Skip to content
Attend

Legal

Terms of Service

Version 1.0 · Effective August 26, 2026

Before the legal part

These terms are a contract between your school and us. We have tried to write them so you can actually read them.

Two things are worth knowing up front, because they shape everything below.

Attendance is free, and we intend to keep it that way. If we ever change that, we will give you notice and you will be able to leave with your records.

Your school's information belongs to your school. We hold it so you can use it. You can export it whenever you like, and you can ask us to delete it. We do not sell it, and we do not use it to train AI models.

1. Who these terms are between

These terms are between Childrens House, a company registered in South Africa ("we", "us", "Attend"), and the school that holds an Attend account ("you", "your school").

We do not publish our registration number or registered address, because business-impersonation fraud is a persistent problem in our jurisdiction. We will provide them in writing to any school, regulator, or auditor who asks. Email attend@childrenshouse.co.za.

By creating an account or using Attend, you agree to these terms. If you are agreeing on behalf of a school, you confirm you are authorized to do so.

2. What Attend is

Attend is software for recording daily attendance and managing the operational information a school needs alongside it — Children, Guardians, staff, classrooms, and the academic calendar.

Attend is provided as a hosted service over the internet. We look after the servers, the software, and the updates. You do not install anything.

What Attend is not. Attend is a record-keeping tool. It does not supervise Children, does not verify that a register is accurate, and does not tell you what your legal obligations are. Those remain yours.

3. Your account

Creating an account. You need a valid email address. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you give us.

Who may use it. Only people your school authorizes. Each person needs their own login — accounts are not to be shared between staff.

Keeping it secure. You are responsible for the security of your school's accounts, including keeping passwords private and removing access for people who leave. Tell us promptly at attend@childrenshouse.co.za if you think an account has been compromised.

Roles and permissions. Attend lets you decide who can see and do what. Setting those permissions appropriately is your school's responsibility, not ours.

4. What it costs

Attendance is free. Recording daily attendance, managing Children and Guardians, managing staff and classrooms, and running the school calendar are provided at no charge.

Paid modules. We may offer additional modules in future. Any module that costs money will be clearly marked, priced before you commit, and optional. We will never start charging for something you are already using without telling you first.

If we change what is free. We may change our pricing. If a feature your school currently uses free of charge is going to become paid, we will give you at least 90 days' notice in writing. You will be able to export everything and leave without charge.

5. Your information, and what we do with it

It is yours. The information your school enters into Attend belongs to your school. We hold and process it on your instructions so that you can use the service.

Your responsibilities. You are responsible for:

  • Having a lawful basis for the information you record about Children, Guardians and staff
  • The accuracy of what you enter
  • Deciding who at your school may see it
  • Responding to requests from parents, Guardians or staff about information you hold

Our responsibilities. We are responsible for holding it securely, using it only to provide the service, and not disclosing it except as described in our Privacy Policy.

We do not sell your information, and we do not use it to train AI models.

Our Privacy Policy explains this in full and forms part of these terms.

A formal agreement. If your school's own legal obligations require a written data processing agreement, contact us and we will enter into one.

6. Acceptable use

Use Attend for running your school. Do not:

  • Use it unlawfully, or for anything other than operating your school
  • Try to gain access to another school's information, or to parts of the system you are not authorized to use
  • Attempt to break, overload, probe, or reverse-engineer the service
  • Resell, sublicense, or provide Attend to anyone else as if it were your own
  • Upload anything malicious, or anything you do not have the right to hold
  • Use Attend to record information about a Child without a lawful basis for doing so

If you do any of these, we may suspend or close the account. Where circumstances allow, we will tell you first and give you a chance to put it right.

7. Availability

We work to keep Attend available and running properly, and we take daily encrypted backups.

We do not promise uninterrupted service. Attend depends on internet infrastructure and third-party providers, and there will be occasions — planned maintenance, faults, or problems at a provider — when it is unavailable. We do not offer a service level guarantee.

Planned maintenance. Where we can, we will schedule it outside school hours and give you notice.

Keep a fallback. Because attendance is a record you may be legally required to keep, we recommend your school has a way of recording it if the service is briefly unavailable. Paper works.

8. Changes to the service

We will keep improving Attend, which means features will change.

  • We will not remove a feature your school depends on without notice.
  • If we make a change that materially reduces the service, we will tell you in advance and you may close your account and export your records.
  • We may change these terms. For material changes we will notify account holders before they take effect. Continuing to use Attend after that means you accept the new terms.

9. Ending the agreement

You can leave at any time. Close your account by contacting us. Export your records before you do — the export tools are in the product, and we recommend using them while your account is still open.

After closure, we keep your information for 90 days so you can still export it or reactivate. After that we delete or anonymize it. Backups are deleted on their own 30-day cycle.

We may close an account if you breach these terms, if the account is used unlawfully, or if we stop providing the service. Except where a breach makes it impossible, we will give you notice and a reasonable opportunity to export your records.

If we discontinue Attend, we will give you at least 90 days' notice, and you will be able to export everything before it ends.

10. Intellectual property

We own Attend — the software, the design, the name, and everything we have built. These terms give your school permission to use it, not ownership of it.

You own your information. Nothing in these terms transfers your school's records to us.

Feedback. If you tell us how to make Attend better, we may act on it without owing you anything. We appreciate it, and it is one of the more useful things a school can give us.

11. Liability

This section is written in plainer language than most, but it is doing real legal work — read it.

What we are responsible for. We are responsible for providing the service as described, holding your information securely, and meeting the obligations in our Privacy Policy.

What we are not responsible for.

  • The accuracy of what you record. If a register is wrong, or a Child is marked present when they were not, that is a matter for your school. Attend records what your staff tell it.
  • Decisions your school makes using information in Attend.
  • Your school's own legal obligations — attendance record-keeping, safeguarding, child protection, licensing. Attend helps you keep records; it does not make you compliant.
  • Loss or damage caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control, including failures at internet or infrastructure providers.
  • Indirect losses — lost profits, lost opportunity, or reputational harm.

Limit on our liability. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to your school in any twelve-month period is limited to the fees your school paid us for Attend during that period.

Where your school uses Attend free of charge, no fees have been paid and our liability is limited accordingly. This is the trade-off for a service provided at no cost, and it is why we say plainly in section 7 that you should keep a fallback for recording attendance.

What we do not limit. Nothing here excludes liability we cannot lawfully exclude — including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else South African law does not permit us to exclude.

Attend is provided "as is" to the extent the law allows. We do not guarantee it will meet every requirement of your school or of your regulator.

12. Indemnity

If your school's use of Attend causes a third party to bring a claim against us — for example because information was recorded without a lawful basis, or the service was used unlawfully — your school agrees to cover our reasonable costs in dealing with it.

This does not apply where the claim arises from something we did wrong.

13. Confidentiality

Each of us may learn things about the other that are not public. Neither will disclose the other's confidential information except where necessary to provide or use the service, or where the law requires it.

Your school's records are confidential to your school. We treat them accordingly, as set out in our Privacy Policy.

14. If something goes wrong between us

Talk to us first. Most problems are resolved by email. Contact us at attend@childrenshouse.co.za and we will work with you in good faith.

If that does not resolve it, the dispute will be dealt with under the laws of South Africa, in the courts of South Africa.

Nothing here prevents your school from complaining to a regulator, or from seeking urgent relief from a court where that is genuinely needed.

15. General

The whole agreement. These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about Attend, and replace anything said beforehand.

If part of this is unenforceable, the rest still applies.

If we do not enforce something immediately, that does not mean we have given up the right to.

You may not transfer your rights under these terms to anyone else without our written agreement. If your school is sold, merged, or restructured, tell us and we will deal with it sensibly.

We may transfer our rights if Attend is sold or merged. Your school's protections continue.

Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of South Africa.

16. Contact us

Questions about these terms: attend@childrenshouse.co.za Support: attend@childrenshouse.co.za Telephone: +1 (325) 313-5451

Registration details and registered address available in writing on request.