NEWPORT-born communications entrepreneur Darren Rose has launched a product to combat classroom truancy.

Mr Rose's company, w2wave.com, has developed a product it calls the "All Present" system.

It is designed to keep parents and guardians informed about all school activities.

The service can send various messages such as informing of student truancy, following up written correspondence, or providing updates on school closures, cancellations or invitations to meetings and events.

Home Office research has indicated that nearly 75% of boys and 50% of girls who truant just once a week have committed offences.

With truants three times more likely to offend than non-truants, schools and parents have a vested interest in finding methods to provide early warning on attendance problems.

Llanishen High School has become the latest customer to use Mr Rose's text message technology in the fight to reduce truancy.

IT officer at Llanishen High, Nigel Graham, said: "We're delighted with the success of All Present in our strategy to combat truancy.

"Administration efforts have been reduced and time saved. "Parents have also reacted positively to the new initiative.

"They recognise the importance of this in terms of child safety as well as combating truancy."

Mr Graham said the system has enabled staff to improve communication with parents by making quicker contact when pupils went missing.

"The text messages are read immediately, whereas answerphone messages sometimes get deleted or scrubbed off by the truant.

Mr Rose said: "We were delighted to have worked with Llanishen High School on this project and hope to spread the benefits to other schools.