If you have the "Available to parents" checkbox ticked in Online Reporting > Attendance, this will display the child's attendance statistics in School Gateway, along with any unexplained absences ("N" marks) from any AM/PM sessions in SIMS.
This data is updated in School Gateway in two circumstances – either when an import is run in Schoolcomms, or when the Attendance Contact tab is clicked into in order to synchronise any absences between Schoolcomms and SIMS.
For this information to be as accurate as possible, it would be necessary to ensure that the SIMS register is up to date before running either of these processes.
Schoolcomms does not send any automated notifications or messages to parents with regard to attendance. However, if the parent happens to login to School Gateway after one of the above two tasks has been completed, they will see a tab on their account stating "x unexplained absences" for their child. Clicking onto this tab will allow the parent to see details of the absence, and then send a message back to your school, stating the reason for the absence.
Examples of what the parents would see on the APP:
When an absence is authorised in SIMS (e.g., an "N" mark being changed to an "I" mark), the ‘old’ unexplained absence visible in the parent's School Gateway account will only disappear after the next import, or after Attendance Contact is next clicked into.
The only time a parent would get a message regarding an unexplained absence would be if a member of staff were to manually send an absence message by via the Attendance Contact section of Schoolcomms. As above, this area picks up the N marks entered in the AM or PM sessions in the SIMS register for that day and allows a user to send out an email or text message to the parent to advise of this absence. You can also use ‘Follow up contact’ to advise parents of historic absences which remain unexplained. Again, automatic notifications are not sent, this is a manual process, and a message would only be sent if a staff member chooses to.