Schools already produce enough signals to spot trouble early. The problem is rarely missing data; it is that attendance, assignments, marks and family messages live in different places.
An early-warning system should look for changes in a student’s own pattern, not simply compare every child with the same average. Three missed submissions after a steady term can matter more than one low mark.
The final test is practical: every alert needs an owner and a next action. If a flag cannot tell a teacher who should respond and what context to review, it belongs in a report—not in the daily workflow.