A student emails asking whether she can miss two weeks to go home, whether her visa is affected, whether she can work while studying and whether the school can help with her application.
Two of those questions the school can answer. Two of them it must not, and the student cannot tell the difference.
Separate the two categories immediately
The school's own attendance policy, what is expected, what is recorded and what happens if it slips, is the school's information and entirely publishable. What any of it means for a person's immigration status is not.
Example conversations
These scripts use information a school might publish. Your answers should come from your own pages.
Student: How many classes can I miss? Assistant: The attendance page explains the school's requirements, how attendance is recorded and what happens if it falls below the expected level, including the warning stages. What that means for your own immigration position is something you would need to check with the official guidance or a qualified adviser. Would you like the attendance page?
Student: Can you help with my visa application? Assistant: The school cannot advise on visa applications, because immigration advice is regulated. The page explains what documentation the school provides, such as enrolment confirmation, and links to the official guidance. Could you tell me what documentation you need from the school?
Student: Can I work while I study here? Assistant: That depends entirely on your visa conditions, which are set by the authorities rather than by the school, and the page links to the official guidance. The school can confirm your study hours if you need that for any purpose.
Publish the attendance policy plainly
The expected level, how it is recorded, what counts as an absence, how authorised absence works and the stages if it falls. Students need this in simple language, not in a compliance document.
Explain what the school reports
Where the school has obligations, saying plainly that attendance is recorded and may be reported is honest and prevents a student assuming otherwise.
Explain what documentation the school provides
Enrolment letters, attendance confirmation, course completion and what each can be used for. Students need these constantly and do not know how to ask.
Point to official sources for everything else
Visa conditions, work rights, dependants, travel and extensions. Linking to authoritative guidance is both correct and more useful than a summary.
Never let an assistant interpret a visa condition
Not even a general statement. The consequences fall on the student and they are serious.
Route to a qualified adviser
Where a student needs advice, pointing to properly qualified advisers is the useful response and the only acceptable one.
Answer in their language
Students are reading in a second language about rules with serious consequences, and answering in the language they write in matters here more than almost anywhere, which is the point of international student enquiries across time zones.
Junior programmes involve parents too
They are covered in junior summer courses and parent questions.
Knowing where to stop is the discipline
It is covered in how to handle sensitive questions in your chatbot and in international students asking about visas and stays.
Getting started
Publish your attendance policy, what you report and what documentation you issue, then answer at any hour and in the student's language without touching immigration advice. SpideyChat for language schools answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about answers on the features page.