TRUANCY at a Bolton school has fallen dramatically just two weeks after a new hi-tec scheme was introduced.

Smithills School is testing the idea of giving pagers to parents of pupils who regularly skip classes.

Just after half term, 10 pagers were issued to parents and in seven cases attendance has already improved significantly.

The pagers are linked to the school's computerised register and it automatically calls the pager if a pupil is marked down as absent. "The scheme is on a trial basis at the moment up to Easter and the first results show it to be very useful," said Bolton's education chairman Cllr Don Eastwood.

"We have been working closely with the school on deciding who gets the pagers. Not all the parents of pupils with truancy problems have a pager, but the important thing is that the pupil doesn't know if their parents have one or not."

Smithills head teacher Mike Kehoe said: "We already have a wide range of schemes to support good attendance but with a small number of children we were not having much success.

"Things are now improving even with our most persistent non-attenders."

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