Share courses between schools

Natasha Cobby - 10 May, 2022

Arbor MIS | New Release

Category : Blog

Share courses between schools

At Arbor, our MIS is designed to champion new and different ways of working across communities, schools and trusts. That’s why we are excited to launch our brand new module, Shared Teaching!

Sharing courses and teaching resources across secondary schools and sixth forms is a fantastic way to widen your curriculum and give your students more choice. Whether it’s about increasing access to specialist subjects like art or music, or having to decide which course to run where budgets are tight – increasing the learning opportunities offered to students can make an incredible difference to their experience and future careers.

“We have a real message of equity and parity and making sure that if a student can do one thing in one school, they should be able to do it in another school. The fact they live five miles away shouldn’t restrict students when it comes to making important choices about their future. Where it has the most impact is with minority courses like drama, economics, and languages – which we just wouldn’t be able to run if we didn’t do shared teaching.”

Tom Hill, The Olympus Academy Trust

But, we know that sharing teaching can be a very time consuming and manual process for staff – which is why we’ve built the Shared Teaching module. It’s designed to take the heavy lifting out of shared course set up and administration, letting you share courses across schools with ease. 

Removing the burden of admin

Manual data inputting, constant emailing back and forth between schools, and complicated spreadsheets have defined the shared teaching experience for many school administrators and timetablers. Instead, our new module reduces the amount of manual process by letting schools manage timetabling and enrolment directly in their MIS. Only one person in the group has to set up the courses, and the classes will be pushed to all schools in the partnership.

Shared, but secure data

When schools are sharing students, it’s essential that they have a secure record of information to hand. Teachers need to be able to see important details such as medical needs or dietary requirements for all of their students, and in one place. With Shared Teaching, schools get an accurate, up-to-date record of shared students in their own MIS. Teachers can record attendance and assessment data for every student and it will instantly sync between their home and partner schools. 

Insights for every school

We know from speaking to schools who share courses that it can have a real, positive effect on students’ lives, so it’s important that schools can track and monitor the progress of their shared courses with reliable data. With this module, schools and MATs can run reports about shared courses at the course and student level, and for courses taught at both home and partner schools. No siloed data means all schools sharing courses together get comprehensive data and insights, such as progress or attainment.

For more information about Shared Teaching, view our handy guide or speak to your Account Manager.

If you don’t yet use Arbor, we’d love to speak to you: email hello@arbor-education.com and one of our team will be in contact.