance calls

30th August 2002, 1:00am
PARENTS will be bombarded with automated telephone calls if children at Stonelaw High in Rutherglen truant and they do nothing about it.

A Truancy Call automated system will telephone on the first day a pupil is absent without permission - and keep calling until contact is established.

Brian Cooklin, the school’s head, said teachers would normally have to make an average of 50-60 calls a day to track down truants.

The truancy rate at the 1300-pupil school has been running at 10-12 per cent and it aims to cut this by 1 per cent during the session. The Scottish Executive had a target for 2001-02 of 92 per cent attendance in secondary schools.