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The words we use
A short glossary of the ten words that carry the most weight in MySentinel, in the wording the app itself uses.
A safety system is only as clear as its vocabulary. If a school and its documentation call one thing by two names, somebody eventually acts on the wrong one. These ten words are used consistently in the app, in training and in the rest of this guide — and each is written here in the app’s own wording.
Learner
A child enrolled at the school, who wears a badge. The app says learner wherever a person will read it: the gate screen is titled Scan a learner’s badge, and a completed record labels the child simply Learner.
Not “student”, not “pupil” — one word, so that a roster, a report and a message to a parent all agree.
Check in
The learner arriving at school. It is recorded at the gate by a scan, and the officer sees Checked in with the learner’s name. The first check-in of the day is also what marks the learner present for attendance.
Say check in, never clock in, sign in or drop-off. The learner is not punching a clock; the school is taking responsibility for a child.
Check out
The learner leaving school, recorded the same way and shown as Checked out. In the list of scans waiting to send the two read In · Arriving and Out · Leaving, because at a glance an officer needs direction first.
A check-out is the moment the school hands responsibility back, which is why it carries the most checks around it.
Guardian
Any adult registered to be told about a learner and, where relevant, to collect them: a parent, a grandparent, an aunt, an approved family friend. The gate calls them Guardians on record. A learner normally has more than one, and every one of them is notified about every check-in and check-out — not just whoever happened to be at the gate.
In the parent-facing screens the word softens to “parents”, because that is what families call themselves.
Badge
The physical card or tag a learner wears, holding a chip the phone can read. It is scanned by holding it to the phone — Hold a badge to the back of the phone. Every badge belongs to exactly one learner, and a badge nobody has registered is refused outright rather than waved through.
Each badge also has a number that can be typed by hand — the app labels it Badge number — so a phone that cannot scan is slower but never stuck.
Gate zone
The name of a particular entrance, for a school with more than one. An administrator names them; the app explains what for: Name each gate where officers scan. Officers pick their gate when they start scanning.
The officer chooses theirs once — Which gate are you at? — and a chip on the gate screen shows the answer thereafter. Every scan then carries where it happened, which is what makes “who came in the back gate at 07:10” answerable.
The outbox
The scans that a phone has recorded but has not yet been able to send. It is never called an outbox in front of an officer, because that is a technical word. The app calls it Waiting to send, and the screen behind it is titled Scans waiting to send.
That screen explains its own purpose better than any definition can: Proof of every check-in and check-out recorded on this phone that hasn’t reached the school yet. They send automatically the moment you’re back online.
On the gate screen it is a single line, and never anything ambiguous: All scans sent, or a count in amber — 3 waiting to send.
Quiet hours
A window a parent sets, in their own settings, during which routine updates are held rather than delivered. The app is careful to promise holding, not silence: We hold routine updates between these times. Messages from an overnight window arrive when it ends.
It applies only to ordinary arrivals and departures. Alongside the setting the app states the exception permanently: Emergency, safety and late-pickup alerts are always sent, whatever your settings.
Delegation
A parent authorising another adult to collect their child — the app calls it Pickup delegation, and describes it as “Let someone you trust collect your child”. The parent names the adult, chooses which of their own children it covers, and sets how long it lasts.
The delegate receives a link showing the children’s first names and a short Gate code — no surnames, no photos, and never the parent’s full phone number. At the gate the officer’s prompt is Ask the adult for this code: spoken aloud, never typed into a form, and usable exactly once.
Register
The class teacher’s daily register, headed Daily register. It is not taken from scratch: it opens already filled in from the gate and from any note a parent has sent, labelled Pre-filled from gate check-ins and parents’ notes, and the teacher’s job is to confirm it and correct what the gate could not know — a learner who arrived but is now in sick bay, an absence with a reason.
The product used to call this the roll in English only. Afrikaans and isiZulu have said register and irejista since the day they shipped, so the English was the outlier rather than the standard, and it now says register too.
A register is final once submitted. The teacher is told so before she commits, in a confirmation naming the class, the date and the counts; afterwards the screen says This register is final. Only an administrator can change it now. A learner who arrives later does not reopen it — the arrival is appended underneath, under Added after this register was taken, exactly as a paper register’s late-arrivals line has always worked.
Two habits are worth keeping in your own notices to parents and staff. Use the app’s own words, so nobody has to translate. And keep recorded and sent apart: a scan saved on a phone and a scan that has reached the school are different facts, and the app never confuses them.