Management Information System (MIS) for schools
Expert ideas for a better working life at your school or trust
Product release
Category : Blog
Have you Asked Arbor that? Today I’m super excited to introduce Ask Arbor – your new collaborator and assistant in Arbor, powered by OpenAI. Ask Arbor is built seamlessly into Arbor MIS, and is designed to turn your words into actions wherever you see it pop up. Want to know how attendance compares across year
Today I’m super excited to introduce Ask Arbor – your new collaborator and assistant in Arbor, powered by OpenAI.
Ask Arbor is built seamlessly into Arbor MIS, and is designed to turn your words into actions wherever you see it pop up.
Want to know how attendance compares across year groups this term? Ask Arbor. Need to draft a difficult letter to parents and guardians this morning? Ask Arbor. Looking for a quick way to create a student report? You can Ask Arbor that too.
Ask Arbor is designed to reduce busywork, make it simpler to get the data you need, and bring ideas to life. All of which should give you back your time for more strategic work, more time spent making use of your data, and more time with students and staff.
Here’s a sneak preview of what Ask Arbor can do:
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Ask Arbor a question, and it will come back with an answer in plain English. Ask Arbor will also show you the data informing its answer as a custom report which you can edit, download, and share with colleagues.
✔ Become a data superuser – Ask Arbor makes it simpler to create reports and find the information you need, especially for staff members who feel less confident with data
✔ Permissioning built-in by default – Because Ask Arbor creates reports in the Custom Report Writer, your Arbor permissions are automatically applied – making sure staff can only see the data they’re allowed to
Tell us the topic you want to write about, or provide a few prompts. Ask Arbor will then create a draft for you to review and send.
✔ Make Arbor into a copywriter! – Not sure how to phrase something? Need some time back this morning? Let Arbor know what your email, letter or SMS is about, tell it the tone of voice you want to adopt, and Ask Arbor will produce a draft in seconds
Ask Arbor to use data in the Student Profile, and your own comments, to make a speedy report card for parents
✔ Save time, without compromising on detail – Ask Arbor will summarise key data points about your students, and combine it with written comments from you, to produce a quick report for parents. It will even add in comments to address your students directly!
I wanted to end by giving some insight into the way we’ve gone about designing and building Ask Arbor. Together with our parent company, The Key Group, we’ve been reflecting on the social and ethical implications of AI, and studying the work of organisations like The Institute for Ethical AI in Education and the Council of Europe.
From this, we have developed five core principles that will underpin our upcoming AI development. Through working closely with our colleagues at The Key Group, our goal is to lead the way in taking an ethical, transparent and school-first approach to implementing AI in our platforms. You can read more about our five core principles here.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that Ask Arbor is an experiment and, like all AI tools, may give inaccurate or inappropriate responses. We’ll be rolling it out (and adding more actions to its repertoire) very soon – your feedback will be critical in helping to make it as useful as possible. Watch this space (and catch our demo at Bett!) – we can’t wait to hear what you think.
School Operations
On 9th June 2023, we’re celebrating #NationalSBLDay in collaboration with our partners SBS. National School Business Leaders Day celebrates the incredible impact School Business Leaders have in schools and the wider community. Check out the event. Staff in schools working in lots of new ways right now (and harder than ever before), with School Business
On 9th June 2023, we’re celebrating #NationalSBLDay in collaboration with our partners SBS. National School Business Leaders Day celebrates the incredible impact School Business Leaders have in schools and the wider community. Check out the event.
Staff in schools working in lots of new ways right now (and harder than ever before), with School Business Managers and Leaders especially feeling the strain. The upside is that we’re seeing more and more awareness of wellbeing and ways to prevent overload.
We asked School Business Leaders within the SBL Connect network to share their top three tips for managing their workload on Twitter. There were some fantastic pieces of advice around reducing screen time, prioritising tasks and delegating to colleagues.
We’ve gathered some of the best tips below:
1. monthly tasks as soon as possible, leaving the rest of the month for project work 2. Set specific times of the day for emails and try to ignore them the rest of the time 3. Set two tasks that will be completed each day, and make sure they (even if nothing else) get done
We thought Clare Payne’s top three tips were pretty smart and practical, so we awarded her first place in our competition and sent her some brownies to share with her colleagues!
1. Keep a to do list 2. Know when you contracts are up for renewal so you have time to look around for new ones 3. Keep talking to your HT/colleagues and let them know if it’s all becoming too much
1. Empower your teams through delegation, trust and saying thanks! 2. Use digital technologies to unlock efficiencies to YOUR time 3. Shift your mindset. Prioritise key deadlines first. Take the time to do things in a considered way
1. Automate emails as much as you can to save time and move from your inbox to a task list 2. Take a break. Coming back fresh is more productive than just slogging away 3. Prioritise and ditch non-essentials if necessary
How do you manage your workload? We’d love to hear from you – join the conversation: #WorkloadTopTips
If you’d like to discover how Arbor’s cloud-based MIS could transform the way you work and reduce your workload, why not join a free webinar. With sessions tailored to primary, secondary, special schools and MATs, find out what’s on and book your place here.
Case Studies | Migration
Our blog today is an interview with Tim Moore, Data Manager at The Hyndburn Academy. Read a longer version of this interview and hear from more Data Managers in the Arbor community in our free ebook – download your copy here. – How did you become a Data Manager? I started out as a Network
Our blog today is an interview with Tim Moore, Data Manager at The Hyndburn Academy. Read a longer version of this interview and hear from more Data Managers in the Arbor community in our free ebook – download your copy here.
I started out as a Network Manager in a secondary school, and then became a teacher. The Data Manager at one of the schools where I taught left quite suddenly, so I stepped in to help. Over time, I realised I really enjoyed being in and amongst the school data. I’m lucky enough, in my current school, to still have fingers in both pies: I am both the Data Manager and a Computing Teacher, so it’s an unusual one!
We actually used the move as an opportunity to look at our behaviour systems and assessment structures. What we didn’t do, and I think is a pitfall of some, is try to replicate everything that we did in our previous MIS in Arbor. We helped to set the expectation that this was going to be a change for the better, rather than doing exactly the same thing we had done before but in the cloud. It meant we could use the new system to the best of our ability.
The same things that come up in school life will always come up whichever MIS you use: moving children from Set A to B, making timetable changes and setting up mock exams. It’s about having the tools to do those things efficiently and effectively. Census is the best example. In the old days, I would have had a big notice on my door that read, ‘Census – do not disturb’ and spent days sitting through endless lists of problems, frantically searching forums for answers about patches and workarounds. I don’t have to do that anymore. I can just do my job as it’s supposed to be done. Now, much less of my time is spent doing manual tasks, and none of my time is spent worrying about a server. It’s freed up time to focus on more complex data analysis for SLT so that we can actually drill down into issues.
I build trackers for different departments so that our data is healthy as a school, and then I can provide this clean data to SLT so they can make data-driven decisions. Because the data is visible, it means we can have a holistic view of the school and use our data more strategically, so we can better ascertain our impact and plan ahead.
It all comes back to problem-solving. I enjoy solving other people’s problems through data tools that I’ve built and trying to make people’s lives easier, showing them all the cool stuff they can do.
For more interviews, features and insights from Arbor users, read our Data Manager’s Guide to Arbor – download for free here.
Or discover more of our content for Data Managers here.
Culture
We know there’s always pressures on schools and trusts to grow, retain staff and improve staff wellbeing and culture. But creating and executing a good people and culture strategy is no mean feat to achieve in the context of the great resignation, cost-of-living crisis and other challenges that schools and trusts face daily. Last year,
We know there’s always pressures on schools and trusts to grow, retain staff and improve staff wellbeing and culture. But creating and executing a good people and culture strategy is no mean feat to achieve in the context of the great resignation, cost-of-living crisis and other challenges that schools and trusts face daily.
Last year, in the context of taking on hundreds of new schools and trusts, we hired 100 new people at Arbor. At the same time, we managed to exceed our retention goal of 80%, maintain our ENPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) at above 40 and sustain a strong company culture! I thought it might therefore be interesting to share my learnings from the past year as Arbor’s Head of People and Culture, to see if any insights might be useful to those also going through rapid growth or taking on new schools.
This first point is the easiest to talk about. A good people plan or strategy is critical, because people are the most important part of any organisation.
What’s slightly harder to answer is what makes a ‘good’ people and culture strategy. I think we have to go back to basics here and make sure every people strategy is people-focused, which sounds obvious, but it can easily be overlooked. There’s a reason at Arbor that we call ourselves the People and Culture team (rather than HR) and it’s because we are always human-first. It’s important that this gets buy-in from the wider team, as a people strategy should align with the general business strategy.
As well as this, a good people strategy will unlock the full potential of our people. I think this is summed up quite well by our unofficial mantra in the People and Culture team: giving people the tools to do their best work, in an engaged and inclusive culture where they can bring their full selves to work.
As much as having your finger on the pulse of things is important just by the ‘feel’ of the company, I really believe in using data to understand where we are as a business and to inform our future strategy. We do this in several ways:
This helps us to anonymously monitor employee engagement, employee feeling, and employee sentiment. Anything above 0 is considered good, but our target is to have our ENPS at about 40, where we have averaged over the past 12 months – which makes me really proud.
We measure ourselves against time to hire, diversity of our recruitment pipeline and the quality of hire (e.g. if individuals make it through their probation period and tracking that everyone is progressing as we would expect them to.)
Last year (2022), over 30% of our employees were either moved or were promoted into a new role, which is way above anything I’ve seen in businesses that I’ve worked in before. Rightfully so, people want to be in roles that they enjoy and where they have a sense of value and self-worth. We’re lucky that by working for Arbor we get to demonstrate real value by improving the education sector, but it’s my job to create an environment where people can feel self worth internally and how they progress. This is reflected in the roles of school staff who do a very ‘rewarding’ job, but it’s important that individuals working in schools feel that their role is fulfilling and that they are progressing. We have a dedicated person who owns learning and development within our teams.
We also encourage employees to use our dedicated tool for anonymous feedback, which goes directly to senior management. We make sure once a week that, as a senior management team, we take the time to respond to these, both privately but also where appropriate in a public setting such as a company-wide town hall. I would recommend setting up monitored and transparent feedback loops and to take them seriously as an organisation. This gives employees a voice and shows that we listen and act, but also gives the space for senior management to respond and explain.
Culture can be actually quite tough to quantify as a lot of it’s quite intangible. It’s the things that you know are there but can’t necessarily explain. Having said that, I do think a good school or company culture should be easy to describe.
At Arbor, we do pulse surveys, welcome interviews and stay interviews, as it’s important to get a measure on how the culture feels to someone who’s just onboarded, as well as someone who has been in the organisation for many years. More importantly, it’s acting on the feedback you receive, especially where you start to see trends.
We do more thorough surveys annually where we encourage every employee to go into detail on areas surrounding leadership, communication, wellness and general culture. Importantly, we have a team of people with the word ‘culture’ in their titles – this shows how much weight we give this in the business. It’s why it’s important to me that my title is ‘Head of People and Culture’, because it comes back to my original point of a people strategy being personal and human-first.
It’s also important to me that CEO, James, is so passionate about our people strategy as he becomes almost an extension of our team. He’s a real driver for people and culture as well, meaning the people agenda is heavily prioritised. Having this buy-in from the business, as well as clear lines of communication, action and accountability, means that our people and culture strategy can be more impactful.
Your people strategy will change based on the phase of the journey that you’re on. So having an organisation in a zero to 50 employee range is going to be very different to when you’re 250 plus. The answer is not to just continue to increase headcount and increase the size of your team.
We’ve obviously scaled massively in the last year and flexibility in our approach has been crucial. You have to drop things and pick things up as and when. But how can you make sure you’re not losing sight of what you’re trying to do but also still tackle some of the more urgent business needs?
A starting point is to clearly define roles and responsibilities within your organisation, as well as assigning clear goals and using a prioritisation framework within that as well. Setting out non-negotiables. Having this framework helps teams to focus on things that are going to continue pushing the business forward, without compromising on business need.
It’s also important to have the right processes and systems in place. These can’t break as you scale, as it’s really difficult to retrospectively fix and mend when your organisation is moving at such a fast pace. To make sure of this, we commit to continuous review of our systems and processes. Typically every process or policy will be reviewed on at least an annual basis – and this review cycle includes getting feedback and input from employees to make sure they continue to be impactful. If you’re able to streamline, then your processes and systems should reduce the amount of manual and administrative work done by your teams, so they have more time to deliver genuine impact.
Because people are the most important part of any organisation, having a clearly defined people and culture strategy is critical. And, hand-in-hand with this, recognising that a people strategy is a vital organisational function.
At Arbor, I’m really proud of the people that we have working for us. I think all of those people are so driven around our mission and focused on improving education that it makes me really energised and really happy to come to work every day.
Whilst I know that Arbor as a business will function inherently differently, I hope some of these insights or principles are useful to those working on HR in schools or trusts. If nothing else, remember to be people-first, always!
Product updates
With summer fast approaching, we’ve been working hard to deliver a host of updates and improvements before the holidays begin. What’s new in Arbor MIS At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. Here are just some of our recent launches and updates: Communications Designer Format
With summer fast approaching, we’ve been working hard to deliver a host of updates and improvements before the holidays begin.
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. Here are just some of our recent launches and updates:
Communications Designer Format your emails and text exactly the way you want to. Our new designer tool gives you the flexibility to set your own fonts and colours, undo and redo, and add in tables and merge fields. Plus, it’s all controllable from your keyboard.
Learn more here
DfE Assessments in report cards
We’ve made it much easier to share DfE Assessment results with parents and students! No more manual sends, you can now add DfE Assessments from any academic year to both long and short report cards.
Invoice status for parents
Our update to the invoice status on Parent Portal and the Arbor App gives your parents more visibility on the exact status of their invoices, either ‘Paid’, ‘Issued’ or ‘Cancelled’.
Check staff member user access Want to check which areas of Arbor your staff can access? Now you can easily see whether staff can access a page and the required permissions using the page URL.
Updates to our Exam module
With exam season in full swing, we’ve made some improvements to our Exam module we hope you’ll love from being able to download exam seating plans in all available formats to updates to access arrangements. Visit our Exams section of the Help Centre for more information.
MAT MIS is custom-built for better collaboration across your trust, with tools that make it easy to work together as one organisation.
EYFS Analysis in MAT MIS
EYFS DfE Assessments is now in MAT MIS. Just like on the School MIS, you can now analyse your EYFS DfE Assessments, as well as KS1 and KS2 results all from MAT MIS.
Shared Teaching
Need to bulk copy your setup from the previous year? You can now do this in MAT MIS! We’ve made setting up and copying your Shared Teaching courses and timetable slots much easier, with bulk copy setup.
New BI Connector Datasets
As part of our plan to continue to evolve our BI Connector, we’ve added Ad Hoc Assessments dataset.
To keep up-to-date with all our latest releases visit our Change Log or to see what we are working on next and to give feedback visit our Product Roadmap.
cloud | Migration
Over 9,000 schools have already moved to the cloud, with more than 2 in 3 who switch choosing Arbor. But some Data Managers still have concerns about what using a cloud MIS will mean for them and their school. We recently released a guide for School Data Managers who are thinking about moving to a
Over 9,000 schools have already moved to the cloud, with more than 2 in 3 who switch choosing Arbor. But some Data Managers still have concerns about what using a cloud MIS will mean for them and their school.
We recently released a guide for School Data Managers who are thinking about moving to a cloud MIS. Hear from Data Managers who are part of the Arbor Community speaking about their experience of moving MIS and their learnings from switching to the cloud. You can download the ebook for free here.
In the meantime, we’ve put together the top five benefits of the cloud for Data Managers in schools.
Get quick, secure access to all your student and staff data wherever you’re working – all you need is a browser. No need to rely on servers!
If the DfE releases new guidance, Arbor can deploy features to help you within days (sometimes just 24 hours!). We also update Arbor fortnightly with new features and improvements, which you can access as soon as they’re released.
All your data across your MIS is stored in the cloud, so the information you see is a real-time reflection of the students in your school.
Arbor brings key tasks under one roof, including reporting, comms, and managing rotas, timetables and sickness.
Arbor connects to leading secondary school apps like 4Matrix, Edval, Timetabler, CPOMS and Civica. Or you can replace the tools that aren’t working for you with our built-in functionality – we’ve got everything from Cover and Exam Management to Seating Plans.
Thinking about moving MIS but not where to start? We’ve put together a guide to Arbor for Data Managers which you can download for free here. Hear from Data Managers who use Arbor, learn about the features in Arbor designed specifically for your role and discover our community of Data Managers who come together to help us build the best school MIS on the market.
Data and Insight | The Data Drop
Welcome to The Data Drop. Our philosophy at Arbor is that staff should have direct, easy access to their data – and be able to do something meaningful with it. Our MIS is built on a world-class data platform, which allows us to deliver things like national-level benchmarking to schools and trusts within seconds, rather
Welcome to The Data Drop. Our philosophy at Arbor is that staff should have direct, easy access to their data – and be able to do something meaningful with it. Our MIS is built on a world-class data platform, which allows us to deliver things like national-level benchmarking to schools and trusts within seconds, rather than hours or days. And allows schools to make real-time, data-driven decisions.
This new series is designed to share insights from our data warehouse (containing the data of c.4,000 schools), to shed light on the wider patterns emerging across the education sector.
In a post-Covid world, and also in a year marked by strikes and an emphasis on staff wellbeing, we thought we’d use our first blog in our Data Drop series to take a look at staff absence data.
When looking at staff absence data based on the last five academic years between 1st September – 24th April (in order to be comparable to the 22/3 dataset at time of publication), there’s a significant downward trend in regards to sickness-related absences in school staff – but only when it comes to absences that have not been certified.
Only 26.8% of recorded staff absences in the academic year 2022-3 were as a result of sickness (certification unknown), dropping from 37.8% the previous year. This is a further jump from pre-Covid; in the academic year 2018-19, the proportion of working days lost attributed to sickness (certification unknown) was 46.7%.
By contrast, there has been a rise in other types of sickness absence since 2018. This is the case where absence has been medically certified as well as self-certified.
The other absence category which is seeing an unsurprising spike this academic year is absences related to strike action. In 22/23, 2.3% of working days missed were related to strikes. The proportion of working days missed by strikes has sat below 0.1% across the previous four years.
This equates to 41,193 days lost so far (to 24/04/2023) in 22/23 (across 3,631 many schools from where we drew this dataset), compared with a combined total of 260.5 days across the previous four years. Whilst these stats must also take into account the change in number of Arbor’s schools which make up the data, the difference is still notable. You can see more of Arbor’s data around the strikes in our work with SchoolsWeek here.
Periods covered – we’ve chosen to use these dates so that we have a comparable dataset to the 22/23 year at time of writing (May 2023).
22-23: 01/09/2022 – 24/04/2023
21-22: 01/09/2021 – 24/04/2022
20-21: 01/09/2020 – 24/04/2021
19-20: 01/09/2019 – 24/04/2020
18-19: 01/09/2018 – 24/04/2019
Staff absence is recorded using startdate, enddate and working days lost in between. Due to school holidays this is difficult to split days into the correct periods for long-term absence. Startdate has been used as an approximation for the academic year of the absence. The calculations attribute all working days lost to the period the startdate falls into.
The number of schools in our dataset varies year on year, which is why we have drawn on the percentage of days lost rather than number. Below you will find the number of schools in each year’s dataset.
18/19 – 3,385
19/20 – 3,424
20/21 – 3,503
21/22 – 3,611
22/3 – 3,631
This represents approximately 10% of the schools in the UK.
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to help schools make the most out of their data. Not yet using our MIS? Find out more here.
Summer Term is in full swing and the sunshine has started to make an appearance. April saw us make some exciting releases into Arbor MIS and MAT MIS that will help support you, your school and your students. What’s new in Arbor MIS At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work
Summer Term is in full swing and the sunshine has started to make an appearance. April saw us make some exciting releases into Arbor MIS and MAT MIS that will help support you, your school and your students.
Updates to the sex and gender fields To align with the DfE, we’ve made some changes to the gender field in Arbor. We’ve relabelled the Gender field in Arbor to Sex to reflect its existing use in the census, and we’ve added a new field on student, guardian and staff profiles for Gender Identity.
KS4 Assessment Analysis
Use our new KS4 Assessment Analysis page to track student progress in more detail, plus get a Progress 8 estimate based on last year’s Attainment Band data.
The latest features added to tables
We’ve made some exciting updates in the past month and will continue to make improvements throughout Summer Term.
What’s new in April for tables:
School Staff Absence Reporting improvements
We made some great updates to School Staff Absence Reporting in April following your feedback.
MAT Operations | MATs
We all know the Heraclitus phrase that ‘the only constant in life is change,’ and yet change is also the thing we fear and put off until necessary. The world of education has sometimes been slow to pick up on the great and sweeping changes that we’ve seen in the rest of the public sector,
We all know the Heraclitus phrase that ‘the only constant in life is change,’ and yet change is also the thing we fear and put off until necessary. The world of education has sometimes been slow to pick up on the great and sweeping changes that we’ve seen in the rest of the public sector, particularly when it comes to embracing cloud technology. The reasons for this are understandable: budgets are tight, retention is challenging, and the landscape seems to be constantly shifting. 2022 seemed to epitomise this landscape of change, both politically and also in the sheer numbers of schools who moved to the cloud: in one term alone nearly 1,500 schools alone moved away from legacy software.
Day-to-day, I speak to many MATs who are thinking about moving to the cloud and trying to align their systems, particularly as they look to grow. And what I’ve found is, whether I’m speaking to a newly formed MAT who doesn’t really know why they’re moving to the cloud, or a long-standing MAT with tens of schools, the common pitfalls remain the same, meaning trusts are setting themselves up for a far more challenging journey into cloud-based life than it ought to be.
It all comes down to change management and communication. In Lewin’s original change management model from the 1940s, communication sits as one of the steps in the first phase – long before any kind of implementation or decision-making. Skipping this step is hazardous, but it’s something I see time and time again. From the second your team starts to think about change, be this of an MIS or something entirely different, it needs to be communicated to all those it affects. It needs to be communicated why you are thinking about change, what the impetus was, what benefits you’re aiming for and what the long-term goal is. It’s also worth mentioning that this communication piece doesn’t sit within a single email; it should be an invitation for others to be involved in the conversation.
I’d always recommend starting with a document which clearly defines: what is being changed, who it is going to affect short-term (decision-makers), and who it will affect long-term. I’d also recommend putting together a working party, who are consulted throughout the entire process. Said working party shouldn’t just include directors and the CEO, but should be representative of stakeholders, including a headteacher, perhaps teachers or office managers.
The misconception made here is that communicating a decision is a tickbox exercise of letting those who will be affected, know about the change. Instead, it should be formative and beneficial to the decision-making process itself. The working party should be a broad spectrum of what your trust is all about so that you get different viewpoints and skillsets feeding into the conversation. And, the likelihood is, if you turn to those invested in the ‘old way’, and say, we’re thinking of moving forward with something new, people will come out of the woodwork with crucial expertise on what it is they need to do their jobs well.
What I see far too often are well-meaning and well-researched project leads, who have spanned the entire procurement process, done their research and likely chosen the best system for their trust. And yet, there’s an assumption that all those other stakeholders will automatically reach the same conclusion without the months of context. Instead, it feels like a decision has been made and isn’t to be questioned. Those stakeholders are still at the beginning of the journey, meaning that whilst the project lead is trying to implement the project, they’re simultaneously having to justify and reconvince the trust that this was the right move. Of course, this means implementation itself suffers, training lacks buy-in, and engagement/uptake is low, meaning that even if the system were the perfect fit, nobody is bought in enough to realise the benefits. Day one of the new system becomes a rush to make up for the lack of previous dialogue.
With growth leading as the goal for many trusts, strategic management of such changes becomes increasingly important. It goes without saying that those schools who are yet to academise are increasingly the most reluctant to do so, with a loss of autonomy most often quoted as the biggest reasoning. If MATs are set on growing and retaining schools, in a gradually more competitive landscape, they must caveat these fears with clear communication and an openness of conversation, regardless of whatever change they are making.
The other side of change and moving systems, for example, is not so much managing expectations as to creating expectations. Speaking strictly to MIS, it’s interesting that most trusts (though this will change), have never had to move before and have always used the same system. As a result, the question is often: this is how we did it before, how do we achieve the same thing, but in the cloud? The question should be: how can we do this better, with the support of cloud systems?
‘Cloud’ has been a buzzword for a while; there’s an idea that schools and trusts need to simply shift everything they currently do into the cloud. I would ask those that still buy into this philosophy why they want to directly replicate something which they are actively moving away from? Instead, why not acknowledge you want change and pick strategic tools that can make a measurable difference to the way your organisation runs? Improve your workflows, improve your processes, let the technology be part of your culture and vision rather than a tickbox, consider how it can be part of your school improvement plan, think how you could reduce workload or boost wellbeing. A change of this kind should be exactly that… a change.
What it all comes back to is that initial impetus to change, when the decision is made to think about something new. That’s when the real change starts to happen, and in order for it to be successful, central teams must have their change management and communication piece secure from the beginning, so that everybody knows exactly where you are going, why you’re going there, and how it’s going to transform the way you work for the better.
Since we started with a quote, it seems like a good idea to end on one too, this time from author and thought leader Lisa Bodell:
“”Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. Create it with them.”
Matt’s article appears in our free ebook for MAT leaders, all about creating a cohesive trust, which you can download here.
Or, discover more of our content for MATs here.
Parents & Guardians
It goes without saying just how important parent engagement is in schools. What many schools are finding is that communicating with parents via SMS/text is an effective and efficient way of notifying guardians with urgency and encouraging two-way communication. – But how exactly can using text messages improve your parent engagement strategy? Reduce admin –
It goes without saying just how important parent engagement is in schools. What many schools are finding is that communicating with parents via SMS/text is an effective and efficient way of notifying guardians with urgency and encouraging two-way communication.
Read here for some top tips on how to make your parent communication strategy even more effective across all mediums.
If you use Arbor MIS, your school will also be able to use our built-in SMS service for parent comms, making parent engagement:
We’re excited to introduce our new annual SMS tariff, making it simpler to kleep parents in the loop. Our Subscription SMS is ideal for schools who regularly send SMS. Pay yearly and get the benefits of an ongoing subscription:
To find out more about SMS Subscription speak to you Account Manager today.
Not yet using Arbor MIS? We’d love to hear from you – get in touch with our friendly team here.
And that’s a wrap for Spring Term! As you start to relax and enjoy your Easter break, we take a look back on some of the exciting releases to Arbor MIS and Arbor MAT MIS over the past term that will help support you, your school and your students. – What’s new for schools At
And that’s a wrap for Spring Term! As you start to relax and enjoy your Easter break, we take a look back on some of the exciting releases to Arbor MIS and Arbor MAT MIS over the past term that will help support you, your school and your students.
Scheduling Comms
No more logging in out of hours – you can now choose when to send out your emails, SMS and in-app messages! Draft as usual, then just click Send later to pick the date and time. Learn more here.
Automated Capita One exports We’ve worked with Capita One to automate the Capita One Export, reducing school workload and improving data quality for your LA. You’ll need to ask your LA to get in touch with us to get this set up. Learn more here.
SMS Subscription is here
Our new annual SMS tariff makes it simpler to keep parents in the loop. SMS Subscription is perfect for schools who regularly send SMS messages. Pay yearly and get the benefits of an ongoing subscription. Learn more here.
Apple Pay and Google Pay are here
If your school has our Payments Plus module, you can now give parents the flexibility to pay the way that suits them! No more re-entering card details every time on the Arbor App. Learn more here.
School Shop Orders dashboard
Our new School Shop dashboard gives you an overview of orders, payments and refunds without needing to go into each item individually. Plus we’ve added a new School Shop: Administer permission. Learn more here.
Behaviour comms templates
Create SMS and email templates to notify guardians about behaviour incidents or detentions. Add detail with our built-in merge fields, or set different messages for different severity levels. Learn more here.
Random Student Picker
There is always that activity in the classroom where you need to choose a student at random. You now can with the new Student Picker. Engage your students and choose them fairly, the student picker spins to select a random student from your class – perfect for projecting on the board. Learn more here.
Bulk Add Assessment Columns in the Custom Report Writer
Want to add columns for Summative or Ad Hoc assessments to a Student Custom Report Writer in one go? You now can! Plus, add different components for Summative assessments, such as Baseline, Predicted Mark, and Year Target. Learn more here.
New layout and tools for tables
We’re very excited about the new tables in Arbor! The new tables are much more than just a visual change, they’re a whole new tabling tool. We’ve made some exciting updates in the past term and will continue to make improvements throughout Summer Term.
What’s new in Spring Term for tables:
Learn more here.
School Staff Absence Reporting
School staff are now included in Staff Absence reporting in MAT MIS, eliminating the need to make a custom report. We’ve also added some extra bonus fields like Bradford Factor reporting and the option to include only workforce census-eligible staff. Learn more here.
New and improved Single Central Record
We’ve made some updates to Single Central Record (SCR) so you can easily and quickly keep staff details up to date across your trust. Choose which columns you want to see in your SCR, and email staff members directly. Plus a small change we know will have a big impact, we’ve added the category of Business Role to the filter options! Learn more here.
New Microsoft Power BI Datasets
As part of our commitment to make sure we’re providing you with the best data possible, we’ve added a number of datasets to our Microsoft Power BI connector this year, including:
MATs
Arbor Education is today launching a new partnership with the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) to help schools and trusts transform the way they work, maximise the power of data, and ultimately help to improve education. The Confederation of School Trusts (CST) is the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England advocating
Arbor Education is today launching a new partnership with the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) to help schools and trusts transform the way they work, maximise the power of data, and ultimately help to improve education.
The Confederation of School Trusts (CST) is the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England advocating for, connecting and supporting executive and governance leaders.
The new partnership is part of the Confederation’s Platinum Partner scheme, which brings together leading companies within the industry and CST’s members, who together are responsible for the education of more than three million young people.
Arbor chief executive James Weatherill said: “We’re thrilled to be announcing our partnership with the Confederation of Schools Trusts today.
“At Arbor, our mission is to transform the way schools and trusts work. We’re delighted to partner with an organisation committed to doing the same, and are looking forward to working on projects and events together which show our commitment to working with trust leaders on improving operational, data and growth challenges and helping them to operate as one trust, not multiple schools.
“We’re looking forward to supporting our customers through the CST network, and to meeting other trust leaders interested in the ways that Arbor can help as you scale your data and operations.”
We will be working on exciting projects and events with CST in the months to come, so watch this space!
EdTech
As part of our focus on diversity and inclusion at Arbor, we wanted to shine a spotlight on our leadership team, which is made up of majority women, to think more about what it means to be women in tech. Sophie, Arbor’s Talent Acquisition Manager, interviews four of our female leaders at Arbor below. The
As part of our focus on diversity and inclusion at Arbor, we wanted to shine a spotlight on our leadership team, which is made up of majority women, to think more about what it means to be women in tech. Sophie, Arbor’s Talent Acquisition Manager, interviews four of our female leaders at Arbor below.
The lack of women in STEM and tech starts in education and the subjects women choose, with only 26% of STEM graduates (science, technology, engineering and maths) being women.
Although this number is increasing, not all female STEM graduates go into jobs in the industry (only 22% are women), with computer science, engineering and technology the most affected. These statistics are sparking projects and events aimed to boost female representation in the STEM and tech sectors.
I’m very proud to say that Arbor Education is leading the way – six out of ten of our Senior Leaders are women and we have a high percentage of women in line management positions across the business. Our board has a female chair too.
But what does it feel like to be a woman in leadership in the EdTech world? I recently caught up with four of our female leaders at Arbor to discuss their career and experiences.
I’ve pulled out some highlights from the interviews below.
What is your role at Arbor and what got you into the tech world in the first place?
“My team provides first and second line support, as well as training and onboarding for our customers. I’ve been working in tech for about 20 years now across a number of different sectors. I left university and didn’t know what I wanted to do… and landed in BT Group… and I’ve been in tech ever since!
The thing I love about it is that my role – Chief of Customer Success – didn’t exist 20 years ago. It’s now one of the fastest-growing roles in the industry. So it’s just a super exciting space to be in!”
What advice would you give to women thinking of exploring a career in tech?
“Making the move from teaching to tech is a hard one to make, and the advice I might give myself back then, that I’ve learnt and reflected upon now, is I think the first step is mapping your skill set and really being clear what your strengths are. I didn’t know at the time that I wanted to be a Head of Product, I think that’s something that ended up fitting me very well, but I can see now that actually a lot of my skills were really nicely correlated with the specifications for a Head of Product kind of role. Also, mentorship is huge – whether you’re a woman in tech or a young person trying to get into tech, find somebody who you think does it really well. Spend time with them. Get to know how they do things!”
Have you noticed any significant changes in the industry from when you first started?
“Despite 20 years in tech, Arbor is my first software job. I think the difference in working on an enterprise software platform (as opposed to a mainframe) is that it brings together people who care about the end user, and that tends to require a lot of sensitivity to the challenges of work, understanding different ways of solving the problem. Different ways of thinking about the humans using the tools that you build and not just being in a big, sweaty data room with increasingly powerful engines but no thought to user experience.
The age of people we work with also influences our design and approach – the demographic of our heavily-female group is much younger than the industry average, so there aren’t entrenched ideas of how to do things.”
There are a number of networking communities aimed at developing future female leaders within technology. Have you been part of any and are there any you would recommend?
“I think it’s really important for women to support each other at work through mentorship, community building, networking and coaching – in tech, but in all industries really. I’m lucky to be part of an amazing team at Arbor and to know women leaders at several other EdTech companies across the UK, who have all been really helpful for sharing advice and swapping stories. Beyond that, I go to events by DevelopHer, a nonprofit community supporting women in tech, and would recommend Code First Girls who my sister (a games developer) has mentored with before.
I’d also like to call out The Girls Network who are excellent – they work with girls from disadvantaged backgrounds in schools across England. I mentored girls interested in tech through their programme previously and would highly recommend it.”
We know that female representation in leadership positions is also behind in education, with only 38% of Headteachers are women at secondary level, and at primary men outweigh women almost 2:1. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings about these issues and how they relate to your schools you’ve worked in.
Enjoying our blogs? Get stuck in with more of our content, or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn to be the first to know about new articles.
Arbor Community
We’re proud that Arbor and ScholarPack share the top spot as England’s most-loved MIS, according to a recent survey by The Key. But what is it about our MIS that schools and trusts alike enjoy? This Valentine’s Day, we thought it would be nice to share a handful of the lovely things that have been
We’re proud that Arbor and ScholarPack share the top spot as England’s most-loved MIS, according to a recent survey by The Key.
But what is it about our MIS that schools and trusts alike enjoy? This Valentine’s Day, we thought it would be nice to share a handful of the lovely things that have been said about us by individuals in the Arbor community.
Win a box of our famous brownies by sharing what you love about our MIS on Twitter and LinkedIn – make sure to tag us so we can see your entry!
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Not yet using Arbor but want an MIS that all your staff can fall in love with? Get in touch with us at hello@arbor-education.com
And just like that, it’s the end of January and 2023 has officially started. No time for any January blues here, we’ve released some very exciting features that we can’t wait to share with you! What’s new for schools At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better.
And just like that, it’s the end of January and 2023 has officially started. No time for any January blues here, we’ve released some very exciting features that we can’t wait to share with you!
If your school has our Payments Plus module, you can now give parents the flexibility to pay the way that suits them! No more re-entering card details every time on the Arbor App. Learn more here
Our new School Shop dashboard gives you an overview of orders, payments and refunds without needing to go into each item individually. Plus we’ve added a new School Shop: Administer permission. Learn more here
Create SMS and email templates to notify guardians about behaviour incidents or detentions. Add detail with our built-in merge fields, or set different messages for different severity levels. Learn more here
There is always that activity in the classroom where you need to choose a student at random. You now can with the new Student Picker. Engage your students and choose them fairly, the student picker spins to select a random student from your class – perfect for projecting on the board. Learn more here
School staff are now included in Staff Absence reporting in MAT MIS, eliminating the need to make a custom report. We’ve also added some extra bonus fields like Bradford Factor reporting and the option to include only workforce census-eligible staff. Learn more here
Also this January, we welcomed hundreds of schools to #ArborFest, where our Head of Product, Hilary Aylesworth, took us through what was coming up next in the Arbor roadmap.
Keep an eye on our Twitter and LinkedIn for insights from the day!
Arbor Updates | BETT 2021
We’re thrilled to invite you to join us at BETT 2023. Taking place from the 29th-31st March at the ExCel Centre, we’re excited to be back and can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on at Arbor, especially as this year, we are one of the finalists for BETT’s Company of the Year.
As in 2022, we’re delighted to be sharing our stand (Stand SF30) with our sister company, ScholarPack, so make sure to come by and say hello.
This year, there are several ways you can meet us:
We’re pleased to share that our Leaders’ Lounge is back by popular demand. We’ll be at Tapa Tapa (outside the ExCeL Centre) from Wednesday until Friday. Open to everyone, no matter how much or little you know about us – look out for an invite in your email inbox!
This is the perfect chance to find out how Arbor is helping schools and MATs to transform the way they work. Hear directly from several of over 4,000 schools that have already switched to using our MIS.
If you’re more of a morning person, you’re welcome to join us for a pastry and tea or coffee at our Breakfast Briefings in the Leaders’ Lounge to kickstart each day of the event. Keep an eye out for details soon!
We’ll also be at stand SF30 in the main BETT arena. Come by for a demo, chat to our friendly team, or join our Arbor classroom where we’ll be showcasing Arbor’s features.
Want to see how Arbor could transform the way you work? Join us at the Tech in Action theatre to see our very own Tim Ward will be presenting five ways that Arbor can make a measurable difference to your school or trust.
You can also book in to meet us as part of Bett’s new meeting system, Connect @ BETT, for a chat about how Arbor could transform your school or trust.
We’re looking forward to seeing many of you across the event!
Arbor Community | ArborFest
We were delighted to recently welcome hundreds of school leaders to King’s Place and via livestream to our biggest in-person customer conference to date! ArborFest 2023 was a day packed with inspiring talks and workshops – all exploring the theme “Transforming the way schools work.” With schools and trusts facing squeezed budgets, the challenge of
We were delighted to recently welcome hundreds of school leaders to King’s Place and via livestream to our biggest in-person customer conference to date!
ArborFest 2023 was a day packed with inspiring talks and workshops – all exploring the theme “Transforming the way schools work.”
With schools and trusts facing squeezed budgets, the challenge of Covid catch-up, and rapidly evolving policies, there has never been a more important time to explore the different ways schools can innovate to support students, staff, and their wider communities.
Our exciting programme took a look at the ways schools can drive positive change both using Arbor and in their broader day-to-day.
We kickstarted the day with a welcome address from our CEO, James, and our Chief of Customer Success, Sonia. Our Head of Engineering, Damien, and Head of Product, Hilary, also took to the Main Stage to speak on Arbor’s vision and roadmap.
Also on the Main Stage, we welcomed David Jones, Head of Personal Development at Saracens Rugby Club, who shared how to build a resilient team in tough times. And our keynote speaker, Laura McInerney, CEO of TeacherTapp, presented her three key methods of influencing change across the education sector.
Over on our Data Stage, our Lead Sponsors HfL Education discussed the importance of democratising your data – we’ll be posting more about what they had to say on our blog, so keep this page bookmarked!
Luke Mulhall and Chris Berry of GFMAT spoke on how they have used Arbor to create a data-first culture across their trust, and the Department of Education gave an in-depth talk on the importance of national benchmarking, and the data they have available to help schools.
We had two exciting panels during ArborFest 2023. In the first, James spoke to three school leaders about how Arbor has helped to transform the way they work. In the second, Phillippa, our CRO, spoke to three MAT leaders on how they are handling the cost-of-living crisis across their trusts.
There was lots more MAT content on our dedicated MAT stage, where trust leaders gathered to watch Louisa Mason speak on how and why she centralised systems across her trust. Mark Greatrex, CEO at BPET, also gave a well-received talk on why autonomy always wins – if you missed Mark’s talk, you can download his written piece for free in the third instalment of our Cohesive Trust series.
As ever, we wanted to use ArborFest as an opportunity to encourage the Arbor Community to network, share best practices and give suggestions for the future of our MIS. We hosted feedback forums, customer roundtable discussions and a Genius Bar where school leaders and staff could meet, mingle and chat with the Arbor Team!
And most importantly, it was great to see Arbor users coming together and enjoying the day – we hope you had as much fun and learned as much as we did!
If you missed out on tickets to the event, don’t worry! We’ll be sharing highlights, insights and write-ups of lots of the talks over the coming term. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss out.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
In my role at Arbor I speak to headteachers, SLT and admin teams everyday when they’re in the early stages of exploring Arbor MIS. I’ve noticed a question that comes up time and time again in conversations: “How can we reduce workload for staff?” It’s no secret that teacher workload is high; studies have found
In my role at Arbor I speak to headteachers, SLT and admin teams everyday when they’re in the early stages of exploring Arbor MIS. I’ve noticed a question that comes up time and time again in conversations: “How can we reduce workload for staff?”
It’s no secret that teacher workload is high; studies have found that teachers experience more stress than other workers. Tes reports that almost a third of teachers leave the profession within five years of qualifying. This got me thinking about the impact of heavy workload and the difference between being busy and being burned out.
Burnout is recognised as the feeling of running out of steam at work – those days when even small tasks can feel unachievable. Psychology Today describes burnout as ‘a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.’ It doesn’t just happen overnight, which is why it can be hard to spot, even for the person experiencing it. One of the best ways to prevent burnout is to spot the signs as early as possible so that you can make small changes to get back on track.
One of the best ways to avoid burnout is to take some time off. It’s important to have time when you don’t think about work so that you can be energised and engaged when you return. This can take the shape of a holiday, but for school staff you might find the holidays don’t fall when you need them the most. More and more schools are introducing paid wellbeing days for staff, and in many circumstances this has helped reduce staff absence, sickness and turnover rates. Read more about how Dan Morrow, CEO at Woodland Academy Trust, implemented wellbeing days and other initiatives across his schools.
It’s important to set boundaries to protect the time you have for yourself as well as being available in a work capacity. Set hours in the day where you don’t respond to work-related messages, no one should expect you to be on call 24 hours a day – even parents!
Work out some burnout prevention strategies by making a list of all the things that help you deal with stress. These can be things such as exercise, spending time outside or having a long bath. Self-care is often the first thing to slip off your to-do list when you’re busy so make sure you build time into your routine for yourself.
It’s important to tell someone when you are feeling burned out at work. Reach out to your colleagues, friends or family if you are feeling overwhelmed, sometimes just having someone to listen can make a world of difference. If your mental wellbeing is being especially impacted by burnout, it’s a good idea to speak to your GP about arranging some extra support.
Heavy workloads, constant change, admin pressure on teachers and staff at every level… sometimes it feels like this is just part and parcel of school life today. But it doesn’t have to be that way. At Arbor, we passionately believe that there’s a better way to work. And it starts by giving everyone the right tools and technology for the job.
Want to find out more about how Arbor MIS could transform the way your school works for the better? Book a free demo here or get in touch at tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
If you found this blog useful, you can see more of our mental health and wellbeing content for school staff here.
To round off autumn, we’re highlighting some of the most exciting updates we’ve released this past term. We update Arbor fortnightly, listening closely and responding to what you tell us. What we released for schools Rotating meal menus and Parent Portal meal choices Payments Plus got even better this term with the ability to
To round off autumn, we’re highlighting some of the most exciting updates we’ve released this past term. We update Arbor fortnightly, listening closely and responding to what you tell us.
Rotating meal menus and Parent Portal meal choices
Payments Plus got even better this term with the ability to create menus that rotate on a periodic basis, and allow parents to make meal choices for their children via the Parent Portal. Learn more.
Emergency Alert
Get help with the click of a button by sending an instant notification or email to staff who are on call. Plus, report on past alerts and view them on the student profile. Learn more.
Calendar update on the Arbor App
Parents can now see their child’s calendar for the whole day on the Arbor App! Parents and guardians can see exactly where their child is at any point in the current day, rather than just the lesson before and after. Learn more.
CRB Cunninghams Cashless Catering integration
Arbor integrates with CRB Cunninghams! Our cashless catering integrations let you manage cashless catering payments directly from your MIS – without needing a separate payments system as well. The integration is included in our MIS Payments module, and is also part of our Arbor Perform package. Learn more.
Live National Benchmarks
See live national data from other Arbor schools in your MIS. Starting with attendance data, you can see real-time National Average and National Percentile data so you can compare yourself to similar schools and see where you sit. Learn more.
School staff are now included in Staff Absence reporting, eliminating the need to make a custom report. We’ve also added some extra bonus fields like Bradford Factor reporting and the option to include only workforce census eligible staff. Learn more.
National Arbor Average benchmark
We’ve added a new benchmark in MAT MIS to Whole School Attendance, Authorised Absence and Unauthorised Absence KPIs. It’ll show you how your schools compare with other schools using Arbor. Learn more.
New PowerBI Datasets
This term we’ve added lots of new datasets to our PowerBI connector to give you more bespoke reporting options. You can now analyse Academic Units, Timetable Slots, Student Academic Year Enrolments, User Defined Fields and more! Learn more.
Import Assessment Marks
Have you rolled out assessments to the schools in your trust? Instead of logging into individual school sites or sending assessment data to your school data managers, you can now use an import spreadsheet in MAT MIS to input the school data yourself. Learn more.
Your schools can now see live national data from other Arbor schools in their MIS. Starting with attendance data, you can see real-time National Average and National Percentile data so you can compare yourself to similar schools and see where you sit. Learn more.
Don’t forget to visit the Arbor Change Log for all things new in the MIS. Make sure to bookmark the page for easy access!
If you haven’t already, book your free ticket to join us at ArborFest 2023 – our biggest in-person customer conference to date! Meet school and trust leaders from across the Arbor Community for a day packed with inspiring talks and workshops – all exploring the theme “Transforming the way schools work.”
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.
MAT Operations | School Operations
What is Search Engine Optimisation? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making your website appear further up the page when people search terms into Google, or another search engine. This helps to get more organic traffic through your website… for free! Your website probably ranks highly when people know what they’re looking for,
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making your website appear further up the page when people search terms into Google, or another search engine. This helps to get more organic traffic through your website… for free!
Your website probably ranks highly when people know what they’re looking for, such as when somebody types in your exact school name or location. But what about when prospective parents or students search for ‘best schools in my area’ or ‘top schools near me for sports’?
SEO is all about helping to boost your website so that it’s easy to find, even when people don’t know exactly what they’re looking for.
It’s not often that schools and trusts have the capacity for a marketing team, which means your website is often your main marketing tool. It’s the place people come to when they’re browsing schools in the local area and wondering which is the best fit for their child.
If your website is difficult to find, and prospective parents or students have to try harder to find out the information they need, then there’s a high chance that this will influence their decision-making process. It’s important that your school website is easily accessible and navigable.
For trusts in particular, your website also plays a key role in your brand as an organisation. A high-performing website, where all the information people need is at their fingertips, can give greater integrity to your brand and make your offer more attractive to schools and pupils.
Keywords are phrases that are commonly searched for on Google, Bing or other search engines. Despite the name, they can be single words, such as ‘school’, or phrases, like ‘schools rated good by Ofsted in London.’
Threading the keywords which are important to your school (by thinking about how you want to be found online!) is a key part of SEO. You can then build these throughout the wording across your website. You can use a keyword checker to see the popularity of the terms you choose, and what your competition is like. In an ideal world, the terms you choose would have a high search count with minimal competition.
It’s important to use these in your headings, subheadings and alt. text for pictures, as well as your main bodies of text.
Hyperlinks can help to boost your website’s performance in a number of ways and come in different forms.
All the links on your site help search engines to see you as an authority in your area, so make sure they are relevant, easy to navigate and give the user exactly what they are looking for.
Backlinks can be particularly useful in boosting your website performance, as they indicate to search engines that you are trusted and give your website authenticity. When it comes to backlinks, quality or quantity is key, look for links from websites that are closely aligned with your own and have a high authority. Don’t fall into the trap of buying backlinks! Not only can this can lead to you being penalised by the search engine, but there are plenty of organic ways to gain backlinks too. These include:
It’s super important that your website is easy to navigate, and isn’t filled with clunky, unnecessary information. This is even more significant given that the majority of internet traffic is via mobile.
The main thing to remember is to always have the user experience front of mind when thinking about SEO. You don’t want to make it difficult for users to find the information you’d like them to see!
In other words, there’s no point ranking highly if your website isn’t serving its original purpose. Whilst keywords and hyperlinks are good for boosting performance, stuffing them throughout your website in order to trick the search engine into ranking your website higher will be a short-lived win. Search engines will often penalise websites that attempt to use these ‘black hat tactics.’ Investing in a good quality website with useful content will always win in the long run.
We post our blogs weekly on Twitter and LinkedIn – follow us for more useful tips and tricks for your school or trust.
If you’re a trust thinking about your digital strategy, download our free ebook here, which features articles from MAT experts on how to perfect this in your organisation.
Not yet using Arbor? Find out more about us here.
And just like that, it’s the end of November and the holiday season is approaching. We released some very exciting features in November that we can’t wait to share with you! What’s new for schools At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. Here are just some of
And just like that, it’s the end of November and the holiday season is approaching. We released some very exciting features in November that we can’t wait to share with you!
Live National Benchmarks are here
You can now see live national data from other Arbor schools in your MIS. Starting with attendance data, you’ll be able to see real-time National Average and National Percentile data so you can compare yourself to similar schools and see where you sit. Learn more here
Parents can now see their child’s calendar for the whole day on the Arbor App! Parents and guardians can see exactly where their child is at any point in the current day, rather than just the lesson before and after. Learn more here
New Marksheet Analysis Fields
We’ve added new marksheet fields so you can see student progress at a glance, including:
Import Assessment Marks in MAT MIS
Roll out assessments to the schools in your trust. Instead of logging into individual school sites or sending assessment data to your school data managers, you can now use an import spreadsheet in MAT MIS to input the school data yourself. Learn more here
New Power BI Datasets
In November we added even more datasets to our Power BI connector to give you more bespoke reporting options. You can now analyse Academic Units, Academic Unit Enrolments, Timetable Slots and Timetable Slot Staff. Learn more here
Arbor Updates
There has been a lot going on in the world of Management Information Systems of late, as schools have realised that cloud-based systems can open up an entirely new way of more flexible working, and thousands have switched away from legacy systems en masse. It is our belief that this new way of working will
There has been a lot going on in the world of Management Information Systems of late, as schools have realised that cloud-based systems can open up an entirely new way of more flexible working, and thousands have switched away from legacy systems en masse. It is our belief that this new way of working will be transformational for the sector, allowing schools greater efficiency and flexibility in how they work, instant insight into student performance and automation of repetitive administrative tasks that will allow teachers to focus on what they do best, teaching.
This is why I’m very excited to welcome a new group of people who share this vision onto the team, as RM Integris and RM Finance will be joining The Key Group as part of the MIS Division in the New Year! I thought I’d give a bit more background about how this has come about and what it means for schools.
We’re definitively the largest cloud-based MIS provider and can do more together to help schools
Combining RM Integris with Arbor and ScholarPack means we serve over 7,000 schools, and can use this to further increase our investment into product and service to provide outstanding value to schools. For example, given our scale we can provide live, nationally representative, hyper-personalised benchmarking to the sector. This will allow schools and Trusts to understand their performance in context without having to wait until national data is released on an annual basis.
RM Integris and RM Finance care deeply about helping improve schools, like we do
We have been really impressed when meeting with the team to see how much we’re aligned about wanting to make a lasting, positive impact with our schools. Doing the right thing for customers is absolutely ingrained in what we do, and I’m delighted to be working with such genuinely mission-driven people. You should see this in your interactions with them and us.
We have the three most loved MIS platforms, and can offer the best of each to our customer base
RM Integris and RM Finance have one of the highest satisfaction ratings in the sector, second only to Arbor and ScholarPack. There are no current plans to merge or migrate platforms – indeed we will be able to offer our LA maintained MIS customers RM Finance to bring the same high levels of user experience and flexibility to finance that they currently experience with their MIS.
This means more investment into product and service into MIS, and further acceleration of our ambition to transform the way schools work for the better
The transaction is set to complete in the New Year, when we will welcome 41 new joiners from RM Integris and RM Finance into the Group. We will use our increased size and scale to focus on improving product innovation and support across all brands, and customers should see a marked increase in value as they get additional features as part of their existing package.
What happens next?
If you’re an RM Integris, RM Finance, Arbor or ScholarPack school you don’t need to do anything, but if you have any questions or want to find out more information then please speak with your Account Manager. There will be a period of transition before the transaction closes (which we anticipate being within the first few months of the New Year) and we’ll then reach out to RM Integris and RM Finance schools to say hello and introduce ourselves!
To find out more, get your free ticket and join 400+ schools at ArborFest on 26th January 2023 in London Kings Cross (we will be streaming live if you can’t make it in person)
If you’re an Arbor, ScholarPack, RM Integris or RM Finance customer and want to find out what we have coming up, then grab a free ticket by clicking here and join us either in person or remotely. You’ll find out about upcoming feature releases, hear inspiring talks from education experts, and meet other like-minded schools who can show you how they’re using Arbor in innovative ways. It’s a whole lot of fun, you’ll make new friends and eat great snacks.
I look forward to welcoming many new colleagues and customers to the Key Group in 2023 and am super excited about what the future holds in store.
Thinking about your multi-academy trust growth strategy? Read the full version of this article in our free ebook, ‘Creating a Cohesive Trust, Part 3’. In March 2022, the government released the schools white paper, which revealed plans for all schools to be part of “strong” multi-academy trusts (MATs) by 2030. Recent political change means the
Thinking about your multi-academy trust growth strategy? Read the full version of this article in our free ebook, ‘Creating a Cohesive Trust, Part 3’.
In March 2022, the government released the schools white paper, which revealed plans for all schools to be part of “strong” multi-academy trusts (MATs) by 2030. Recent political change means the bill has now taken a back seat, but with many MATs already intending to grow, the scene has been set for a critical few years in the academisation journey.
With many trusts now set on growth, we wanted to explore if the expectations of MAT leaders aligned with the sentiment of LA maintained schools.
In September 2022, we surveyed 108 trust leaders and 244 members of SLT in LA maintained schools from around the country.
We found that less than half of all LA Maintained schools expected to be part of a MAT by 2030. Many cited political uncertainty, though the majority of respondents said their negative feelings towards academisation were focused on loss of autonomy, community and identity. Schools also quoted their lack of need for support, especially when they were already ”‘economically viable and have good results.” Those that do expect to join a MAT were still largely negative about the prospect, with many simply saying “we have no choice.”
Despite this response from schools, not one respondent in our survey of MAT leaders thought that their trust would add zero schools in the next three years. Most respondents expected to grow by either 4-6 schools (33%), 7-10 schools (22%) or 1-3 schools (22%). 2% of respondents expected to grow by over 31 schools. This was matched by the general consensus that “schools joining is always positive”, with many participants referring to how growth would allow their trust to “make a difference to as many lives as possible.”
The discrepancy between the way schools and trust leaders view academisation is clear. With the majority (59%) of respondents in our survey of MAT leaders saying that their preferred method of growth was through acquiring new schools, there is work to be done on changing the perception of what joining a MAT can truly mean. This is especially pertinent for MATs who want to make sure they grow as a cohesive trust with a strong culture, rather than taking on schools simply to remain financially viable.
Political uncertainty aside, how can MAT leaders win over schools who are reluctant to academise? And, as trusts grow, how can they make sure that they do so sustainably and as one organisation, not many?
We’ve put together an ebook for MAT leaders, where we hope you will find some answers to these questions. It features the thoughts of six MAT leaders and experts on growth:
We’ve also put together some of the comments and perspectives from the respondents of both of our surveys.
Download your free copy here!
We’d love to see where you stand in this discussion – join the debate on social media using the hashtag #CohesiveMATs.
Discover more of our content for multi-academy trusts here.
Join us at ArborFest 2023 – our biggest in-person customer conference to date! This year’s ArborFest explores different facets of the theme “Transforming the way schools work.” With schools and trusts facing squeezed budgets, the challenge of Covid catch-up, and rapidly evolving policies, there has never been a more important time to explore the different
Join us at ArborFest 2023 – our biggest in-person customer conference to date!
This year’s ArborFest explores different facets of the theme “Transforming the way schools work.” With schools and trusts facing squeezed budgets, the challenge of Covid catch-up, and rapidly evolving policies, there has never been a more important time to explore the different ways schools can innovate to support students, staff, and their wider communities.
ArborFest will bring 400 Arbor customers together at Kings Place, London on 26th January 2023 to do just that. Our exciting programme will look at the ways schools can drive positive change both using Arbor and in their broader day-to-day.
Plus, it’s all completely free! Sign up for your free spot here.
The day will be packed with inspiring talks from both experts within the education sector and school staff using Arbor. Explore everything we have on stage by stage.
Plus, Laura McInerney will be giving a keynote speech on how we can all create meaningful change across the education sector – including what makes a powerful message, which messages get through to the DfE, which get lost, and what you can do to change it.
By popular demand, we’ve combined our best-selling MAT Conference series with ArborFest with a dedicated MAT stage full of thought leadership talks from experienced MAT leaders from across the country.
You’ll leave with clear, actionable insights you can bring back to your trust and implement, all focused on growth, sustainability, and creating a cohesive MAT.
This year, we’re inviting our customers to three roundtables on integrations and Behaviour.
You’ll leave with new ideas to take back to your school, based on other Arbor schools’ tips and advice. Perfect for schools looking to share best practice, or who want to learn from others.
At Arbor, we’re always looking for new ways to help schools work better. It’s essential to us that we create our Roadmap by working hand-in-hand with our schools. Our termly Feedback Forums are one of the key ways we ask for your feedback and thoughts.
Come along to one of our feedback forums on Assessments, Innovation and Parental Engagement to have your say on what our Product and Engineering Team should focus on next.
Arbor customers will receive their ticket in their email inbox!
What will I get with my ticket?
Can’t make it in-person? We’re live streaming the day too – keep your eyes peeled for the first release of our virtual tickets.
What will I get with my online-only ticket?
We can’t wait to see you there! Look out for updates across our Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your experience using #ArborFest.
Product release | School Improvement
What data can schools benchmark? Up until recently, schools have been able to compare their performance data with schools in similar circumstances, using the tables that were published annually by the Department of Education. – What are the benefits of benchmarking for schools? There are many benefits to benchmarking for schools, particularly in a post-Covid
Up until recently, schools have been able to compare their performance data with schools in similar circumstances, using the tables that were published annually by the Department of Education.
There are many benefits to benchmarking for schools, particularly in a post-Covid era, when many schools are playing catch-up and trying to return to ‘normal.’
Benchmarking against the national picture reveals to schools where they are performing well and should feel reassured in their performance, whether it be across specific demographics, like Pupil Premium students, or across whole school Assessment performance. On the flip side, it can also help schools to illuminate those areas where they are not performing at the national average, so that they can drive resources to where they are best spent.
It’s important for schools to have this information, as it means that SLT and governors can drive resources to where they are best spent – even more important when budgets are being squeezed.
With over 3,500 schools live on Arbor, we’ve built the first statistically relevant live national benchmarks for schools – giving you a unique way to compare your performance to schools across the country.
School leaders often tell us that waiting for annual performance tables makes it hard to plan proactively. Our Live National Benchmarks give you a snapshot of what is happening across all Arbor schools on that exact day, helping you respond faster and take action straight away.
Built into our MIS, these benchmarks are more than just an average and are intended to give you more meaning to your performance. See which percentile your school sits in, and set stretch goals to improve and close any gaps.
We’re launching Live National Benchmarks for Attendance data only to start with. We’ll then roll this functionality out across the MIS throughout the year.
Visit our Help Centre for more information
– At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. And it starts by giving everyone the right tools and technology for the job. We’re constantly evolving and looking at the different ways we can help support schools and MATs to thrive. In the Summer Term, we released: 42
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. And it starts by giving everyone the right tools and technology for the job.
We’re constantly evolving and looking at the different ways we can help support schools and MATs to thrive. In the Summer Term, we released:
Click here to find out exactly what these features included.
In a recent survey carried out by The Key, Arbor has the highest percentage of customers saying they are “extremely satisfied” with their MIS functionality. View full report here.
Our product vision at Arbor is to ‘Give school leaders, teachers, admin staff and parents the tools they need to work faster and smarter – together’. This vision sits across our three development themes for Autumn Term:
The data that sits in your MIS is a powerful resource. We want schools and MATs to have this data at their fingertips, so that they can make data-driven decisions quickly and easily. To do this, data needs to be consistent, efficient and actionable.
Here’s three key releases due in the coming months, which will help you make actionable decisions from your data:
It’s not worth having an MIS packed with brilliant features if they are difficult to find or use. Our second theme is all about making sure Arbor continues to be the UK’s most intuitive MIS, for both staff and parents.
Here’s my top three features to look out for which will make our MIS even easier to use:
Collaboration is key to any school or trust, whether you’re joining up processes across your team or streamlining communication with parents.
With so many exciting new features to come under this theme, I’ve given you my top five to keep an eye out for:
If you have an improvement or an idea for a new feature we should develop, we’d love to hear it. There are four ways you can share it with us:
I’m looking forward to hearing all your thoughts and suggestions so we can continue to make Arbor the best it can be for our schools! And I hope you are as excited about our Autumn Roadmap as I am.
View the recording of our Autumn Product Roadmap Reveal webinar here.
Welcome back from Half Term! We hope you had a restful break – we’ve got lots of treats for you in this month’s blog. – What’s new for schools At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. Here are just some of our recent launches and updates: Product
Welcome back from Half Term! We hope you had a restful break – we’ve got lots of treats for you in this month’s blog.
Product Roadmap Reveal webinar
We’re excited to share Arbor’s product roadmap for Autumn Term! On Wednesday 9th November, Hilary (Head of Product at Arbor) will take you through our vision for Arbor and the themes we’re focusing on this term for product improvements and new features. Book your free spot here
Post-16 Census report
You can now generate a quick summary report of your Post-16 data to ensure you receive all your funding from the School Census, either for yourself or to send to a third party. Learn more here
Arbor now integrates with CRB Cunninghams! Our cashless catering integrations let you manage cashless catering payments directly from your MIS – without needing a separate payments system as well. The integration is included in our MIS Payments module, and is also part of our Arbor Perform package. Learn more here
Manage school events in bulk
We’ve added two new pages to manage events more easily. Go to School > Timetable > School Events to update staff, location, and cover requirements in bulk. Learn more here
New PowerBI Datasets Another month and another group of datasets have been added to our PowerBI connector. You can now analyse Student Academic Year Enrolments, User Defined Fields (created at both MAT and school level), and User Defined Records. Learn more here
If you haven’t already, we’d love for you to join in the #WhyMySchoolSwitched campaign and share your “switch stories” with us on social media!
Events
As always, Autumn Term is packed full of exciting events for those who work in the education space. So, whether you’ve never heard of Arbor before or have been using our MIS for years, we’ve put together this quick guide of all the events our team will be attending so that you can meet us
As always, Autumn Term is packed full of exciting events for those who work in the education space. So, whether you’ve never heard of Arbor before or have been using our MIS for years, we’ve put together this quick guide of all the events our team will be attending so that you can meet us in person over the coming months.
When: 10 November 2022
Where: The Kent Event Centre, Stand 409
The Education People Show is full of interactive workshops, exciting keynotes and a comprehensive exhibition of innovative products and services which help schools, which is where you’ll find us! Register for free here.
When: 22 & 23 November 2022
Where: Radisson Blu Heathrow Hotel, London
Multi-Academy Trust Partnership Network is a unique event for senior leaders in MATs to meet the sector’s most transformational suppliers and network with other trusts. You’ll be able to meet two of Arbor’s senior team and learn about how our MIS is designed to transform the way you work across your MAT. Reserve your spot here.
When: 17 November 2022
Where: Birmingham NEC, Stand F10
With over 3000 attendees, SAAS is a great opportunity to network, hear from inspirational speakers and discover exciting education suppliers like Arbor. Click here to book your free spot.
When: 22 November 2022
Where: Eastwood Hall, NG16 3SS
This conference, from the Association of Business Leaders in Education, features insightful keynote speakers, workshops and exhibitions. Find out more and get your tickets here.
Where: Miriam Lord Primary School, Bradford, BD8 8RG
Headteacher Bryan Harrison will be taking schools through an in-person Arbor demo. This is a great opportunity to see Arbor in action, as presented by somebody who uses Arbor every day. Keep an eye on our socials for the sign-up link, coming soon!
If you can’t make any of these events, or would prefer to chat over the phone, watch an Arbor demo here or click here to get in touch with our friendly team, who will be happy to answer any questions you have.
Before Arbor, our secondary school was already using a cloud MIS, but our MAT wanted all of their schools to be on the same system. We took it as an opportunity to make real change in the way we work, as we felt restricted by what our previous MIS could do. For context, Hinchingbrooke is
Before Arbor, our secondary school was already using a cloud MIS, but our MAT wanted all of their schools to be on the same system. We took it as an opportunity to make real change in the way we work, as we felt restricted by what our previous MIS could do.
For context, Hinchingbrooke is a large comprehensive secondary school with 2000 students. Comprehensive is the perfect word for it – we have a range of students from all socio-economic backgrounds.
As the only secondary school in the MAT, we had a big voice in the decision when it came to choosing an MIS, especially because of the frustrations our staff had felt with our previous cloud system. We were well aware how critical an MIS could be, because it underpins everything, from basics like registers through to safeguarding and interventions. It’s almost the heart of the school.
Of course, its importance means changing MIS, as with any big system change, brings with it a level of anxiety. That’s why research and communication are key to making sure the change is a long-term success. My personal experience and advice to any school thinking of moving to a new MIS would be to sit down and plan what your long-term goals are as a school and how moving MIS fits into this.
We were never bothered about the name of the MIS – but what we did know was exactly what our strategic aims of the system change would be, which in our case was to simplify our processes in order to save time. There will always be people who are resistant to change, or want as little change as possible – such as wanting to replicate everything that the school previously did, but in the cloud. Having moved from one cloud system to another, I can safely say there is much more that changing MIS can do for a school.
You’ve got to challenge those people who are adamant on sticking and ask ‘why.’ Being able to present the case for change, with school improvement at its heart, will make these conversations easier, and will get the team on one page before you decide to make the switch.
The best example I have is the fact I’ve always had an iPhone. I like Apple and I’m used to the system. But I might not know that a Samsung does everything just as well, and even has some features that might be better suited to what I use my phone for. If everyone starts moving to Samsung, you have to question why. Don’t get married to an idea or a principle of a product.
Again, it all comes back to the big picture and seeing the long-term goals, not just switching for a tickbox exercise and trying to replicate everything you did in the previous MIS. Your MIS should be a vehicle for your strategic aims rather than the other way around.
Drawing on my experience across both cloud and legacy MIS, I can’t think of an MIS that’s going to be better than Arbor. To anyone not sure about switching, I’d always say go in with an open mind and let the system and features speak for itself.
Click here to read our case study with Hinchingbrooke School and find out the features they use most.
Want to see how Arbor could transform your secondary school? Book a call with one of our friendly team here and they will walk you through the process.
Governors
What is an MIS? An school MIS, or management information system, is a piece of software which brings together data into one place, and helps organisations make decisions, from daily tasks through to top-level strategy. Every school in the UK has to have an MIS, which manages data around all aspects of school life. A
An school MIS, or management information system, is a piece of software which brings together data into one place, and helps organisations make decisions, from daily tasks through to top-level strategy.
Every school in the UK has to have an MIS, which manages data around all aspects of school life. A school MIS is used by the teachers to take the register or log behaviour incidents, by the headteacher to see cross-school statistics, and the office staff and data team to analyse information and contact parents.
Each school can pick their MIS based around their own unique needs. Over the past five years, more and more schools are moving away from legacy, server-based MIS and are instead choosing to go with cloud-based MIS. In Autumn of 2021, over 1,400 schools moved to the cloud in one term alone.
Cloud-based systems can help consolidate all core student and staff data, including attainment, progress, behaviour, payments and messages into one system, improving reporting and giving schools a truly holistic view of their organisation.
Cloud MIS allow school staff to work from anywhere, a benefit realised by many of those already with cloud systems during the pandemic. But there are plenty of other benefits too, including the ability to have a far more holistic view of your school or trust, and cost-saving.
Having a good MIS is essential for effective governance in any school or trust. To be able to challenge a school or trust’s performance, or to have a true understanding of what is going on in your organisation, having up-to-date information that can be interrogated easily is crucial.
Often, governing boards have to rely on reports being manually number-crunched, meaning the data can lag behind real time events by the time their meetings take place. Without an MIS that allows you to have a live feed of data, it’s impossible to accurately understand what is going on in a school.
Cost-savings are also a critical part of moving to cloud MIS, particularly with many schools reviewing their budgets as a result of the cost of living crisis. Cloud-based MIS systems are typically 20%-30% cheaper in terms of license fees and support. They also help reduce the number of systems you need in your school, as functionality isn’t modular and comes as standard (e.g. SMS, online payments, parent evening booking etc). This is important as budgets are tight.
Hannah Stolton, CEO of governor and trustee recruitment charity ‘Governors for Schools’, sees the effective use of a MIS as important for all governors. ‘A key element of a governor’s role is to provide effective and robust challenge to school leaders. Data is a key form of evidence that governors can use to help with their questioning. From attendance, attainment, and monitoring trends, access to up-to-date information is vital to enable governors to perform this function effectively.
Arbor is a cloud-based MIS, helping schools of all sizes work more easily and collaboratively, with intuitive tools designed to make a difference. With over 3,500 schools and trusts, we are the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community.
In Arbor, governors can use tools such as Custom Report Writer to build out a report unique to their school, and live feed this report into Google or Power BI. Governors can look at this information any time and know that their live dashboard is up-to-date and truly reflects what is going on in their school. This could be for when governors want to see a statistical average for Pupil Premium attainment, or the attendance for a particular demographic in one year group – any kind of information that needs to be investigated.
Arbor are also proud to have a team made up of ex-teachers and school staff, many of whom continue to be governors. Click here to hear more from our school governors and trustees.
If you think your school or trust would benefit from reviewing their MIS, we’d be happy to talk through your options with you, to help you find the right fit. Click here to get in touch with one of our friendly team.
Integrations | School Operations
Arbor integrates with CRB Cunninghams Cashless Catering, Civica Cashless Catering and Live Register. We know that going fully cashless is a priority for many schools, and that a cashless catering system is a core part of that transition. For any school, but particularly for Secondaries, cashless catering is an essential part of improving the student
Arbor integrates with CRB Cunninghams Cashless Catering, Civica Cashless Catering and Live Register.
We know that going fully cashless is a priority for many schools, and that a cashless catering system is a core part of that transition. For any school, but particularly for Secondaries, cashless catering is an essential part of improving the student experience and becoming a modern and efficient school.
We wanted to make the cashless catering process even better for staff, students and parents, which is why we now integrate with CRB Cunnighams Cashless Catering, Civica Cashless Catering and Live Register.
Arbor’s integrations mean you’ll no longer need an additional payments system on top of your cashless catering provider. By connecting Arbor directly with your cashless catering provider, we’ve removed the need to login to multiple systems and accounts, saving you time and money. Instead, the integration means that all your payments information can be managed directly in your Arbor MIS.
It’s important for both staff and parents to be able to access payments information easily and in one central location. The integration means that meal selection and payment information automatically syncs between Arbor and your catering provider, giving parents and staff full visibility over a child’s meal activity. Parents can also top up their child’s account directly in the Arbor Parent Portal or app, making the Parent Portal a single point of access for guardians for all information on their child.
Having a cashless catering system is great, but it’s even more powerful when you can combine its insights with the data already in your MIS. By using Arbor’s built-in reporting tools, you can analyse meal preferences and spending patterns, or report on the success of health initiatives in a specific group of students. By having all payments information in one place, you get a comprehensive view of parent and student spending across all school activities.
Welcome back to another school year, and a big hello to all the new faces that have joined us this September! There’s now one central place you can visit to find out what’s new in your MIS – the Arbor Change Log. Make sure to bookmark the page for easy access! – What’s new for
Welcome back to another school year, and a big hello to all the new faces that have joined us this September!
There’s now one central place you can visit to find out what’s new in your MIS – the Arbor Change Log. Make sure to bookmark the page for easy access!
Payments Plus has just gotten even better – you can now create menus that rotate on a periodic basis, and allow parents to make meal choices for their children via the Parent Portal. Learn more here
Get help with the click of a button by sending an instant notification or email to staff who are on call. Plus, report on past alerts and view them on the student profile. Learn more here
We’ve added a new marksheet field called ‘Current vs Baseline’ so you can see student progress at a glance. The field takes the statistical value of an assessment period mark and subtracts it from the statistical value of the baseline. Learn more here
Fix timetabling clashes
With our new Clashing Lessons functionality, you can exclude certain students from certain Timetable slots without removing them from the whole course, or adding them to individual lessons. Learn more here
Cohort and Mark Level Analysis
You no longer have to get data from your individual schools, and can now collate information on every summative assessment mark all from within MAT MIS! Learn more here
We’ve added a new benchmark in MAT MIS to Whole School Attendance, Authorised Absence and Unauthorised Absence KPIs. It’ll show you how your schools compare with other schools using Arbor. Learn more here
We’ve added SEN Statuses and registration form membership data for students to our PowerBI connector. Learn more here
Arbor Community | Customer Support
We’re proud to take part in National Customer Service Week (NCSW), run by the Institute of Customer Service. NCSW is a week-long celebration of all the great things that teams across the country do in order to make the customer experience as positive as possible. At Arbor, we are committed to making sure schools thrive,
We’re proud to take part in National Customer Service Week (NCSW), run by the Institute of Customer Service. NCSW is a week-long celebration of all the great things that teams across the country do in order to make the customer experience as positive as possible.
At Arbor, we are committed to making sure schools thrive, which means providing school staff with plenty of avenues of support so that they can get the most out of our cloud MIS. To make this mission possible, we have lots of different teams in place.
Each day in National Customer Service Week is dedicated to a different aspect of customer service. We spoke to different people across Arbor’s Customer Team to see what these days mean for them in their roles, giving you an opportunity to meet some of the fantastic people behind Arbor’s top-rated support system for schools.
Our Help Centre is packed with articles, videos and how-tos, providing Arbor customers with a detailed online library for all their questions and queries.
To make sure schools are getting the best use of their MIS and to guide them along the way, we have a dedicated Account Management team.
Arbor’s ever-evolving Training Team is committed to providing top quality training to our schools and trusts. The team is always expanding their knowledge and offering, to make sure that schools and trusts can easily pick up all of Arbor’s best bits.
Whether schools are in the process of moving to Arbor, or have been using our cloud MIS for years, our MIS support and project teams are there to guide schools, help them overcome any obstacles they come across and answer all their questions.
There are now over 100 individuals in our Customer Team, made up of trainers, project and programme managers, 2nd and 1st line support staff, success analysts, administrators… and more! The whole team works hard to make sure that every school and trust is thriving with Arbor.
We’ll be celebrating Customer Service Week across our Twitter and LinkedIn – keep an eye out there for more!
If you liked hearing about who we have in our team, you might be interested in this blog, where we speak to Arbor team members about their role as school governors.
Not yet an Arbor customer? Get in touch with us here to find out how our MIS could transform the way your school or trust works.
Case Studies | Local Authorities | Migration
We sat down with Jenny Collins, MIS Programme Manager at Hampshire County Council to talk about how she and her team are helping schools with their move to a cloud-based MIS. Jenny, alongside representatives from Herts for Learning and Amazon Web Services, will be talking through Hampshire County Council’s process and answering your questions in
We sat down with Jenny Collins, MIS Programme Manager at Hampshire County Council to talk about how she and her team are helping schools with their move to a cloud-based MIS.
Jenny, alongside representatives from Herts for Learning and Amazon Web Services, will be talking through Hampshire County Council’s process and answering your questions in our fireside chat on the 18th October. Sign up for free here.
We’re always looking at how we offer the best support for the schools in our area. Over the past two years, we’ve seen a steady decline
in the number of schools using SIMS, with the majority moving to Arbor. We lost approximately 25% of our customer base, so it was no longer financially viable to carry on with our hosted environment. In March 2022, as part of the review of our service, we decided that Arbor was the leading challenger in the market and that we should offer support for their MIS as well. Schools always have a choice about which providers they use, so it was about us responding to where the volumes were moving.
The main concern from the team was around our ability to maintain quality of service while staff were taken off the support rota to undertake accreditation. Communication is key during a time of significant change – staff were briefed about the reasons for the change, and the support team leader provided encouragement on a one-to-one basis. The team were included in detailed planning activities, ensuring their buy-in. Also, the team could see the market changing, and knew that this was a good opportunity for both themselves and the schools.
Management approval was our first big blocker – but the figures spoke for themselves once the decision paper was compiled. There was also a nervousness from our team about their ability to succeed, particularly in the accreditation tests. Arbor’s partnership team was very supportive, with regular progress checkpoints to maintain focus, as well as being quick to respond to ad hoc questions.
Our measure of success is ultimately the feedback from schools. There’s no denying that it’s extra work for a small team, but schools are finding the new system far more intuitive to use. It’s easier for the teachers to get what information they want out of it. Schools like the way Arbor reacts to feedback and the way you can vote for changes or join working groups.
It’s been good for us as an organisation as we can now bring a bit more pressure to bear on things that are Hampshire-specific, such as our own assessment model; we’re working with Arbor to fine-tune this to make use of assessment material better for our schools.
Some schools have told us that the decision to choose Arbor was based on the fact that we were now providing the support service, which is great to hear. We differ from many support partners in our pricing approach, which is flat rather than per pupil. What’s been interesting is that we’ve had schools sign up to our service– even where we’re more expensive for them – because they value the personal service we provide. The schools have also understood that this is a journey for us as an organisation – there’s a recognition that we are all in this to ensure the best outcomes for the children in the county. One of my colleagues recently said, “our schools are being really nice and understanding that we are on this journey together.”
We’re still aiming to provide the same valued service, irrespective of the MIS used by schools. We provide a personal one-to-one service, talking our customers through the resolution of their queries. We have a continuous service improvement ethos, meaning we regularly review our procedures and gain feedback from our schools. We consider customer feedback crucial, and we use multiple channels to make sure our message gets out, and their responses can get back to us, be this through surveys, headteacher strategy groups or conferences.
If you’d like to read the full report, written in partnership with Socitm, click here.
Or, you can find out more about how we work with with Socitm here.
I’ve always believed in leading with a strong moral purpose, supported by the idea of servant leadership. The simple values that we learn in everyday life, like treating others how you like to be treated, are ones that should be brought into your organisation. And I take that with me when thinking about culture. Whether
I’ve always believed in leading with a strong moral purpose, supported by the idea of servant leadership. The simple values that we learn in everyday life, like treating others how you like to be treated, are ones that should be brought into your organisation.
And I take that with me when thinking about culture. Whether it be in a classroom, a corridor or on the playground, I’m always thinking, would I be happy for my child to be involved in an interaction like that? Once you start viewing things through this lens, you can be guided by your moral purpose.
A great deal of our work as a trust has been around schools in special measures. When I get asked why I focus on vulnerable schools, I often reply, ‘Why not?’ It’s who we are and what we do. Many teachers get into the profession to make a difference, and I’m no exception. Certainly in the early years, it wasn’t even a consideration to turn down a school who would ask for help. You learn along the way about pinch points within your own organisation and the risk, then, that comes with this approach. Over time, you find the balance of helping others without negatively impacting what you’ve already established. However, I certainly don’t think trusts should have a blanket approach of not taking on vulnerable schools. It’s got to be an informed choice.
It’s also key to acknowledge when thinking about this choice, that taking on a vulnerable school can be brutal, both physically and emotionally. You have to unearth the challenges which have led that school to where it currently stands, which can mean uprooting safeguarding policies and having to look face-on at the harm that the previous ineffectiveness of the policy may have caused to children. That’s difficult, even when you know you are there to fix it. At the same time, there will be people who aren’t yet onboard with their school joining the trust, which can lead to further difficult conversations. Not to mention that trusts aren’t awash with extra capacity given the challenges of funding over the last ten years. You’ve got to have a really good process for identifying what that capacity is going to be, so that you can get that transfer of resource right.
That’s why due diligence is absolutely essential. You need to make sure that the infrastructure is there, so that teachers are able to get on with their job. You can’t have out-of-date servers or significant HR issues – you need to set up the conditions for them to succeed first. Often, people are drawn immediately to focus on the quality of education, particularly in schools that Ofsted would define as ‘failing’, though I’m never comfortable with the term ‘failing school’. That’s undoubtedly important, but you have to get the infrastructure of the school right first. HR, finance, safeguarding… all of those structural things that enable you to focus on education. If you don’t fix those, they’ll keep coming back and knocking you off course. In that sense, the due diligence in those areas is far more important than what’s going on in the classroom.
When it comes to changing the culture, the way I like to think of it is that we are all there for the same ‘why’, as dubbed by Simon Sinek. What people begin to understand is the reason they’re in the school is exactly the same as yours – to provide the best possible education for the students in that school. It’s important to communicate that, especially when talking to those who have been through the emotional toll of going into special measures. This way, you can be sure that, whatever comes next, your moral purpose and values are aligned. The next step is convincing them that they’re part of the solution, and not part of the problem. For a long time, staff would have been told they’re part of the problem. Their understanding of the weight of responsibility they take is disproportionate to the impact they’ve had. Often they’re the people who have tried everything to help that school, but the conditions haven’t been there for them to have the impact they want to have.
When we take on a new school, we do this by getting everybody together. Every single member of staff, be that the caretaker, office manager, through to the head, comes together so we tell them exactly why we’re there. More importantly, we show that we’re there to listen and to stay for the long-term. It’s an open-door policy. We’ve done it quite formally too, where in some cases I’ve met with every single member of staff individually. I would ask them what they feel are the problems and what they think is to come, unpicking how they feel about their situation. That’s really good intelligence to unlock.
The same goes for parents, as creating that external culture is important too, especially where they’ve lost confidence in the school. If parents are angry or uncertain, the answer is also an open-door policy – let’s get them into the school and allow them to get it all off their chest. Let’s convince them that we’re in this together.
What it comes back to is that acid test of, would this be good enough for my own child? That’s the ultimate measure of success, in my opinion. It’s an indescribable feeling when you are walking through a school that was a huge challenge, and teachers are teaching, children are learning. Or even seeing a particular child who has had some real difficulty making progress, however small the steps are.
A longer version of Sajid’s article appears in our free ebook, alongside four articles from other key MAT leaders. Download your copy here.
Discover more of our content for groups and trusts here.
Data and Insight
At Arbor, we take data security very seriously – it’s at the heart of what we do. We’re proud to go above and beyond the MIS industry standard when it comes to protecting MAT and school data. We’ve put together this short blog to explain what we do in a little more detail. – 1)
At Arbor, we take data security very seriously – it’s at the heart of what we do. We’re proud to go above and beyond the MIS industry standard when it comes to protecting MAT and school data. We’ve put together this short blog to explain what we do in a little more detail.
The security of every Arbor office is maintained by formal security inspections and risk assessments. Access to our offices is restricted with secure keys, CCTV, 24/7 security personnel and secure perimeter doors.
When protecting your school data, it’s important that you follow data security best practice to make sure data does not fall into the wrong hands.
Here are some key things you can keep in mind:
If you’d like to find out more about how our cloud-based MIS could help you transform the way your school works, we’d love to hear from you.
Or, if you’d like to find out more about how we look after school data, you can do so here.
Over the past year, we’ve added lots of exciting new features and integrations into our cloud MIS! We update Arbor fortnightly, listening closely and responding to what you tell us. Below are just some of our top picks of everything our team have been working hard on for the past year. Advanced Report Calculations Approve
Over the past year, we’ve added lots of exciting new features and integrations into our cloud MIS!
We update Arbor fortnightly, listening closely and responding to what you tell us. Below are just some of our top picks of everything our team have been working hard on for the past year.
Advanced Report Calculations
Approve and lock assessment marks in bulk
Improved keyboard accessibility
Wraparound Care Clubs
Bulk copy Assessment marks
New MAT MIS homepage
Improvements to Contributing EEP Hours
Attainment Over Time in MAT MIS
Prevent Attendance from being overwritten
Bulk update Core Learning Aims
Share report cards with students
User Defined Fields (UDFs)
School-led tutoring hours
External report cards
Guardians of applicants can access Parent Portal
Clickable hyperlinks in In-App Messages
Custom Group Alerts
Attendance KPIs in MAT MIS
Pay by childcare voucher
Show RANK order on Marksheets
Track Learner Engagement
Suspend lessons
Send emails via bulk action in MAT MIS
Civica cashless catering integration
School Shop
Census Audit in MAT MIS
New Marksheets
Creating templates for In-App Messages
Live Register cashless catering integration
Automatic Assessment target-setting
Ad Hoc permissions in MAT MIS
Options import from TimeTabler
Have your say in where we go next and help us shape the UK’s most-loved school MIS by adding to our roadmap.
Want to stay in the loop of all our new features? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn where we post the link to our monthly updates.
Governance | School Operations
Many individuals in the Arbor team have a background in education, be it as a MAT leader, school teacher or even as a free school founder. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that we also have many school governors in our midst. We sat down with four of our team to ask them about the role
Many individuals in the Arbor team have a background in education, be it as a MAT leader, school teacher or even as a free school founder. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that we also have many school governors in our midst. We sat down with four of our team to ask them about the role of school governors, how they became governors, and why they decided to commit to taking on the responsibilities of this important position.
Rebecca: I wanted to give back to my local community, especially during a time when I knew schools were struggling during Covid. I love the area I live in North West London and wanted to feel more involved in what’s happening around me. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to gain board experience at a young age.
Andrew: I initially became a Parent Governor initially because I wanted to make sure that my child was getting the best education possible. I’ve now matured in that view and realised that this was a very one-dimensional approach. What I like about my role as a governor now is that I’m helping to shape the opportunities and life chances of young people that I’ll likely never meet.
Dan: Prior to working for Arbor, I was a teacher and senior leader in secondary schools for 13 years. The insights I gained from working on the front line of education for so long have helped to shape the work I have done with Arbor ever since. My understanding of school life in 2016 only helps so much though, and keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of education is extremely important in order to fully understand all of the challenges schools face. Becoming a governor provided the perfect opportunity for me to continue to learn in this way. To start with, I chaired the Teaching and Learning Committee for a federation of special schools and then after a few years made the transition to my current role as a trustee in a MAT, where I chair the Pay, Performance and Personnel Committee. This is a step away from my previous expertise, and I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to learn new skills.
Beth: At first, I thought I might be too young, or have too little experience and expertise to be a governor, but a colleague encouraged me to think about it. I made myself a profile on Inspiring Governance, which links people who want to be governors with schools that need them. I had a chat with the Head and had a virtual tour of the school, and after a few months, they needed a new Chair. So it was a bit of a baptism of fire. What I learned is that it’s not about expertise as such; it’s more important to be present and have the right attitude. If you’re passionate about education and have the time to offer, then that’s brilliant.
Rebecca: I’m a co-opted governor, which means I’m somebody from the local community that the governing board chooses. I applied to three governing recruitment websites, which have lots of resources about what it means to be a governor and where you can upload your application and be found by schools looking for governors. Someone reached out to me, I had an initial screening with the Chair of Governors and then was invited to go to the school to meet the Headteacher and SLT.
Beth: As Chair, I manage the meetings, try to keep things to time and make sure that everybody has the chance to input. I also have a fortnightly catch-up with the Head, which could be about safeguarding issues, a school trip that’s gone well or something that she needs approval from the governors. Governors are also there as an alternative point of contact for parents.
Rebecca: My role as a Co-opted Governor is to read the data and information packs that the SLT provides each month, which include everything from attendance and attainment statistics to safeguarding issues, budgets and anything noteworthy that’s happened in the school. We then ask questions to ensure the headteacher and SLT have thought about different options and that they know how they will monitor progress. We push them to think about all the decisions they’re making and give them advice. We’re also a sounding board for anything that arises in the school, which could be anything to do with the staff, pupils, parents and guardians or building and maintenance.
Andrew: The responsibilities of a school governor are very nuanced, because every time you look upon the student body, you realise you are personally accountable for the life chances of all these young people. We have to scrutinise the tracking data and the performance of the students, but also have to scrutinise resource allocations to ensure we’re spending against the right priorities. Ultimately, the role of a governor is about the infrastructure and fabric of the school. School governors are responsible for resource decisions, policies, attainment, and physical safety of the students. There’ll be a subcommittee that looks at achievements, standards, behaviour, exclusion, remuneration, premises etc. – but we are all accountable in one way or another.
Dan: Governing bodies exist to provide both strategic steer and accountability to schools over the educational performance of its pupils and the way in which its budgets of public money are spent. We do this by analysing performance data, evaluating action plans and asking school leaders challenging questions. A good governing body should be made up of different people from across a local community so that scrutiny can come from a variety of perspectives. Having a governing body also provides schools with an opportunity to draw from knowledge and expertise from different sectors and industries in shaping school and MAT policies.
Beth: Curiosity and integrity. There’s a tension in the role of governor because you’re setting the direction for the school, but you’re not making the everyday decisions. You are there to set a vision and make sure standards are high. To do that, you need to ask lots of questions and genuinely want to know the answers. As for integrity, you need to be able to ask tricky and important questions while also being able to understand the difference between your role as a parent or local businessperson and your role as a governor.
Rebecca: To be a governor, you don’t necessarily need to have prior experience in schools or education, but you need to be well-informed on what makes a good school and what Ofsted considers to be “Good” and “Outstanding”. It also takes someone who can listen carefully, ask good questions, and not be afraid to challenge the Headteacher, whilst being supportive. You’re not there to oppose, you’re there to help and advise. I also think it’s helpful to have people that have worked in diverse roles to bring different experiences and viewpoints into the board; for example on our board we have a policewoman, a lawyer and I’m a marketer.
Beth: I love seeing the impact that the school has on the students. Working in EdTech, we are all here ultimately for the same reason: the students. Being a governor, I feel a much greater connection to that. The challenging side to the role is that sometimes there are problems that we as governors can’t solve – sometimes you can only sympathise. I find that quite hard as a solution-driven person.
Rebecca: I love the feeling that I’m helping young people get the best start in life. There are a lot of refugees and Pupil Premium pupils in our school and it’s an important opportunity to help give them the tools and support to become whoever they want to be. Something I find more challenging is being able to really question and help with decisions the school needs to make, especially when it’s with a situation that’s more nuanced. When meetings move back to being in-person I think this will allow conversations to flow more easily.
Andrew: I feel that education has been good to me, having provided me with a career, and many wonderful opportunities in this country and abroad. So it sounds a bit passe, but it really is an opportunity to give something back. My own education was quite poor in many respects, and so the opportunity to ensure that children don’t have to overcome the obstacles that I did, makes me feel as though I’m adding value.
Dan: For me, being a trustee provides me with a great way to continue to have direct involvement in education. Our decision-making shapes the policies that influence the way in which people work within the schools. Having been a teacher, I know how hard-working people in schools are and how tough a job it can be at times, so I like to think that I can be a voice for teacher and staff wellbeing on the board. Sometimes difficult decisions need to be made and one of the hardest parts of the job for me is getting involved in official disciplinary procedures for staff members or exclusion panels for students and having to weigh up what the right thing to do is in each situation.
Beth: I actually witnessed my school move from SIMS to Arbor. Now, the data is so much easier to interpret, especially with the Assessment data out of Arbor, especially for those who are less confident in this area.
Andrew: Having a good MIS is essential to effective governance. I need to be able to see that the decisions we endorse genuinely add value to the learning journey. We’ve always been given high-quality information, but the issue was that it took a long time to get to us because it had to be manually number-crunched, so sometimes the data was half a term behind our meeting sequence.
Dan: To be effective in challenging a school or MAT’s performance, it is necessary to have current data available that can be interrogated easily. However, in my experience as a governor, the MIS has often held things back. I’m often presented with quite two-dimensional and sometimes out-of-date data that merely reflects a snapshot in time – like a statistical average for Pupil Premium attainment. Without an MIS that allows you to do so, it’s impossible to actually explore the variables that might be driving the statistics presented. Arbor helps governing bodies actually drill down into this information to a much greater depth and makes it far easier to collate across multiple schools. Take Custom Report Writer, for example, which can be live fed into Google or Power BI, giving trustees or governors a live dashboard of current data. They can look at this any time, easily drill down and truly investigate the information.
Beth asked one of the children in a Reception class what they thought the Governing Board does at the school. This is what they said:
“Who is that? We don’t know what that means. Is it just a person or a box or is it you? Or are you talking about our board or your board? There’s two boards in here.”
Apply online at Governors for Schools and they’ll match your skills to a local school in need. Find out more about the role here.
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better, which is why we think it’s key that so many of our team have previously worked in and continue to support schools.
You can find more about our story and mission here, or keep up with us on Twitter and LinkedIn to find out more about how we are having an impact on education.
EdTech | Migration
As part of our partnership with Amazon Web Services, we interviewed Andrew Proctor, Executive Lead for Education, about how schools should be thinking about migration to the cloud. You can read a shorter version of this article in our joint whitepaper with Socitm. – How has the move to the cloud looked across other parts
As part of our partnership with Amazon Web Services, we interviewed Andrew Proctor, Executive Lead for Education, about how schools should be thinking about migration to the cloud. You can read a shorter version of this article in our joint whitepaper with Socitm.
I think it’s taken a number of different shapes and forms across different sectors, but I also think it’s important to draw a distinction between those organisations and companies that are born in the cloud and those that are not. Cloud-borne companies can scale rapidly, because they already have a cloud way of thinking and doing. This is more the case for the private sector, where companies are often driven by the need for a competitive edge.
Traditionally, I think the public sector has looked at digital transformation as a set of projects to implement new technologies, rather than an embedded cultural change. For those that have made the move to the cloud, they are able to see past technology as something that simply keeps the lights on. It has accelerated and de-risked innovation.
What we’ve seen over the past two years is evolution and adaptation in the education sector, rather than true transformation and reinvention. An example would be moving lessons online. This is in no way to dismiss the incredible work that the public sector has had to do in a very short amount of time, but it demonstrates that they’ve been limited to almost reproducing what they’ve already been doing via different methods, rather than reinventing and improving them.
The adoption of a cloud mindset should be central to any plans for transformation – viewing cloud as something that can help your team focus on your end-users.
When I was first at Staffordshire University, there were monthly management meetings. The different teams would come in and talk about patches to the infrastructure, uptime and availability. By moving to the cloud, one of the cultural things I was able to do was shift the focus of those meetings away from maintenance of the system and through to telling us what problems they’d solved, what new functionality and new services they’d designed and delivered to help staff and students. Ultimately, cloud was a springboard for a much more user-centric approach.
I also think it’s important to know that you don’t need to boil the ocean and seek perfection. Public sector governance doesn’t often align with digital and agile ways of operating. There’s a tendency towards multi-year business plans where every detail must be nailed down. Teams need to accept that traditional governance and its rigidity may not always be conducive to the benefits of the cloud.
Look at digital transformation as a way of being and doing – not the shift to a different piece of technology. You need to be user-obsessed and focused. My advice would therefore be to start by putting some of the cultural building blocks in place and thinking of the bigger picture.
Don’t try to reproduce what you’ve already done but in the cloud. Of course, you can make cost efficiencies and savings by getting rid of a data centre. But the real advantage of cloud is the ability to be innovative and agile.
I’d also say that you should look to the huge community of support that’s out there for help. You don’t have to do it all alone. Many organisations, sectors, and industries have reinvented themselves and are willing to offer a helping hand. Look to partners as well.
To see other case studies like Andrew’s, click on the image above
Whatever the sector, organisations face some barriers, but many of these are actually just perceived barriers, particularly around security and skills.
The security of the cloud is one such perceived barrier. There’s a trust and comfort to having something under physical lock and key in a data centre in your building. Cloud doesn’t remove locks and keys, it just does them in a better and different way. You still get 100% control over who has access to your data and applications. If you take Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example, we have over one million monthly active customers, across every vertical, including policing and security services around the globe. So our infrastructure is designed around the most stringent of security requirements from around the world – and each customer benefits from that. If you’re a school, you’re benefiting from infrastructure that’s been designed for a much higher tier of security than you actually need.
Another concern is around skills. Some organisations worry that they haven’t got the internal skills for digital transformation or cloud adoption. There’s also a natural concern within individuals that they don’t have the skills required. So there’s a fear about making sure transformation is sustainable, because it has the right people moving it along. These concerns have solutions. You can train and develop your internal team where appropriate, rely on partners and also look to grow teams where necessary. In such a fast-paced environment as is the world of IT, the ability to upskill is viewed as an exciting opportunity for internal teams. It’s a positive thing.
The vast majority of projects that are deemed to be large-scale can and should be broken down into manageable chunks. It’s very difficult to produce this perfect, accurately timed and costed multi-year project plan sat at a desk in a room before you’re actually faced with reality. But we still seem wedded to doing that in the public sector.
It’s much better to adopt, again, a sort of cloud mindset, by listening to what end-users need and want. And be prepared to change and adapt where needed.
It’s healthy to think big, but start small. This big idea that all schools will move to the cloud is absolutely right and proper, but the key is to start small, learn some lessons and demonstrate both success and value. Start by migrating those systems that aren’t complex to do so.
In terms of practical advice, the establishment of some core tenets for the project is very important. What are the key things that are driving the initiative? A really rough idea of a tenet could be that you will always prioritise the security of people’s data, so when you come to some difficult or challenging decisions that you need to communicate to everyone, you can refer back to those tenets as well to make sure that you’re staying true to what was agreed upfront. This can help defuse some of the conflict and tension, because you’ve got that established guidance to refer back to. So setting, agreeing and communicating those key tenets to the broader school community can be very helpful.
And again, take digital ethos and approach. It could be moving a single school or a single application or service to the cloud. Take stock, learn some lessons and then progress from there and be prepared to adjust your plans accordingly.
Finally, I think it’s important to advocate for the fact that even though there may be some initial trade-offs, as we’ve discussed with the needs of users, going back to one of the core benefits of a cloud mindset is that ultimately you become much more customer-centric and you get much more time and resource to invest back into your end-users as well. Advocating that to the user community is really important. Naturally, there will be some friction and surprises, but just make sure you’ve got some resources ready to communicate to teams and keep them informed.
I would add that there is a lot in the public sector and education sector to celebrate. There is plenty of opportunity for them in terms of digital transformation, but I think they should take a sense of pride in just how important they’ve been, how important they will remain to be and what they have done during a challenging few years.
It’s been a very challenging environment for universities and schools. Lots of noise in the media and press, lots of pressure politically. But they have absolutely done everyone in the country proud in terms of the service that they provided. If you look at them being able to provide new mental health services at universities and schools and the adoption of those, I think we should all be proud of what the education sector has been able to achieve, and we should all advocate for the many opportunities that are still ahead of them.
A shorter version of this article appears in our whitepaper with Socitm, which also features interviews with Hampshire County Council and Herts for Learning about how and why they are offering schools in their area the choice of a cloud MIS. Click here for your free copy of the whitepaper.
Migration | Partners
We’re excited to launch our latest whitepaper, in partnership with Socitm, about how three organisations are helping schools think about a move to the cloud. As the Management Information System (MIS) market shifts, more and more councils are embracing changing technology. But for many, change presents concerns around capacity, impact on internal structures and getting
We’re excited to launch our latest whitepaper, in partnership with Socitm, about how three organisations are helping schools think about a move to the cloud.
As the Management Information System (MIS) market shifts, more and more councils are embracing changing technology. But for many, change presents concerns around capacity, impact on internal structures and getting to grips with new systems. With many councils wanting to provide choice to their schools and follow the lead of those who are already seeking to harness modern technology, including cloud-based MIS, knowing where to start can be a daunting prospect.
Hampshire County Council and Herts for Learning are two organisations that have already embraced a move to the cloud when it comes to school MIS. In this whitepaper, hear from both organisations on how they managed this project internally, advice they would give to others, and what it was that encouraged them to take action.
We also spoke with Amazon Web Services about the trends they’ve seen across the public sector, and how Local Authorities across the UK can take advice from, and be encouraged by, others who have managed similar projects.
Download your free copy of the whitepaper here to read these three case studies.
All three of our contributors will be joining Phillippa D’Ath, CRO at Arbor Education, for a fireside chat on their schools’ experience with a move to the cloud. Sign up to the free webinar, taking place on 18th October at 1pm, by clicking here.
You can find out more about our partnership with Socitm here.
With summer holidays on the horizon, now is the perfect time to reflect, learn and start putting plans in place for the new school year. We’ve been working hard on updates to make your new year set-up as seamless as possible, especially in Assessments – we hope you find them helpful. – What’s new for
With summer holidays on the horizon, now is the perfect time to reflect, learn and start putting plans in place for the new school year. We’ve been working hard on updates to make your new year set-up as seamless as possible, especially in Assessments – we hope you find them helpful.
New Assessments marksheets are here Our new marksheets are jam-packed with features to make data entry as quick as possible. Say hello to Excel-like functionality, including keyboard entry, custom filters, copy and paste and much more. Learn more here
Copy your Annual Assessment Policy You can now quickly copy over your assessments to the next academic year. Our setup wizard can pre-fill student groups, Baselines and Targets for maximum time-saving. Learn more here
SUM calculations in Assessment By using a SUM calculation, you can now recreate things like AQA Maths or Question Level Analysis (QLA) within Arbor. This means that all your Assessment data can be in one place, rather than spread across different Excel spreadsheets. Learn more here
Cashless catering integrations with Civica Cashless Catering and Live Register We wanted to make the cashless catering process even better for staff, students and parents, which is why we now integrate with Civica Cashless Catering and Live Register. You can now manage cashless catering payments directly from your MIS – without needing a separate payments system as well. The integration is included in our MIS Payments module, and is also part of our Arbor Perform package. Learn more here
In-App message templates You can now create templates for frequently sent in-app messages, such as a PE kit reminder. In-app templates are loaded in the same way as Email, SMS and Letter templates. Learn more here
MAT MIS calculated fields Just like on the School MIS, you can now use custom calculated formula fields in the MAT MIS Custom Report Writer. Learn more here
New PowerBI Datasets We’ve added new datasets to our PowerBI connector to give you more bespoke reporting options. Now you can analyse Staff Absence, Staff Contracts, Staff Salaries, Staff Positions, Staff DfE Position information, and Behaviour Incident Narrative. Learn more here
Assessments | Product updates
With summer holidays on the horizon, now is the perfect time to start thinking about how you can get the most out of Assessments in Arbor, ready for the new school year. We know how important it is to get Assessments right, so we’ve put together our five favourite tips to help make the process
With summer holidays on the horizon, now is the perfect time to start thinking about how you can get the most out of Assessments in Arbor, ready for the new school year.
We know how important it is to get Assessments right, so we’ve put together our five favourite tips to help make the process a little easier. Keep an eye out for some of the exciting features that we’ve added this year!
Say hello to super speedy data entry in Arbor’s marksheets. Our marksheets have Excel-like functionality, including keyboard entry, custom filters, and copy and paste, making life quicker and easier for staff.
Find out more here.
Schools can easily spend hours in the initial setup of Assessments creating baselines and entering targets. With our Copy Annual Policy feature, schools can quickly copy the previous years’ data, including student groups, Baselines and Targets for maximum time-saving.
By using a SUM calculation, schools can recreate things like AQA Maths or Question Level Analysis (QLA) within Arbor. This means that all your Assessment data can be in one place, rather than spread across different Excel spreadsheets.
Report cards are a key link between students, parents and your school’s Assessment system. In Arbor, you can use a report card template to set up your reports and then copy over the information you need when setting up for the following term. This means you can complete Spring and Summer reports in less than 10 minutes and easily share them with guardians.
Want to use your own report card design and layout? Use Arbor’s ‘External Report Card’ feature to bulk upload report cards generated elsewhere, such as Microsoft Word, and easily share them with guardians and students.
We’ve made it easier to create broadsheets with Assessment data in Arbor’s Custom Report Writer! Use our simple slide-overs to bulk add Summative and Ad Hoc Assessment columns to your reports.
Every school’s Assessment model is different, so take advantage of the features and training that will most help your school. But don’t take it from us… hear from Kate Ferris, Data Analyst at Baxter College, about how their adoption of Formative Tracking transformed the way their school thinks about Assessment.
Click here to find out more about Assessments training, or to discuss how it can benefit your school, please contact your Account Manager.
Looking for more tips and tricks? Keep an eye out for our #ArborSpotlight series on Twitter and LinkedIn. for weekly pointers on how to make the most out of our cloud MIS.
Culture | MAT Operations
In February 2022, we surveyed 164 MAT leaders about how they were thinking about culture in their trust. One of the interesting things that came out of this debate was the question of whether schools in a MAT should be close together, and how much this had an impact on the sense of community and
In February 2022, we surveyed 164 MAT leaders about how they were thinking about culture in their trust. One of the interesting things that came out of this debate was the question of whether schools in a MAT should be close together, and how much this had an impact on the sense of community and belonging.
Interestingly, less than 10% of respondents thought that all schools in a MAT had to be in the same area. There were a variety of reasons to justify this response, such as the importance of joint school activities and the equity of treatment from governors who understand the local area.
On the flip side, 26% of respondents said that it was of no importance that all schools in a MAT were in the same area. This was largely put down to the ability of technology to supplement where face-to-face isn’t possible. One respondent also made the point that geographic distance should not be a barrier to taking on schools that are well-suited to the MAT or are in need of assistance which a MAT further away can offer.
Ultimately, the middle ground was popular, with 62% of respondents agreeing that they would want at least clusters of their schools to be near each other for practical reasons like sharing teachers and resources.
Despite this fairly mixed response, the reaction changed when we asked our participants to consider the effect of geography on MAT culture, rather than just the logistics or practicalities of running a MAT. 75% of participants actually agreed that culture can be sustained even when schools within a trust are not geographically close, which was generally justified by the notion that, “technology can link schools that are not geographically close.” This marks a definite shift in attitude, as pre-Covid, MAT leaders were much more likely to state that having a smaller geographical footprint helped to maintain a tight culture.
In fact, nearly 1 in 3 participants felt that having the same systems was one of the most important factors when thinking about how to work together as one organisation, as summarised by one respondent who added, “divergent technology platforms create a barrier for communications and make it much more challenging to operate as a single organisation.” 88% of our participants agreed that, in an ideal world, all of their schools would share the same Management Information System in order to work better together.
It’s certainly an interesting take that, while many seemed to agree that nothing beats face-to-face communication, a shared culture could be sustained through technology.
We put this dilemma to Laura Gregory, Director of Education at Bellevue Place Education Trust. Her piece on the MAT distance debate is one of five articles in our ebook for MAT leaders. Creating a Cohesive Trust also includes our other survey results, insights and a discussion guide. You can download your free copy here.
Keep up with our other blog and ebook releases on Twitter and LinkedIn.
New to Arbor’s content? Click here for more MAT blogs and case studies.
Arbor Community | Case Studies
Last month we introduced our Pay-for-One Promise – giving schools locked into paying for SIMS until 2025 a way to switch to Arbor now without double-paying for their MIS. But we know that deciding to change MIS isn’t just about budget, which is why the Pay-for-One Promise isn’t the only commitment we’ll make to your
Last month we introduced our Pay-for-One Promise – giving schools locked into paying for SIMS until 2025 a way to switch to Arbor now without double-paying for their MIS.
But we know that deciding to change MIS isn’t just about budget, which is why the Pay-for-One Promise isn’t the only commitment we’ll make to your school. We believe passionately that a good MIS is one which is also committed to transforming the way schools work for the better.
So, we asked our schools to tell us #WhyMySchoolSwitched. Hear below how Arbor is making their lives easier and why it’s worth switching to Arbor before your SIMS licence is up.
Use the Pay-for-One Promise to move to Arbor in 2022/23, even if you’re locked into a SIMS contract
Switching MIS isn’t just a system change – it’s a real opportunity to change the way you work for the better. And given the impact switching MIS can have – on everything from workload, to staff happiness, parental engagement and school collaboration – you shouldn’t be prevented from switching by your budget.
The Pay-for-One Promise is our commitment that your school should only pay for one MIS at a time. Put simply: if you’re locked into paying for SIMS, we won’t ask you to pay for your core Arbor license until that contract ends. You get all the benefits of switching to the UK’s leading cloud MIS, but don’t have to worry about double-paying in the process.
Find out more about the Pay-for-One Promise here.
We’re excited to launch part two of our ebook for MAT staff – click here to download your free copy! In our last book for MAT staff, we explored whether trusts could and should create a shared culture. This is now more relevant than ever, spurred on by the government’s statement that all schools should
We’re excited to launch part two of our ebook for MAT staff – click here to download your free copy!
In our last book for MAT staff, we explored whether trusts could and should create a shared culture. This is now more relevant than ever, spurred on by the government’s statement that all schools should belong to ‘strong’ MATs by 2030. We wanted to take another look at what having a strong and cohesive MAT really means and as part of this, how every school could benefit from being in a trust.
In February 2022, we conducted a survey of 164 MAT leaders and discovered that nearly 1 in 5 respondents did not feel that their trust had a cohesive culture which all their schools felt part of.
When we asked participants about the factors they felt best contributed to a shared culture, our survey also revealed that MAT leaders were not drawn to surface-level factors, such as having the same uniform or a standardised curriculum. Instead, respondents were more focused on having shared opportunities for staff and students, and shared vision and values. This seems to direct us towards what having a cohesive trust truly means: sharing, not sameness.
Hear from five MAT leaders
To look further into what it takes to create a cohesive trust, we invited five different MAT leaders to write about what they thought helped build cohesion and resilience in their trusts.
Our book opens with the importance of communication at Learning For Life Education Trust, and the resulting cross-trust oracy programme. You’ll then hear why Wellspring Academy Trust has committed to 125-year plans for all their schools, and how The Learning For Life Partnership shares best practice both within and beyond their own schools. The fourth piece in our book features interviews with three key trust leaders from across the country, exploring how sharing courses between their schools has benefited their students. This is followed by The Kemnal Academy Trust’s unique approach to trust-wide staff retention and opportunities. Our book closes with a look into moral leadership at Prince Albert Community Trust and how this has helped transform a number of vulnerable schools.
The ebook is free to download for anybody interested in helping their trust work together as one organisation, not many schools. We hope you gain some inspiration on how to make sure that every school, and every student, is benefiting from everything your trust has to offer.
Click here to download your copy.
If you missed the first part of our Cohesive Trust series, you can download it for free here.
To keep up with all our other exciting new content and news, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
What is staff wellbeing and why does it matter? Sometimes, we need to take a step back and focus on the small things that really matter. In schools, we’re really good at the big statements and big ideas. But this can often overshadow our own experiences, our lives and our work, made up of smaller
Sometimes, we need to take a step back and focus on the small things that really matter. In schools, we’re really good at the big statements and big ideas. But this can often overshadow our own experiences, our lives and our work, made up of smaller interactions and moments – which are what we need to focus on.
This isn’t to say that we need to make sweeping changes or do compulsory yoga on a Friday. Staff wellbeing is about the fabric and culture of the places we work in. We can draw on something as well-known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – there are fundamentals in place that we need to fulfil to function effectively. We need to make sure the infrastructure is in place to function as human beings first, and teachers or SBMs or office staff second.
It’s easy to throw the word wellbeing around. It crept into the Ofsted framework a few years ago and suddenly everyone was posing the question: ‘what are we doing about staff wellbeing?’ But even when retention is good, what you want to find out is whether people know what to do in a crisis, or if they’re struggling. It’s not just about keeping your head above the water or managing to swim against the tide, but that we actually have a right to be happy.
Wellbeing is a worthy investment of the self. Working extra hours is simply not sustainable, for example. The truth is that the education sector is in need of staff, and so sustainability and retention must be at the heart of strategy, and the core of our own personal outlooks. And that comes back to wellbeing.
Our profession attracts perfectionists. It attracts people who are susceptible to guilt. In my work on teaching and parenthood, I once heard from a young mother who’d left teaching after teaching for just a few months because she ‘got sick of letting everybody down all the time.’ We go into schools to make a difference and to make society a better place than when we found it, and we have drive, and a spark. That means that we want to give, because giving makes us feel good. So we keep giving and giving, until we suddenly realise we’ve worked an 80 hour week or that someone we love is trying to talk to us and we’re just not listening. We’re physically there, but we’re not mentally or emotionally present at all. Suddenly we start to negate that very energy, that very sense of moral purpose. That very spark that brought us into the profession in the first place starts to suffer, and it means our giving isn’t sustainable.
So what we need to remember is that we are not irreplaceable.
That does not mean what we do isn’t precious. When a student contacts you years later and you can see that you have contributed in some way to their lives, it goes to show how valuable of a role we play as individuals. What it does mean is that we cannot be martyrs to the profession, or our own wellbeing will suffer.
As part of my research, I asked education professionals to tell me the small things that ruin their day. You’ve probably experienced these before: broken photocopiers, anything to do with glue sticks, dirty mugs in the sink, meetings where children aren’t mentioned once. It comes down to inefficiency, sometimes collective and sometimes individual. I tried to take these and think how we can move forward and make minor or significant tweaks for ourselves individually and for our organisations to really think about wellbeing in a meaningful way.
So not the compulsory yoga, not the free post-it notes, not the chocolate on Friday, although that always has its value. It’s about being able to say thank you, or sorry, or good morning, or ask how people genuinely are. This creates a more open space where talk is encouraged and individuals understand what the other does. Ultimately, our attention is finite and a gift, so it’s about knowing where to allocate it, both in terms of time management and emotions.
I also asked educators what made them feel good. Answers ranged from seeing a child write their name for the first time, or someone bringing them a cup of tea on a bad day. Most people don’t need big, public thank yous in staff briefings. Schools should instead be focused on making sure everyone drinks enough water, or that the toilets are nice to use, or taking a walk for some alone time. Essentially, that the fundamentals and infrastructure are there, both physically and emotionally.
One thing that was particularly transformative for me was writing down, or recording in some way, three good things that have happened to me each day, be it on a post-it note or in a journal or an Excel spreadsheet. It’s great to look back at what you’ve achieved, but it also creates an artificial barrier in that spill-over between work and life, drawing a line underneath it. There are other ways to create this barrier – whatever works for you. It could be locking the school gates, saying goodbye to the caretaker, or pulling up in your driveway.
It ultimately comes down to this – we are all giving people and that’s why we’re working in schools. But if we give too much, we can’t give anymore. So we must sometimes work against this selfless impulse to give in order to make sure our generosity, drive, wellbeing and our love for our roles are sustainable.
Want to learn more? You can read Emma’s blog and see more of her work by clicking here.
Or, click here to read our other articles on staff wellbeing.
Happy Half Term and welcome to our May product release summary! It’s been a bumper month for new launches. We’ve released brand new modules – Payments Plus and Shared Teaching – along with a range of other updates to help you, your school and your trust. – What’s new for schools At Arbor, we’re on
Happy Half Term and welcome to our May product release summary! It’s been a bumper month for new launches. We’ve released brand new modules – Payments Plus and Shared Teaching – along with a range of other updates to help you, your school and your trust.
The end-to-end payments system from Arbor You can now manage meal choices, create your school shop and take payments the way you want to, with our new Payments module – Payments Plus. School Shop is the first feature, with Advanced Meals and additional Payment Methods functionality coming soon. Learn more here
Share students and courses across multiple schools Sharing courses and teaching resources across schools is a fantastic way to widen your curriculum and give your students more choice. Shared Teaching takes the heavy lifting out of shared course set up and administration, letting you share courses across schools with ease. Learn more here
Set up and mark End of Key Stage 1 assessments You can now use a new assessment template called ‘End of Key Stage 1 – Test Results’ to input data for a wide range of DfE assessments, saving you time and allowing for marks to be exported in Common Transfer Files (CTFs). Learn more here
Track census completion at MAT level
As part of our mission to help MAT central teams support their schools, we’ve added an overview of census completion to the MAT MIS. It gives you a summary of the status of each Census for each school and each academic year letting you be sure everyone is compliant with both DfE and Trust level reporting. For more information on how to access Census Audit in your MAT MIS please contact your Account Manager.
MAT MIS Custom Report Writer Superuser is here
You fed back and we listened. You told us how useful you found the Custom Report Writer superuser permission functionality in School MIS and how useful it would be to have the same in MAT MIS, so we built it! This permission allows superusers to view and edit all custom reports created on MAT MIS. Log in to MAT MIS
Arbor is always evolving, hand-in-hand with Schools and MATs. We update Arbor fortnightly, listening closely and responding to what you tell us. View our roadmap and have your say in where we go next, helping us shape the UK’s most transformative MIS.
Payments | Product release
We’re excited to announce the launch of our new Payments Plus module! Payments Plus is the end-to-end payments system within your MIS your parents will love. Say goodbye to logging in to multiple places to complete different payment tasks. Manage meal choices, create your shop and take payments at your school the way you want
Payments Plus is the end-to-end payments system within your MIS your parents will love. Say goodbye to logging in to multiple places to complete different payment tasks. Manage meal choices, create your shop and take payments at your school the way you want to – all from within Arbor.
Payments Plus means you can make payments self-service, and ultimately become a cashless school. Parents no longer have to travel into school to make payments, and you don’t need to go to the bank to deposit cash or cheques, saving time and effort for everyone.
This exciting new module is an extension to Arbor Payments Core, our current Payments features. It gives you greater flexibility on meal choices, more payment options including Apple Pay and Google Pay, and access to a School Shop.
Works seamlessly with your student data Payments Plus has been built within Arbor to work hand-in-hand with your student data and communication tools – no need to import data into a third party tool.
Gives your parents one easy-to-use system Parents login to just one place for all tasks, from booking and paying for trips, to paying for items, to reading school comms. Fewer questions and frustrations from parents means more time back for you!
Payment methods to fit every lifestyle Payments Plus gives you the freedom to tailor payments to your school needs. Give parents the flexibility to pay the way that suits them, whether that’s by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay.
We’re launching features within Payments Plus over the next few months. School Shop is already up and running, with Advanced Meals and additional Payment Methods functionality coming soon.
For more information about Payments Plus, view our website or speak to your Account Manager.
I’ve never written an open letter before, but I think it’s fair to say that the past few months have seen a lot of “firsts” in the Management Information System (MIS) space…! You’ll probably know by now that back in November SIMS announced it would only offer 3 year contracts to schools. Whilst thousands of
I’ve never written an open letter before, but I think it’s fair to say that the past few months have seen a lot of “firsts” in the Management Information System (MIS) space…!
You’ll probably know by now that back in November SIMS announced it would only offer 3 year contracts to schools. Whilst thousands of schools used this as an opportunity to switch, many more felt they didn’t have time to make the change, so renewed their contracts until 2025.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. At Arbor we believe passionately that switching MIS is a real opportunity to change the way all your staff work for the better. And given the immediate and positive impact switching MIS can have on everything from workload, to staff happiness, parental engagement and school collaboration, we believe you shouldn’t be prevented from switching by your supplier.
That’s why we’re launching our Pay-for-One Promise today.
The Pay-for-One Promise is our commitment that a school should only pay for one MIS at a time. Put simply, if you’re locked into paying for SIMS, we won’t ask you to pay for your core Arbor MIS or payment license until that contract ends. You get all the benefits of switching to the UK’s leading cloud MIS, but don’t have to worry about double-paying, or being out of pocket. In fact, by switching now and replacing multiple other systems such as payments, you’ll actually save money (as well as loads of time).
You can learn more about the Pay-for-One Promise here or reach out to us at pop@arbor-education.com with any questions.
We feel strongly that this is the right thing to do to help your school, trust or LA keep its options open and make the best decision possible. We look forward to hearing your feedback.
James
Arbor MIS | New Release
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
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.
There are countless ways we could show you how we’re the UK’s number 1 when it comes to being the most-loved MIS. But we figured that this Arbor by numbers blog would be a good starting point. More of a words person? You can read what our customers have to say about us here. Follow
There are countless ways we could show you how we’re the UK’s number 1 when it comes to being the most-loved MIS. But we figured that this Arbor by numbers blog would be a good starting point.
More of a words person? You can read what our customers have to say about us here.
Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for more insights and weekly customer testimonials.
Now more than ever it’s vital that schools and trusts build initiatives into their strategy to support the wellbeing and mental health of the whole school. Whether this be to help reduce exam stress or as part of the school’s Covid recovery plan. To help you in shaping your school wellbeing programme, we’ve tracked down
Now more than ever it’s vital that schools and trusts build initiatives into their strategy to support the wellbeing and mental health of the whole school. Whether this be to help reduce exam stress or as part of the school’s Covid recovery plan.
To help you in shaping your school wellbeing programme, we’ve tracked down seven of the top school wellbeing initiatives you could consider for your school.
80% of young people with existing mental health needs say that the Covid-19 pandemic has made their mental health worse, (according to a Young Minds survey of 2,036 young people), it’s time to put mental health awareness first in schools.
And it’s not just students who have been feeling the impact; according to a report by Education Support, 52% of UK Teachers say their mental health declined during the first stage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Organising a “Wellbeing Week” at your school is a great way to raise awareness of the importance of wellbeing, and gives students the resources to help them support their own mental health. The Mental Health Foundation has created a free downloadable pack to help you plan the week based around the 5 Ways to Wellbeing: Connect, Get Active, Be Mindful, Keep Learning and Give to Others.
If a whole week doesn’t work for your school, why not hold termly workshops with a focus on mental health and wellbeing. Developing a partnership with a specialist charity like Young Minds can support with this.
Embedding a whole-school culture of wellbeing doesn’t happen overnight, but a good basis to start from is building supportive and respectful relationships between students, teachers and parents. A great way to do this is by appointing student and staff Wellbeing Ambassadors to create a supportive environment where students can talk openly about how they are feeling. Worth-it provides training for Wellbeing Ambassadors to equip them with approaches and strategies to support the wellbeing of their peers as well as their own.
Mental health is often not talked about enough in schools because of the stigma around it. One of the best ways to combat some of the misconceptions around mental health is through education. Stem4 offers free teaching resources for Key Stages 3 and 4 that cover topics such as anxiety, stress and depression to empower students with knowledge about mental health.
There are lots of ways you can introduce a focus on wellbeing into lessons across the curriculum, especially in Drama, English or Art. These subjects in particular can be useful to process their emotions and experiences through creating personal projects or pieces of work.
Another great way to spread awareness of wellbeing and mental health around school is through physical or virtual noticeboards, where students can share posters with their wellbeing tips. You’ll also find some great visuals online like this one from the Anna Freud Centre.
Mindfulness is proven to have a profound impact on our overall wellbeing, with studies showing the positive effects of meditation such as reduced stress and anxiety, improved memory and focus, better relationships and reduced emotional and physical pain. There is now growing awareness of the benefits of practicing mindfulness in schools to help students build attention span, emotional regulation and resilience. Why not introduce a five minute mindfulness session during assemblies, or to begin or round off the school day?
As many schools have found during the pandemic, students are coming to school with difficult experiences that they haven’t been able to process. It’s important to carve out some dedicated time once a week during form or tutor groups for “circle time”, which creates a safe space for students to share what they’re going through. Give each student the opportunity to share either a word or a sentence that describes how they are that day, and create a culture of no judgement from their peers.
Gratitude practices are proven to boost our moods. All you need is an empty jar, strips of paper, and pens. As part of your tutor morning routine, have students write down something specific that they’re grateful for on a strip of paper and put it in the jar. Towards the end of the week, ask students to come up and read out items from the jar!
Wellbeing initiatives are great, but making sure staff are happy and healthy to support them has to come first. Promoting a culture of staff wellbeing is essential to a healthy school. Supporting staff and building trust leads to a happier team, higher performance, better retention and a motivated environment.
Check out why nurturing staff wellbeing is so important at Woodland Academy Trust from CEO, Dan Marrow
Not sure where to start? Here are some ideas:
For more ideas and resources check out the following websites:
If you’d like to find out more about how our cloud-based MIS could transform the way you work, join one of our free webinars.
If you’re not already part of the online community, sign up here for free to share best practice, tips and tricks with fellow Arbor schools.
Or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for more insights and weekly customer testimonials.
ArborFest
As you may have heard, we’re doing ArborFest a little differently this term. ArborFest: The New Features Edition, taking place virtually on 5th May, will focus on all of the exciting new releases we’ve recently launched and give you a sneak peek of what’s coming up over the next two terms. Whether you’re new to
As you may have heard, we’re doing ArborFest a little differently this term.
ArborFest: The New Features Edition, taking place virtually on 5th May, will focus on all of the exciting new releases we’ve recently launched and give you a sneak peek of what’s coming up over the next two terms.
Whether you’re new to the Arbor Community, or you’ve been using our MIS for years, this is the perfect opportunity to discover more about how your school could be using Arbor MIS to transform the way you work. Our support and API partners are also invited to join any of the sessions which take their interest.
You can view the full schedule by clicking here, but we’ve put together a few sessions you won’t want to miss below…
As usual, we’ll be kicking the day off with a welcome talk from our CEO and co-founder, James Weatherill. Alongside our Chief of Customer Success and Head of Product, James will be revealing what’s coming up for Arbor MIS and sharing insights on the education sector!
We have a number of exciting announcements, as well as a deeper look into some of our recent releases.
Who better to learn from than school staff who use Arbor every day?
At Arbor, we champion the feedback from our customers. If you’d like to have your say in the future of our MIS, come along to one of our interactive feedback forums.
To create a safe and open space, these sessions are just for customers. We’re looking forward to hearing all your opinions and ideas.
All the information you need about ArborFest, including the full schedule, can be found here.
We can’t wait to see you there! Make sure to keep an eye out for and get involved with our ArborFest competition on Twitter or LinkedIn.
School Improvement | Sustainability
This year, many people will be thinking hard about how they can make their school greener. But how can a school MIS improve sustainability in schools? There will always be an argument that cloud-based technology is simply better for the environment than going server-based. But we wanted to explore more into the tips and tricks
This year, many people will be thinking hard about how they can make their school greener. But how can a school MIS improve sustainability in schools?
There will always be an argument that cloud-based technology is simply better for the environment than going server-based. But we wanted to explore more into the tips and tricks within your MIS that can help you reach your school’s sustainability goals.
Cloud-based MIS are designed to bring together policies, people and processes, meaning workflows become more automated. This should displace the need for the exchange of information on scraps of paper, or save energy and time spent manually setting up and sending a spreadsheet by email.
One of the clearest ways that schools can reduce wasting paper is in their communication with parents. Your MIS should enable you to communicate entirely through app or browser, particularly for things like consents and permissions, paying for trips or setting up parents evenings online. In Arbor, this can all be done through the Parent Portal without any need for extra slips and letters.
However, what is clear in many schools is that they are doubling up this process and still sending paper copies to parents, just in case. Interestingly, only 2% of households in the UK do not have a mobile phone, and only 3% have no access to the Internet. One way schools could move forward would be to run an internal audit and find out how many parents would be happy to be contacted by app or browser alone.
Having a walk-to-school week, running an initiative to save water at school, or only offering vegan meal choices on certain days? There are lots of different ways to think about sustainability in schools, but make sure to take advantage of User-Defined Fields to help you keep track of which student has done what. At the end of your sustainability initiative, you’ll have exciting data to present to the students and you’ll easily be able to spot and reward those who have, for example, taken part every day. This could be an especially useful tool for Trusts who want to push down a UDF to all their schools or run an inter-school competition.
You could even take the information you collect one step further, by comparing the dataset with attainment. Some interesting patterns could be spotted here: does walking to school improve attendance, or does eating vegan food improve Attitude to Learning grades after lunch? This could transform the way your school thinks about sustainability as something that not only helps the environment, but has a positive impact on students’ learning too.
If you’re a school looking for sustainability or after school club ideas, it could be a good initiative to combine the two. Be it planting trees or making artwork for the school from recycled bottle caps, sustainability clubs are a great way to bring students together, spend time outside and learn about saving the planet. Clubs are designed to be easy in Arbor – you can manage consents, club size, length and schedule sessions all from one place.
Make sure to tag us on Twitter or LinkedIn if you’ve used Arbor in your sustainability initiative!
Want to see how our cloud MIS could transform your school? Meet us at the Schools & Academies Show!
If you’re an Arbor customer with great ideas about sustainability in schools, we’d love to hear from you! Have your say in the future of MIS on our product board.
School Improvement | Vulnerable Students
Having a successful Pupil Premium strategy is key in any school, especially in a post-Covid world. With remote learning having a big impact on pupils across the country, schools are now not only trying to close the attainment gap academically, but on a wellbeing level too. There are many creative and successful Pupil Premium strategies
Having a successful Pupil Premium strategy is key in any school, especially in a post-Covid world. With remote learning having a big impact on pupils across the country, schools are now not only trying to close the attainment gap academically, but on a wellbeing level too.
There are many creative and successful Pupil Premium strategies out there, which help to hone in on each Pupil Premium Eligible student in a school and help to narrow the gap with their peers. In today’s blog, we wanted to show you a few ways Arbor can help with some of the heavy lifting when it comes to making sure these strategies are effective.
Arbor automatically calculates PP Eligibility for current pupils and applicants, based on Free School Meals, In Care and Service Child Status, meaning staff don’t have to enter this data manually. You can also import Pupil Premium Recipient data from the DfE; Pupil Premium Recipients are marked with a clear tag in the MIS, so that staff can spot and organise their information with ease.
In addition, wherever you search for students, staff can immediately see and organise by each student’s demographic, including Pupil Premium and not Pupil Premium. This includes being built into our homepage analysis, so it’s easily accessible for all the right people in your school, meaning you don’t have to rely on others to make the reports for you. We wanted to make sure that Pupil Premium students were really easy to identify, so that nothing slips between the cracks.
With shared data, workflows, comms and information, it’s easy for your staff to work together and spot patterns, solve issues and plan ahead. Our custom reports are designed to help you spot these patterns, such as between Free School Meal eligible students and low attendance.
Once these are set up, with any configuration of data that your school wants to track, Arbor helps you take immediate action by automatically adding students that join the group into an intervention of your choice. This means that your school can take a proactive approach and make sure that no child is left behind.
Our custom group alerts also help to join up people and processes. When setting up a custom group, staff can create membership criteria, such as ‘students who are Pupil Premium, with low attainment and attendance.’ Arbor users can then set up alerts for any staff member, including by relationship to a student (e.g. their Form Tutor), when said student joins or leaves a custom group, based on the criteria. These can be communicated by email or as an alert on the homepage.
When it comes to Pupil Premium funding, we make this process easier by integrating with SBS Budgets. Using SBS, you can upload and tag the official PP recipients each financial year, taken from the Official DfE files received from Key to Success.
As Pupil Premium status is allocated from the DfE after each Census, the Key 2 Success Report is correct. If any changes are made, you can reimport the report from them or await the new data from the DfE after your next Census. This will allow you to see the “Pupil Premium Recipient” badge against a pupil on their student profile.
If you’d like to find out other ways Arbor could transform your school, book a call with one of our friendly team.
Already an Arbor customer? You can find lots more information about the contents of this article on our help centre.
Join us on the 27th April for the Schools & Academies Show 2022, taking place in the Excel Centre. We are excited to join the biggest names in education in what has become the UK’s largest education policy event, attracting over 8,000 attendees from schools, academies, MATs, LAs and government. Sign-up to the event for
Join us on the 27th April for the Schools & Academies Show 2022, taking place in the Excel Centre.
We are excited to join the biggest names in education in what has become the UK’s largest education policy event, attracting over 8,000 attendees from schools, academies, MATs, LAs and government. Sign-up to the event for free here!
If you’re thinking about switching to a cloud-based MIS, come and visit us at stand G10. You’ll have the chance to meet our friendly team and ask any questions you might have about making the move to cloud-based technology. You’ll also be able to see our MIS in action through a live demo, and see why over 3,000 schools and MATs have already joined the Arbor community.
Already an Arbor customer? Come along to ArborFest: The New Features Edition, our virtual conference on May 5th where we’ll be looking at all the exciting new features in our MIS. Perfect whether you are a long-standing user of Arbor or have only just joined the community! With a programme designed to spark ideas about the different ways you could be using Arbor at your school, you should leave with plenty of inspiration and practical steps to start using the new features we’ve released this year – plus, it’s free!
You can also stay in the loop with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Arbor Updates | Mental Health and Wellbeing
As schools end a hugely busy term, Arbor’s HR and Office Manager and trained Emotional Literacy Support Assistant, Danielle has put together some guidance on how to think about stress management and allow yourself to enjoy some well-deserved rest. 1. Laugh Everyone has heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine” but did you know
As schools end a hugely busy term, Arbor’s HR and Office Manager and trained Emotional Literacy Support Assistant, Danielle has put together some guidance on how to think about stress management and allow yourself to enjoy some well-deserved rest.
Everyone has heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine” but did you know that over the past few years there has been growing research to back this up? There is now a proven link between reduced stress and laughter. A good laugh has been proven to:
So my first piece of advice is to make sure you find time over Easter to speak to a friend or family member who never fails to crack you up. Failing that, be sure to watch a funny film or some stand-up from your favourite comedian.
If you really want to integrate a good laugh into your wellbeing routine, why not follow in the footsteps of This Morning’s Phillip and Holly and try out laughter yoga.
Bonding with loved ones, either through touch, conversation or a shared hobby, can increase our feelings of trust, calm and safety. These help to alleviate the body’s stress responses which can improve both our mental and physical health.
Things as basic as a small gesture of kindness, a longer than usual hug or taking a walk with someone close to you can have a profound effect on how easy you find it to cope with life’s stressors.
Spending time in nature has a range of positive impacts to our overall wellbeing and is a great first step to stress management. Getting in touch with nature will look different for everyone and doesn’t need to be time consuming or require you to travel. If you’re a city dweller, your local park counts!
To reconnect with your natural surroundings, you could:
Check out this article from Mind for more information and ideas for how to feel the benefits of nature.
This might be one that some of us (myself included) find very difficult. But therapists and other mental health practitioners advise that the practice of saying no and setting firm boundaries are crucial parts of self care. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the thought of lots of socialising for the first time in a few months, consider how might be better for you to spend your time to feel your best.
There’s no right way to spend a vacation – the ultimate purpose should be to leave you feeling de-stressed and ready to face the new term. Remember – this isn’t selfish. Managing our own stress levels and maintaining healthy boundaries will ultimately have a positive impact on our relationships too.
Why not extend your stress management efforts to after the Easter break, as well? Throughout April people across the country are getting involved in Stress Awareness Month. The way to take part in the 30 day challenge is to pick one action you can take for your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and to do these every day.
It takes 30 days to turn actions into habits, so this 30-day challenge will maximise your chances of turning useful wellbeing techniques into long-lasting behavioural change.
I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing Easter break and look forward to welcoming you back to summer term.
We’d love to show your school or MAT how Arbor could help you work faster, smarter and collaborate more. Arrange a free demo here, get in touch at tellmemore@arbor-education.com, or call 0208 050 1028.
Arbor MIS | Partners
Click here to read our first whitepaper with Socitm. We are delighted to have joined forces with the Society for Innovation Technology and Modernisation (Socitm). Socitm is a leading membership organisation of more than 2,500 professionals, which is dedicated to inspiring change and progress throughout the public sector. Through events, publications and programmes, Socitm’s mission
Click here to read our first whitepaper with Socitm.
We are delighted to have joined forces with the Society for Innovation Technology and Modernisation (Socitm).
Socitm is a leading membership organisation of more than 2,500 professionals, which is dedicated to inspiring change and progress throughout the public sector. Through events, publications and programmes, Socitm’s mission is to help maximise the effective use of technologies and data across public service organisations and communities to improve outcomes for the public benefit.
This goes hand in hand with Arbor’s mission to transform the way schools work through our cloud-based MIS (Management Information System). As the fastest-growing MIS community in the UK, and a dedication to changing the way schools work for the better through the technology we provide, it seemed fitting to work with Socitm on a number of projects throughout the coming year.
Our joint commitment to driving digital transformation in the public sector led us to writing our first whitepaper together, called Transforming Education. The paper tackles many of the myths and concerns local authorities may face when embarking on large-scale digital change. You can read the paper here.
We thought this was an especially pertinent topic given the changes in the MIS market, as well as our partnership with the Herts for Learning framework (HfL.) Over 200 schools in Hertfordshire were able to smoothly transition to Arbor’s cloud-based MIS through this framework, bringing their technology into the 21st century and helping the Local Authority to meet the needs of students, parents, teachers and school staff across their community. You can read about this partnership and hear from organisations about their move to the cloud here.
If you’re thinking about making the switch to a cloud-based MIS and would like to hear how we can make that process less daunting, read our whitepaper here.
Or, if you’re part of a Local Authority and would like to speak to us, click here to book a call with one of our friendly team members.
We’re excited to announce the latest ArborFest, our twice-yearly conference for the Arbor Community, taking place on Thursday 5th May 2022. This ArborFest, we’re focusing on all of the exciting new releases we’ve recently launched and giving you a sneak peek of what’s to come over the next two terms. ArborFest: The New Features Edition
We’re excited to announce the latest ArborFest, our twice-yearly conference for the Arbor Community, taking place on Thursday 5th May 2022.
This ArborFest, we’re focusing on all of the exciting new releases we’ve recently launched and giving you a sneak peek of what’s to come over the next two terms.
ArborFest: The New Features Edition is designed to spark ideas about the different ways you could be using Arbor at your school. We’ll be shining a spotlight on the latest releases in our MIS, talking about where the system is headed next, and hosting forums for you to share your views.
After the success of our last three virtual conferences, we’ll be going fully digital again for this special edition of ArborFest. Join us from your office, playground or home to get the inside scoop on everything new in Arbor MIS.
See the full programme and book your free tickets here: https://sites.google.com/arbor-education.com/arborfest-may-2022/schedule
Whether you’ve just joined Arbor, been using it for years or just want to get a behind the scenes look, you should leave ArborFest with plenty of inspiration and practical steps to start using the new features we’ve released this year. We can’t wait to see you there!
All you need to do to join is:
How can I keep in touch?
Arbor Community | Arbor MIS
Introducing Creating a Joined-Up School, our brand new ebook for secondary school staff. Collaboration is often talked about as one of the key elements of a successful secondary school. But legacy IT systems and processes can make it hard for teams to work together seamlessly. Accessing data is difficult, reporting is complex and over-customisable, and
Collaboration is often talked about as one of the key elements of a successful secondary school. But legacy IT systems and processes can make it hard for teams to work together seamlessly. Accessing data is difficult, reporting is complex and over-customisable, and student data is spread across multiple systems instead of being in one place. All of this leads to high workload and unnecessary stress, with roles becoming isolated, and staff singing from different hymn sheets. Crucially that means important information about students falls between the cracks.
At Arbor, we believe that your MIS should help your team work more efficiently and effectively together in a more “joined up way”. Our philosophy is that an MIS should be built to be used and loved by all staff – from office staff, to teachers and senior leaders – giving schools one shared workspace to support each other and encourage collaboration.
Diving into the benefits of a shared workspace
We wanted to dig deeper into exactly how our MIS is helping secondary school staff work better, together. In February 2022, we spoke to four pairs of secondary school staff to find out how they are making the most of Arbor to work more efficiently, effectively and collaboratively.
Each of our interviewees emphasised that one key benefit of having a shared workspace was having visibility and transparency over every student, at all times. As well as this, having all changes made by any member of staff automatically update across the MIS, meaning every staff member is kept in the loop and information is always up to date. These benefits were felt across the range of roles we interviewed, including Headteachers, Data Managers, Exams Officers and SEN Admins.
Our exciting ebook for secondary schools
We’ve compiled all of these interviews into a brand new Arbor ebook, featuring staff from Baxter College, Ralph Thoresby School, Droitwich Spa High School and The Grove School, part of Marches Academy Trust. The book explores what it means to have a joined-up secondary school, and how your MIS should encourage collaboration across all roles in your school.
Each of these stories is intended to shine a light on why schools work better when they have access to a shared workspace – something that’s become all the more important in a post-Covid world.
You can download Creating a Joined-Up Secondary School for free by clicking here.
BETT
Another year, another amazing BETT show! It was great to catch up with so many of our existing 3000 customers, as well as meeting lots of new schools and trusts – we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. This time the event took place in March, meaning that we were able to
Another year, another amazing BETT show! It was great to catch up with so many of our existing 3000 customers, as well as meeting lots of new schools and trusts – we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. This time the event took place in March, meaning that we were able to enjoy the sunshine at the same time.
It was a pleasure to exhibit alongside ScholarPack for the first time at our shared stand, as the two most-loved MIS providers in the UK.. We also added a new Arbor classroom to our stand this year, meaning visitors could sit down and join demos run by our team as they highlighted some of Arbor’s best bits.
For the 6th year in a row, we took over Tapa Tapa restaurant to meet our customers, partners, and new faces over lunch, drinks and breakfast. Our Product Team also ran two interactive roadmap sessions to showcase some of the exciting developments we’ve got coming up for our secondary and MAT MIS, and to get feedback from Arbor users. If you missed the session, you can see what’s coming up on our roadmap (and add your own suggestions) here. If you’re not already using Arbor, but want to see how Arbor could work at your school or MAT, click here to watch a demo of our MIS.
Former primary Headteacher (and now Senior Partnership Manager at Arbor) Tim Ward gave a talk at the Tech in Action Theatre on five ways Arbor helps schools transform the way they work. He focused on ease of data analysis, integrated communications, how to automate time-consuming tasks, the importance of support and how Arbor is built with all staff in mind.
We had the excitement of launching not one, but two pieces of new content at BETT.
Our first piece – titled Creating a Joined-Up Secondary School – explores how a shared workspace encourages collaboration across different roles. We interviewed four pairs of secondary school staff from different schools about how they are using their MIS to work better together and to reduce their workload. Click here to receive your free copy.
Our second new book is for MAT leaders – titled Creating a Cohesive Trust – and looks into how to make sure all schools in a Trust are working well as one organisation and with a shared culture. We interviewed MAT leaders from across the country, and put our findings together with five interviews from key Trust voices, (including Bellevue Place Education Trust and The Birmingham Diocesan Multi-Academy Trust) to dive into what culture really means and what Trusts are doing to achieve cohesion. Click here to receive your free copy.
Of course, our favourite moments of every BETT come when we are able to meet customers, prospects and partners. We held breakfasts, lunches and drinks each day in the Tapa Tapa restaurant, and were fortunate enough to be joined by lots of our brilliant Arbor ambassadors.
As you can see, it’s been a very busy BETT for us – we’re already looking forward to next year!
Culture | MAT Operations | MATs
Click here to read our latest ebook, exploring how different trusts are building a shared culture. The debate around autonomy vs. alignment for schools in Trusts has been animated over the past few years, with some MATs giving their schools independence over their policies and others preferring a more centralised approach. If we accept that
Click here to read our latest ebook, exploring how different trusts are building a shared culture.
The debate around autonomy vs. alignment for schools in Trusts has been animated over the past few years, with some MATs giving their schools independence over their policies and others preferring a more centralised approach.
If we accept that trusts will always differ on how centralised to be, perhaps the more interesting question becomes: how do you create a trust which works really well together as one organisation, regardless of where you sit on that scale?
What are the factors which create a successful, shared culture in a MAT? And how do you make sure the academies in your trust benefit from being part of a greater whole?
To get a sense of the national picture, in February 2022 we surveyed 164 trust leaders from around the country. 94% of respondents agreed it’s important all schools in a MAT feel part of the same culture. In fact, many indicated that having a shared culture was fundamental to a MAT’s purpose; one respondent wrote, ‘I would wonder what ‘the point in being a trust would be if there was no sense of a shared culture.”
Having said this, nearly 1 in 5 respondents said that their trust did not have one cohesive culture which all schools feel part of, with many emphasising that this was an ongoing journey for their MAT.
One participant put this down to “each school [being] reluctant to take on ideas and processes the other schools use”, whilst another explained that “we have not had time to build a common ethos beyond our founders’ vision which was entrepreneurial.” For some MAT leaders, a shared culture is simply “a difficult thing to achieve when you are a big, mixed-phase MAT across different authorities.”
We asked those who felt they had already achieved a strong culture in their MAT about what they thought were the main factors that had led to this success. 78% of respondents to this question said that having a shared vision and values were the most important, with having clear leadership and shared staff opportunities also proving to be popular choices. One participant explained that, “shared vision and joined-up leadership are a precursor to successfully implementing any other measures.”
This speaks to a wider trend, where respondents seemed to value structural, trust-level factors over teaching and learning or pupil-driven factors, such as having a standardised curriculum, sharing the same visual identity (e.g. uniforms) and having shared opportunities for pupils across the trust.
With nearly 1 in 5 respondents saying they were yet to achieve a shared culture in their trust, we wanted to explore what some MAT leaders felt were the key drivers and best practices when it came to meaningful cultural change. To do this, we’ve compiled leaders’ viewpoints from five MATs across the country and put them together with our survey insights to create our latest ebook for MAT leaders, called Creating a Cohesive Trust. As well as our survey results and a question guide, hear from MAT leaders on how their trusts work together as one organisation, including discussions on:
Click here to download the full ebook.
Want to read more MAT content? Get stuck in with our MAT MIS series, perfect for MAT Central Teams.
MAT MIS Series | MAT Operations | MATs
Why is a good communication strategy important for your MAT? Your communications strategy should help give all your staff visibility around key information, data and policies at your trust. In turn, it should help staff feel supported and like they have access to the information they need. As important as this is, your communications strategy
Your communications strategy should help give all your staff visibility around key information, data and policies at your trust. In turn, it should help staff feel supported and like they have access to the information they need.
As important as this is, your communications strategy isn’t limited to staff only. It should also encompass students and guardians, making sure that everybody is in the loop when it comes to your trust. Plus, centralisation shouldn’t only promote a trust-down approach. Your academies want to be assured that what’s happening at school-level is being fed upwards and informing the trust’s direction. Information and actions should flow both ways: school-up and trust-down.
A great comms strategy should support two-way communication, while also helping to reduce unnecessary back and forth. We’ve put together three top tips on how your MIS can help to streamline comms at your MAT.
Centralisation is the first step towards an effective communications strategy, as it helps to move work from your schools to your central team.
Having one place to communicate with pupils, parents and staff across your trust helps to dramatically reduce staff admin. At the same time, centralisation means your comms are consistent, building on the sense of a shared culture within your trust.
In Arbor, you can send comms to any selected group, from guardians to a set group of staff or a particular group of students. For example, at the push of a button you could let all your NQTs across your trust know about an upcoming training day.
You should aim to make it easy for your central team to act on data within the system for fast, contextualised decision-making. Your MIS can – and should – do most of the heavy lifting for you, by showing you the live data you need without the hassle.
If your trust is using Arbor MAT MIS, you won’t need to login to individual schools to see your data. This means your team doesn’t have to waste time looking for the information they need or sending multiple batches of comms to different schools.
You also don’t have to log into individual school MIS to send comms. For example, in Arbor, schools can move the task of following up with absent students from individual schools to the central team. This means that all absent students across the trust on a given day are accounted for through one set of comms, reducing workload at individual school level.
Running your trust as one cohesive unit can feel challenging, but having a consistent voice from your central team is essential. This helps create a shared sense of belonging among students and staff.
Plus, sending comms out centrally means workload isn’t being unnecessarily duplicated across your schools.
For instance, if you need to send an urgent message to all your staff or guardians, Arbor allows you to quickly build, write and send an email from your central team. This means that individual schools don’t have to worry about sending their version of the comms.
Ultimately, centralising your communications should help you work as one organisation, and not many. Arbor’s MAT MIS is designed to be a mission control for your central team so that you can streamline processes and reduce unnecessary admin within all your schools.
Already using Arbor? Get started with using our centralised comms features right away – login to MAT MIS here.
Not yet using Arbor MAT MIS across your trust? Click here to book a call with our team of multi-academy trust experts and get started.
Arbor MIS | Parents & Guardians
Why is communicating with parents so important? Having good communication between parents and schools can make a big difference to a child’s education. When parents are more involved, students are often better-behaved, have higher attendance rates and a lower risk of exclusion. In turn, this leads to better results. Support from home has become even
Having good communication between parents and schools can make a big difference to a child’s education. When parents are more involved, students are often better-behaved, have higher attendance rates and a lower risk of exclusion. In turn, this leads to better results.
Support from home has become even more important given the impact of Covid on schools. With students across the country attending school virtually during lockdown, communication with parents needed to be more consistent than ever to make sure that no students were left behind.
The introduction of Ofsted’s ‘Parent View’ questionnaire and similar inspection tools is further proof of the importance of involving parents in their children’s education.
Many things can get in the way of effective communication between parents and schools. It can also be challenging for schools when they don’t have a system in place that allows parents to communicate back to them easily.
It’s time to say goodbye to paper slips and letters. With a cloud-based MIS, you can send emails, SMS messages or in-app messages to parents in bulk, or to certain groups. This not only saves time – and the environment! – but also means parents are notified of any new comms on-the-go and on their mobile phones, which encourages quicker responses and supports two-way interaction.
With Arbor, you can send out messages to parents in bulk, to certain groups or to individuals. For example, you can text all the parents whose children are late on a specific day with just the click of a button, which makes life easier for office staff and means parents are notified in a timely way.
And it works the other way, too. Parents can also ask questions on the Arbor App (if your school has enabled this setting) or the Arbor Parent Portal, without needing to have received a message from the school first.This means two-way communication can be effectively supported, and parents and guardians can feel listened to.
Helping parents to feel involved in their child’s education can feel tricky, as you don’t want to overload guardians with information, or not be able to keep track of who has been sent what. The Parent Portal keeps everything in one place, so parents can check in on their child’s attendance, behaviour and academic progress, as well as accessing past and current report cards. In Arbor MIS, you can also see a full parent communication log, so that you know who has been sent what, and when.
Giving parents this visibility over their child means they can become more involved where needed, and are kept in the loop when things aren’t going as well as they should be.
As well as giving parents an overview of their child’s data, the Parent Portal is also the place where schools can ask parents to take action. This could be asking for permissions, payments or registering their child for clubs and trips. Another popular use of the app is as a guardian consultation/parents evening booking system, which makes it easy and less stressful for both the parents and the school staff.
By having everything in one place, both parents and schools can feel more confident that everyone has access to the data they need.
At the heart of any effective communications strategy is making sure that both parties feel listened to and have visibility over the right information. And where time is short in schools, it’s important that your technology is helping to make your strategy as time-saving and efficient as possible. At Arbor, we believe switching MIS is an opportunity to transform the way you work for the better, in that case helping to engage parents and transform the lives of students.
If you’re not already using Arbor, and want to see how it could transform how you engage with parents at your school, get in touch with our friendly team today. Call us on 0208 050 1028 or send us an email at hello@arbor-education.com to get started.
Already an Arbor customer and want to learn more about how to make the most out of your Arbor App? Read our Help Centre for more tips and tricks.
Arbor Updates | Partners
We’re delighted to announce that Arbor is now a Premier Partner of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL). ASCL is the leading professional association and trade union for all school, college and trust leaders. They support over 21,500 members across primary, secondary and post-16 education, who in turn are responsible for more than
We’re delighted to announce that Arbor is now a Premier Partner of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).
ASCL is the leading professional association and trade union for all school, college and trust leaders. They support over 21,500 members across primary, secondary and post-16 education, who in turn are responsible for more than four million children and young people.
Arbor’s cloud-based MIS gives schools and MATs of all sizes the tools they need to work better today and be ready for tomorrow. Free staff from busywork, work more collaboratively and stay connected on the cloud – so your whole team has a shared view of what’s going on, even if you’re not together. With over 4,000 primary, secondary and special schools and 380 MATs, Arbor is the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community today.
Our partnership with ASCL will bring together two companies who want to support schools across the country. Arbor is the MIS that brings everyone together, supporting all your staff to measurably improve the way your school works. ASCL’s purpose is to support members in becoming more effective leaders and raising student achievement.
Our team will be working on this exciting new partnership throughout 2022 and 2023 – keep an eye out for all the exciting things to come as a result! You can also contact us on 0208 050 1028 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com to learn more about how we can support your school or MAT.
If you’d like to see what benefits being a member of ASCL could do for you as school staff, click here.
Arbor MIS
With SIMS only giving schools the option to renew their contracts for 3 years, many schools have told us they’re trying to work out whether they can switch MIS quickly before their SIMS license ends. To help, we’ve created a dedicated “fast track” programme so you can make a decision about your MIS quickly and
With SIMS only giving schools the option to renew their contracts for 3 years, many schools have told us they’re trying to work out whether they can switch MIS quickly before their SIMS license ends.
To help, we’ve created a dedicated “fast track” programme so you can make a decision about your MIS quickly and confidently. You can then choose to move by 1st April or 1st September 2022.
We’ve outlined the steps you’ll need to take as part of the programme, which differ based on whether your school is primary, secondary or special, or if you’re part of a trust. If you have any questions about the programme, or about moving to Arbor, feel free to give us a call on 0208 050 1028 or email us at hello@arbor-education.com.
You could be up and running on Arbor by 1st April 2022: If you want to switch MIS before your current SIMS contract ends, our Primary School Fast Track Programme makes it quick and easy to see demos, ask questions, and involve your team
Or buy yourself time and move over Summer: Don’t think you can make a decision before Half Term? You can use the SIMS break clause to buy yourself extra time, take a look at other MIS systems, and choose the best fit for your school in the Summer Term. The first step is to join our primary school product demo – click here to book your space
You now have more time to review your MIS options: If you’re not keen on using SIMS for another 3 years, this break clause gives you the chance to explore other MIS systems over Summer Term. You can request the break clause even if you’ve already signed up for the new 3 year contract
We can get you up and running on Arbor by 1st September 2022: With SIMS offering this extra time, we’re re-opening our dedicated Fast Track Programme to help secondary schools see Arbor quickly and easily before making the switch in Summer. The first step is to join our secondary school product demo – click here to book your space
You could be up and running on Arbor by 1st April 2022: If you want to switch MIS before your current SIMS contract ends, our Special School Fast Track Programme makes it quick and easy to see demos, ask questions, and involve your team
Or buy yourself time and move over Summer: Don’t think you can make a decision before Half Term? You can use the SIMS break clause to buy yourself extra time, take a look at other MIS systems, and choose the best fit for your school in the Summer Term. The first step is to join our secondary school product demo – click here to book your space
Your primary schools could be up and running on Arbor by 1st April 2022: If you want to switch MIS before your schools’ current SIMS contracts end, our Fast Track Programme makes it quick and easy to see demos, ask questions, and involve your team
Or buy yourself time and move all your schools over Summer: Don’t think you can make a decision before Half Term? Buy yourself extra time with the break clauses, take a look at other MIS systems, and choose the best fit for your trust in the Summer Term. The first step is to join an Arbor product demo for MATs – click here to book your spot at an upcoming session
As a MAT central team, it can be difficult to make sure you are getting the most out of your data and making data-driven decisions. Whether you have many or fewer schools, making sure you have the right data to hand without the right tools in place can often be manual and time-consuming. We’ve put
As a MAT central team, it can be difficult to make sure you are getting the most out of your data and making data-driven decisions. Whether you have many or fewer schools, making sure you have the right data to hand without the right tools in place can often be manual and time-consuming. We’ve put together five top tips on how to make the most of your data using your MIS, without the hassle of having to do everything manually.
Once you’ve identified this, map out which systems the data sits in, how you get it out to analyse, and how often you want to do this.
MATs using Arbor can see this kind of data immediately on login, no fiddly setup required. Our dashboards are designed so that you can monitor your KPIs and see them in context.
This live overview is designed to give you the most important data at-a-glance, where you can benchmark phases, demographics and individual schools against one another.
As soon as you login, you’ll be able to see:
As a MAT central team, sharing data with governors and stakeholders is a key part of your strategy – but it is often challenging to gather this data easily and quickly. Your MIS should help rather than hinder you with this process, as well as complementing your favourite integrations.
All your at-a-glance updates are available on your Arbor dashboard, but for instances where you need to create in-depth reports to show to the board, there’s plenty more in your toolkit as you explore your data further.
Arbor’s Custom Report Builder, for example, is designed so that you can make in-depth reports in minutes. The end results are easy to read and share with governors or stakeholders, and you can schedule them to send weekly, monthly or termly.
For more bespoke analysis, use the software you already know and love – such as Microsoft Power BI, Excel and Google Data Studio. If you’re using Arbor, our Built-In Live Feeds allow you to export your data to all these integrations.
It can be challenging to zero in on individual pupils within your MAT, but this doesn’t mean it’s not important.
Having a holistic view over all your schools is crucial to the overall strategy of your MAT, but it’s equally vital that any blips at a student-level don’t get lost in the system.
Did you know that, with Arbor, you can see every assessment mark for each student in your trust over time? This is designed so that you can quickly identify any actions you need to take, be it trust-wide or student level, giving you just one example of how your MIS helps you to zoom in and out of the data you need.
Trying to compare data when individual schools are measuring themselves against different benchmarks is a challenge.
Encourage your schools to think as a consistent unit. You can help to lead this way of thinking by creating consistency in reporting. By setting up user defined fields (UDFs) that are unique to your trust, you can push down standard ways of reporting across each of your schools.
If, for instance, you wanted to know how many students across your whole trust walk to school or have a personal laptop, you can set these up as a unique field in Arbor MIS. All of these details will then show up on each student profile, letting you see and compare responses across all your schools.
In short, your MIS is a powerful system – let it do the heavy lifting for you!
We believe your MIS should be a mission control for your MAT, with all the data you need at your fingertips. Making the most of what your MIS has to offer means you can easily act on the data points that will help your overall trust improvement plan, be it preparing for the next Ofsted inspection or to help rethink your internal policies.
Arbor’s MAT MIS is designed to be intuitive, so that nothing has to stand between you and your data. We take pride in making sure our software works around your MAT. It actively helps you work towards your goals, giving you the right data when you need it.
Get started with using some of these exciting features for your data-driven strategy right away – login to MAT MIS here.
Not yet using Arbor MIS across your trust? Click here to learn more.
EdTech | Partners
Close watchers of the Management Information System (MIS) sector often look to the MIS switching decisions of large MATs when trying to work out the direction of the market. However, activity at Local Authority level is growing, especially the rising number of frameworks with a cloud focus. This development could, in the longer term, have
Close watchers of the Management Information System (MIS) sector often look to the MIS switching decisions of large MATs when trying to work out the direction of the market.
However, activity at Local Authority level is growing, especially the rising number of frameworks with a cloud focus. This development could, in the longer term, have a more significant impact on the MIS market as a whole.
But what role do frameworks play? Moving MIS can seem like a daunting task, particularly as many schools only have experience of their current system. It’s easy to be put off by all the consideration that changing a critical piece of software brings with it, even when the change can often be much easier than imagined. There’s a need to consider timing, statutory compliance, GDPR and security before you even start to think about how easy the software is to use or how particular features will benefit your school in the long run.
Frameworks help to take away a lot of this heavy lifting, as the framework provider conducts all the necessary due diligence on behalf of the schools. Value has already been determined and price lists set.
Launched in September this year, Herts for Learning’s (HfL’s) MIS framework is one such example – and it’s rapidly being embraced by local schools.
As Catherine Tallis, Director of Business Services at Herts for Learning, explains:
We have seen first-hand, that when offered choice and value for money, schools, settings and trusts embrace the opportunity.
We’re proud at Arbor to be the first-ranked MIS provider in HfL’s cloud-based lots. This partnership means that, working alongside the HfL team, Arbor will be supporting over 200 HfL schools and trusts move to a cloud-based MIS, which can transform the way they work.
With current changes in the market, it’s likely that the importance of frameworks will continue to grow. This could be in the form of other Local Authorities creating their own versions to best meet the needs of their schools. Or alternatively (and more cost-effectively) using existing frameworks, such as HfL’s MIS Framework (which is designed for national as well as local use), to procure in a compliant and time-efficient way for their schools.
On a personal note, I’m very proud of the relationship that has been built between Arbor and the HfL team. It’s exciting to be playing even a small part in the changes taking place in the MIS market right now.
If you’d like to find out more about Arbor and the different frameworks we are part of, please get in touch. You can email us at hello@arbor-education.com
If you’d like to find out more about HfL’s new Framework, you can contact them at misFramework@hertsforlearning.co.uk.
Arbor MIS | Arbor Updates
One of the questions we get asked most by secondary schools is how can they manage their timetabling in Arbor. So we’re excited to announce that we integrate with two of the best independent timetabling products in the world, TimeTabler and Edval! Build your robust timetables using your timetable software of choice. Then if you
One of the questions we get asked most by secondary schools is how can they manage their timetabling in Arbor. So we’re excited to announce that we integrate with two of the best independent timetabling products in the world, TimeTabler and Edval!
Build your robust timetables using your timetable software of choice. Then if you need to make any small changes throughout the year, you can tweak your timetable directly in Arbor MIS.
Arbor’s integrations with TimeTabler and Edval create a connection between your student and staff data in Arbor and your timetabling data. Build reports, collect data and gain new and valuable insights, such as how timetabling methods impact your students and staff.
For example, you might notice that you’ve a number of students in one class who are below average with their grades compared to other classes. In Arbor you can easily see if your timetable could be impacting grades. Are students who have the same class earlier in the day getting better results, could small timetable changes make a difference? Our integration makes it quick and easy to make any necessary changes to your timetable midway through the year.
Want to hear more about how you can integrate Arbor with timetable software? Contact us today.
Mental Health and Wellbeing | Popular
As schools and trusts navigate this time of tough challenges and constant change, we want to offer some helpful advice for adapting to new ways of working and managing stress. Danielle Arkwright, our HR and Office Manager, has put together some guidance on how to manage any stress you may be experiencing due to all
As schools and trusts navigate this time of tough challenges and constant change, we want to offer some helpful advice for adapting to new ways of working and managing stress. Danielle Arkwright, our HR and Office Manager, has put together some guidance on how to manage any stress you may be experiencing due to all this change. Danielle is trained in creative therapies, stress and trauma, as well as having an MA in Drama Therapy from University of Roehampton, so we’re really excited to share her tips with you.
The past two years have had an effect on the wellbeing of school staff and students up and down the country. You might have had to adapt to the uncertainty of remote working or take on more work at a moment’s notice due to staff absences in schools.
Whatever your situation, you’ve probably been going at full tilt, without having the time to step back and focus on your own feelings. We therefore wanted to share ways of understanding and managing some of the difficult emotions you might experiencing.
This period of change might have left you feeling irritable, anxious or down. You may be feeling less confident than usual and having more consistent worries about body image. You might be drinking and eating more, finding it difficult to make decisions and having trouble sleeping. Maybe you’re noticing unpleasant things going on with your body, like skin irritation, muscle ache and headaches. All of the above are symptoms of stress. I’m going to cover how to recognise and manage these symptoms.
Firstly, it’s important to say that feeling these things is a perfectly normal response to such an abnormal situation. There will be millions of people across the world experiencing similar emotions. Even if you haven’t been personally affected by Coronavirus, you may be worried about you or your loved ones getting infected, or about getting the supplies you need. You may be concerned about how future restrictions might effect education or how your school is going to make sure students are able to catch-up.
Uncertainty is one of the most difficult things to face. Not knowing when things will get back to “normal” makes us feel powerless and unsafe. You might be feeling hyper-vigilant; constantly checking the news to feel more in control. The good news? You’re not alone and there are strategies you can use to cope.
Being aware of what is happening to our bodies when we feel in a panicked state can help us to step back and not judge ourselves.
Sometimes having a stress response is appropriate and helpful, for example, if you’re pushed into a dangerous or uncomfortable situation, it’s good to trust your instincts and avoid it. However, if we constantly experience stress over a long period of time, this pressure can make us feel overwhelmed or unable to cope. This is what we call “chronic” or long-term stress, and it can have an impact on both physical and mental health.
For more info, go to MentalHealth.org
There are small and meaningful things you can do to lessen the symptoms of stress. Some of these techniques might seem simple and obvious, but if practiced regularly, they can have a huge impact on your stress levels.
At Arbor, we’ve set up a dedicated wellbeing committee, who have been rolling out lots of different activities, particularly over the last few weeks, that allow colleagues to dedicate time to mental wellbeing together. We’ve had online yoga classes, weekly group mindfulness practice, fun daily challenges and art sessions. We’re also planning to send out seeds to everyone’s home address so we can start a sunflower growing competition!
Stay connected – Even if it’s a few phone calls a week, sending a funny video, or doing an organised activity like a quiz, connecting with others can remind us we’re all in this together
Stay hydrated – You might usually be really good at remembering to drink, but this can easily be forgotten when our normal routines are disrupted. Don’t forget to keep hydrated to at least cut down on unnecessary headaches
Structure your day – Routine helps us feel secure and is a great start to managing stress. It can be as simple as eating lunch at the same time (perhaps with colleagues) or a regular time you connect with your friends
Take regular breaks and go outside – When you are tasked with taking on more work, it can be easy to allow yourself to work into your breaks. Try and take a moment to yourself where you can, such as with a short evening walk to keep your mind fresh
Try mindfulness – Now is the time for an open mind (literally!). I’d really recommend trying an app like Headspace, even if only for 5 minutes a day, to allow you to step back when it all becomes too much
Remember, some days will be better than others and if you manage just a few of these things you are doing really well. My biggest advice is to lower your expectations – if you don’t feel very productive, don’t let it pull you down. When you’re kind to yourself, you’ll allow your best thoughts to flow.
I’ve put a list together of some resources I think are really helpful, particularly during the challenges we’re facing at the moment:
For coping with the Coronavirus outbreak:
General recommendations:
Tom, our Partnership Specialist, has some reading recommendations too!
If you have any tips to add to Danielle and Toms’ lists, share them with us on social media using #ArborCommunity or on our Community Forum if you’re an Arbor school.
For anybody who would like to take some time out for themselves or discover other tips for managing stress, you can watch my mindfulness session that took place at ArborFest. Available to watch for free here. We’ve also got plenty of other blogs that can help you with different aspects of wellbeing and mental health in schools during Covid – you can view them all here.
To find out how to manage and report on the Coronavirus situation in Arbor, you can read our blog, or find practical advice on our Help Centre. If you’re new to Arbor, find out if Arbor MIS is for you with an online demo – get in touch at tellmemore@arbor-education.com, or give us a call on 0208 050 1028.
Arbor Insight | School Operations
With budget deficits affecting more than one in four schools in England this year, it’s especially important to have good visibility over your spending and income. We know every extra minute you have to build next year’s school budget will be crucial, so we’ve built the School’s Financial Benchmarking Report, an all-in-one PDF report, especially
With budget deficits affecting more than one in four schools in England this year, it’s especially important to have good visibility over your spending and income. We know every extra minute you have to build next year’s school budget will be crucial, so we’ve built the School’s Financial Benchmarking Report, an all-in-one PDF report, especially for your school.
Using your latest 2020/21 financial data from the DfE, your report gives you a ready-made analysis of your income and expenditure patterns over the last 3 years – so you can see the impact of Covid-19 straight away. It also shows you how your finances compare against schools like you nationally, locally and within your Local Authority.
With colour-coded graphs and expert analysis on each page, it’s ready to share in your next governor or staff meeting. It’s perfectly digestible for everyone in the room, so you’ll have time to explain your next steps in more detail.
Your report…
Great this term to…
The benchmarking data in your report can help you make better budgeting decisions, especially given the effect of Covid on schools in the past year. Your Governors will be interested to know how and why your financial approach to this disruption differs to similar schools, and how you plan to redirect your resources to support better outcomes for students.
Why not present a benchmarking report to your Governors at the next meeting?
For an even more in-depth review of how to make the most of your report, read our guide to schools’ financial benchmarking.
Arbor’s cloud-based Management Information System (MIS) can give you even greater insight over your performance and finance data. With live, role-specific dashboards and classroom management tools, your staff can get the data they need at their fingertips.
Watch a free demo here to see how Arbor can transform the way your school works.
Don’t forget to sign up (for free) to Arbor Insight where you’ll be able to purchase your School’s Financial Benchmarking report, as well as download your school’s free ASP report from 2019.
Sign up here: https://login.arbor.sc/auth/register then log in here in future: https://login.arbor.sc/auth/login
If you have any questions or would like any help with your report, you can reach the Arbor Insight team at insight@arbor-education.com or by calling us on 0207 043 1830.
If you’d like to find out how Arbor MIS could transform the way you work for the better, we’d love to see you at BETT (taking place 23rd-25th of March 2022)! Register here to meet us over lunch or tea and coffee.
Arbor Updates | MATs
The wait is over – our biggest ever release for MATs is here! When we launched our group-level MIS a few years ago, we knew that we wanted to give trusts and other central teams clear visibility into their schools, an easy way to manage reporting, and a seamless login to school MIS experience. Today
When we launched our group-level MIS a few years ago, we knew that we wanted to give trusts and other central teams clear visibility into their schools, an easy way to manage reporting, and a seamless login to school MIS experience.
Today we’re excited to release the next wave of features to build on that goal. We’ve listened to your feedback and have been busy over the past few months. We have re-shaped our vision and built out new features to make MAT MIS a true mission control for your central team.
Rather than just helping you to see and share your data, our updated MAT MIS is now built to help you run your trust as one cohesive unit, take context-driven actions, and support your central team in adding value to your schools.
What’s new:
We know that MATs handle assessments in lots of different ways – some prefer to standardise their approach, whilst others let individual schools decide.
Previously, MAT MIS let you see summative assessment data across your trust. In this new version, we’ve added the tools to help you create and roll out your assessment policy centrally. What’s more, we’ve added a range of detailed assessment analysis charts too, making MAT MIS perfect for both managing and reporting on assessments across your schools.
You can now create assessment policies at a trust level and push these down to your schools, to give you a joined up assessment offering. The new Mark and Cohort Level Analysis lets you see every assessment mark for every student in your trust, view the raw data and live feed it out for further analysis. View assessment marks over time for every student, plot their progress and identify any actions you need to take.
We’ve also introduced Attainment Over Time reports. Compare grades across schools and filter by year group, demographic, ethnicity or gender instantly. Compare over time and drill down to Student Profiles to take action.
Your central team now have a dedicated space for their staff records! MAT MIS now uniquely includes simple HR features alongside your MIS and Assessment data. Say goodbye to spreadsheets: you can now access your Single Central Record and manage staff records, contracts and checks, all together.
When it comes to creating reports, our Custom Report Writer has always been there to give you lots of flexibility. But we know that sometimes you just want to create standard reports quickly and easily.
To take Custom Report Writer to the next level we’ve added templates for key student and staff data sets, making it faster to get going with the reports you want. Use our report templates as your starting point and customise based on your needs.
Need to report on something unique to your trust? Now you can – you can now create user defined fields (UDFs) in MAT MIS unique to your trust and push down to your schools to give consistency across reports.
Need to send an urgent message to all your staff or parents? Want to move absence follow ups to your central team? Do you have a centralised comms strategy but no easy way to deliver it? MAT MIS is here to help.
We’re excited to announce that we’ve added centralised email to MAT MIS – giving you one place to communicate with all your contacts across your trust. You can email specific schools, year groups or staff roles, and target the messaging for each.
And because we all want to know if someone actually received our emails or not, you can check what’s been sent and when, and be reassured your emails have successfully been delivered.
We always wanted MAT MIS to give your team a clear view of your schools’ data on login – no fiddly setup required. But we knew that the dashboards on your homepage needed a bit of an upgrade to make them easier to use. It might look and feel similar, but your new homepage has just become a lot more powerful!
You can now filter by school or cluster, and with sticky filters you can create a filter and it will stay there until you change it. You can then share with colleagues by copying and pasting the unique filter URL.
See the schools associated with you in the new My Schools section – letting you focus on what needs your attention most.
We’re excited to launch this new feature set, and hope they’re a real game changer when it comes to managing your trust and collaborating with your schools.
If you don’t yet use Arbor, we’d love to speak to you: email hello@arbor-education.com and one of our lovely team will be in contact.
Already using our MIS and want to get started? You can do so by reading our Help Centre articles or speaking to your Account Manager.
We look forward to hearing your feedback.
If you’d like to read more blogs perfect for MAT staff, get stuck in with our MAT MIS series.
P.S. You may know MAT MIS as Group MIS. New name, same vision but with added features!
Arbor Community | Arbor Updates
Click here to find out about ArborFest: The New Features Edition, taking place virtually on May 5th, 2022. It’s not too late to get your tickets to ArborFest, which is now just days away! We’re looking forward to bringing leading schools and MATs from across the country together, with the shared goal of transforming the
Click here to find out about ArborFest: The New Features Edition, taking place virtually on May 5th, 2022.
It’s not too late to get your tickets to ArborFest, which is now just days away! We’re looking forward to bringing leading schools and MATs from across the country together, with the shared goal of transforming the way we work.
This year, we have six different (virtual!) stages, each packed with talks, workshops, and masterclasses on both the 2nd and 3rd of December.
Browse and book your free tickets by stage below or click here to see our full programme.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, with partner talks and a brilliant mindfulness workshop by our very own Danielle Arkwright making up some of the other must-see moments within ArborFest.
Stay in the loop by following us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
And if you haven’t already, join the Arbor Community – your online space to ask questions, share best practice and learn from, and support, fellow Arbor schools and MATs.
Look forward to seeing you soon!
I’ve never written a blog about a competitor before – I’m of the belief that you should just let your good work speak for itself. However, last week we became aware through public forums that ESS SIMS and ParentPay have written to schools and will be changing their contracts from an annual renewal to a
I’ve never written a blog about a competitor before – I’m of the belief that you should just let your good work speak for itself. However, last week we became aware through public forums that ESS SIMS and ParentPay have written to schools and will be changing their contracts from an annual renewal to a 3 year renewal, effective from 1st April 2022. This means however good our MIS system may be, schools would not be able to choose an alternative to SIMS until 2025….
This news has come very late in an already busy school term, and we have already been contacted by a large number of schools who want to know what their choices are. So rather than give my opinion on SIMS, I wanted to dispel a few myths and highlight what options schools have:
At Arbor and ScholarPack, we’re proud to be the UK’s most-loved MIS providers – giving schools a choice of systems which are easier to use, offer fully integrated modules, and save you 30% on average price-wise compared to SIMS.
To support schools who would like to move MIS by Easter, we’ve put together a dedicated “fast track” programme – designed to give you and your team everything you need to decide whether Arbor or ScholarPack is right for you before the holidays.
If you want to speak to me about any of the above, you can reach me anytime at james@arbor-education.com. Happy to chat through in more detail!
___________
A few clarifications
Click here to find out about ArborFest: The New Features Edition, taking place virtually on May 5th, 2022. We’re extremely excited to introduce the latest edition of Arbor’s bi-annual conference, ArborFest! ArborFest is your chance to meet (online!) the growing community of over 2,000 schools and 200 MATs using Arbor to transform the way they
ArborFest is your chance to meet (online!) the growing community of over 2,000 schools and 200 MATs using Arbor to transform the way they work.
On 2nd and 3rd December, discover six stages packed with sessions designed for schools and MATs of all sizes. There’s something for everyone, whether you’re already using Arbor or just want to get a behind-the scenes look.
Join us for masterclass sessions, where you’ll learn new tips and tricks on specific Arbor modules, an interactive workshop on mindfulness, and feedback forums where you can help shape our roadmaps!
For the first time we’ll be combining our best-selling, MAT Conference series, “Building a Resilient Trust” with ArborFest. In the next couple of weeks we’ll be launching a dedicated MAT stage at ArborFest, full of thought leadership talks from experienced MAT leaders from across the country. Keep an eye out in your inbox for your special invite to this.
Plus, Dr Emma Kell will be giving a keynote speech on building resilience and creating a sustainable work-life balance, there are talks from Arbor’s CEO and Chief of Customer Success, and the best thing is – it’s completely free!
Click here to see the full programme and book your free tickets!
This year we’ve got sessions including:
Sign up for the keynote speech from Dr Emma Kell here – everyone is welcome!
Who should come?
ArborFest is open to all schools and trusts – whether you already use Arbor MIS, or are interested in learning more about us. We’ve also curated special sessions for the partners we work with.
How can I join ArborFest?
ArborFest is completely free to attend. All you need to do is:
What do I need to join ArborFest?
All you need to join a session at ArborFest is a computer, laptop or tablet, and a good internet connection. If you’re joining a Feedback Forum, you’ll also need a microphone and video camera so you can share your ideas with the group.
Stay in the loop by following us on Twitter or LinkedIn!
Look forward to seeing you in December!
We’re proud to announce that Academies Enterprise Trust, one of the largest mixed-phase academy trusts in England, has just chosen Arbor MIS for its 57 schools. More schools switch to Arbor than any other MIS, and we now support the three largest primary and secondary MATs in the UK! AET’s schools will join our growing
We’re proud to announce that Academies Enterprise Trust, one of the largest mixed-phase academy trusts in England, has just chosen Arbor MIS for its 57 schools. More schools switch to Arbor than any other MIS, and we now support the three largest primary and secondary MATs in the UK!
AET’s schools will join our growing community of over 2,000 schools and 200 MATs who have all chosen Arbor to help transform the way they work – including REAch2, the largest primary school MAT, who moved to Arbor in 2018, and United Learning who moved in 2020.
James Browning, CIO at Acadmies Enterprise Trust said:
“We are delighted that our schools will soon be able to benefit from the partnership we have formed with Arbor. As a trust we are striving to provide the best possible data and technology services to schools and Arbor MIS will form a critical part of these services.
We recognise the strategic importance of a partner too; one that can support our ambitions in using technology to support brave data led decisions and ultimately help launch children into remarkable lives, and Arbor have proven themselves to be fully aligned to this vision.”
James Weatherill, CEO at Arbor, said: “We are incredibly excited to be working with James and the team at AET to use Arbor to help schools transform the way they work and make a lasting positive impact to outcomes for their students. We’re proud that Arbor is now the MIS of choice for the largest mixed-phase MATs with secondary schools and can provide the infrastructure to help trusts scale sustainably from start-up to scale-up and beyond.”
For MATs: Arbor’s MAT MIS lets you work across all your schools from one central system, so you can collaborate more easily and really understand what’s going on. Arbor allows you to track performance from a distance, compare data across schools, manage your staff, and communicate with everyone centrally.
For Secondary Schools: Our MIS for Secondaries lets you analyse your data in any way you like. Choose our out-of-the-box Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards, or securely export your data to external analysis tools like PowerBI, Google Sheets or Excel. Roll out your behaviour policies consistently and automate time-consuming follow-ups such as booking detentions and notifying parents. Arbor also includes end-to-end exams management, cover planning, timetabling, and interventions management.
For Primary Schools: With Arbor for Primaries, daily jobs like chasing absent students and following up on incidents are simple and painless. Our MIS brings all your student and staff data together so you can easily spot patterns, and get the data you need at your fingertips to tell the full story of each pupil as they progress through school. Our primary schools love our lightning-fast registers and simple census tools too.
Academies Enterprise Trust is the latest MAT to choose Arbor – joining trusts like United Learning, REach2, Aspire, Diocese of Salisbury Academy Trust, Red Kite, LEO Academy Trust, Wellspring, and Hoyland Common Academy Trust who have all moved to Arbor in recent years.
Over 1,000 schools, and 100 trusts, are likely to switch MIS this year. See why more choose Arbor than any other provider at: www.arbor-education.com
If you’d like to read more of our content for MAT leaders, get stuck in with our MAT MIS series, or our latest ebook on how to create a cohesive culture across your trust.
We’re delighted to announce that Scomis is now an accredited support partner for Arbor MIS! Scomis is a leading specialist in school support services, working with over 810 schools and MATS across England in 53 local authorities. Scomis pride themselves on providing the highest levels of service which empower everyone at all levels within a
Scomis is a leading specialist in school support services, working with over 810 schools and MATS across England in 53 local authorities.
Scomis pride themselves on providing the highest levels of service which empower everyone at all levels within a school or multi academy trust – from teachers to administrative staff and senior leadership teams. They have already ensured that their team is accredited to advanced level to support and train Arbor schools which really highlights their commitment to making sure their schools have outstanding support from the get-go.
Arbor MIS (Management Information System) is the hassle-free way for schools and trusts to get work done.
Whether you’re a primary, secondary or MAT, Arbor helps make your essential daily admin more powerful and less stressful – so everyone from your back office to your SLT can get on and focus where it matters most.
We’ve already helped more than 1900 schools and 200 MATs make the switch to our smarter cloud-based MIS.
Lorum ispum
We’re thrilled to say we are now working together to give schools the option to switch to Arbor MIS and take their support from a trusted educational ICT partner.
Working with Arbor and Scomis together gives your school or trust:
1. A cloud-based MIS which makes your essential admin and day-to-day work hassle-free
2. Access to the right data at the right time through our built-in live dashboards and custom report builder
3. Peace of mind that systems and processes are running as they should be, so that you can concentrate on teaching
4. An MIS Support Team who will help you save time on data management, help you embed your MIS and use it effectively to deliver improved outcomes
5. Direct, fast and responsive access to support experts who’ll be on hand whenever you need- Scomis has specialised in MIS support for over 40 years and is committed to delivering service excellence.
Part of Devon County Council, Scomis has traded as a not-for-profit organisation for 40 years. Any small surpluses they make are reinvested to the benefit of the public sector so that they can continue to go above and beyond for their schools. What’s more, their services are not limited to schools within the Devon area only.
To find out more about switching to Arbor with Scomis contact scomis@devon.gov.uk / 01392 385 300
Arbor Updates | EdTech
What is the EdTech Demonstrator Programme? If you’ve not heard of it, the EdTech Demonstrator Programme provides publicly-funded schools and colleges in England with access to free, tailored, peer-led advice and guidance to help develop their use of technology in support of effective teaching and learning. This follows on from 4,000 schools and colleges benefitting
If you’ve not heard of it, the EdTech Demonstrator Programme provides publicly-funded schools and colleges in England with access to free, tailored, peer-led advice and guidance to help develop their use of technology in support of effective teaching and learning.
This follows on from 4,000 schools and colleges benefitting from the programme in 2020-21, which launched shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic enforced an extended period of remote teaching and learning.
The programme provides peer-led support via a network of over 40 EdTech Demonstrators across England. The EdTech Demonstrators have shown they use technology effectively and have the capacity to help other schools and colleges do the same. The peer-led approach delivers the sharing of learning, upskilling of staff and encourages continuous development for all involved.
The programme offers help on a range of topics, including:
Sign-up to any of the below sessions to get a feel for for the programme and how it can help your school
Strategic Leadership and Creating Change
When developing your digital strategy, teaching and learning should be at the centre of your thinking. In this webinar Edtech Demonstrators will discuss the activities a senior leadership team can do to identify the teaching and learning foci for the implementation of technology.
Sign-up here
Effective Use of Technology to Support the Processes of Teaching and Learning
Technology plays a key role in our leisure, work and education, whether we are adults or still in school or college. This webinar will showcase the work being done by some of the EdTech Demonstrators to support their communities – staff, students, pupils and parents – to develop strategies to improve their digital wellbeing.
Making teaching as impactful as possible when using technology requires 3 key ingredients – appropriate classroom technology, pupil access beyond school, and very clever tools. The EdTech Demonstrators will discuss how they have brought these 3 elements together to gain the most benefit for their staff and pupils/students.
Technology Solutions; Platform Functionality
Five Edtech demonstrators will pitch their choice of the most effective KS2 learning applications to those on the webinar. The audience will then have an opportunity to vote, allowing the winner to further demonstrate how the tool supports effective teaching and learning in the classroom.
If you’d like to find out more or would like to access support from the programme you can register your interest here.
Staff in schools are under a lot of pressure. With regular inspections, reporting requirements and funding cuts, staff are working longer hours than ever to keep up. Overload and burnout are common problems, as a large proportion of staff time is taken up with admin tasks, data analysis and additional duties. According to the DfE’s
Staff in schools are under a lot of pressure. With regular inspections, reporting requirements and funding cuts, staff are working longer hours than ever to keep up. Overload and burnout are common problems, as a large proportion of staff time is taken up with admin tasks, data analysis and additional duties.
According to the DfE’s 2016 Teacher Workload Survey, staff spend approximately eight hours a week on administration, much of which is taken up by behaviour management and escalation, and a further 3.8 hours on parent and guardian interaction. Senior Leaders spend around 4.4 hours a week on data analysis alone.
Teachers, for whom more than half of their time is spent on non-teaching tasks, cite workload as one of the most common reasons for leaving the profession. 1 in 5 Teachers said in 2016 that they intend to leave their job because they feel overworked. In the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), 59% described their workload as unmanageable.
Data collection and data management are two of the key areas that can cause excess workload in schools. Staff are spending more of their time collecting, entering, updating, analysing and making sense of students’ data than with the students themselves.
The reason that data tasks are so time-consuming is often due to schools having many competing systems which don’t connect easily to each other. This means they have to enter the same data into multiple places to keep everything up to date. This leads to greater chance of duplication, inaccuracy and inconsistency of data.
If you’re using different systems to manage behaviour, assessments, attendance, HR and communications, it’s also difficult to get a clear overview of what’s happening across your school, or Multi-Academy Trust.
A high data workload can also mean that you’re simply collecting too much data without a clear purpose. It might be that there are unclear roles and responsibilities around the data staff are supposed to collect, or that there wasn’t a strategy in the first place for exactly why each data set was required. Having too much data leads to “data fatigue”, where the likelihood is that most data collected never actually gets analysed to good effect.
Schools can also find themselves in a situation where the data expertise sits with only a few members of staff, such as the Data Manager or someone in the Office. These staff members can get inundated with requests from colleagues to generate reports for them whenever they need to find out even the smallest of data points. As a result, reporting in schools can be slow and admin-heavy. It can also mean that staff are less likely to question or improve the processes they’re following because they’ve been using them for years.
If departmental Leads, pastoral Heads and Teachers, being able to readily access and make sense of data themselves, without having to rely on other colleagues, they’d be able to spot when something doesn’t look right faster, and intervene straight away.
Check out how SENCOs can make the most of their time and data with Arbor
During the pandemic, schools have had to pivot their plans, processes and arrangements dramatically – sometimes responding to changes to government regulations overnight. This has resulted in a huge burden of extra work for staff and even longer hours.
In Autumn Term 2020, TES reported that 84% of teachers felt stressed, whilst according to The Key, 48% of Business Managers reported an increased workload during 2020.
For many schools, their IT systems were part of the problem. As staff needed to work in flexible new ways remotely, older technology that only worked on the school’s on-site server simply couldn’t keep up, making it very difficult for staff to work remotely from home if they had to isolate. As a result, 2020 saw a huge wave of schools moving to cloud-based MIS (Management Information systems) to allow them the flexibility they needed.
Read how Orwell MAT switched MIS during covid
Governing bodies have been aware of excess workload in schools for some time. In their 2018 letter to School Leaders, the DfE, Ofsted and several prominent teaching unions gave three main recommendations for how to reduce staff workload:
The DfE also brought out a School Workload Reduction Toolkit which contains practical tools and materials that School Leaders can use address workload.
Given the significant proportion of staff time spent on data management, the DfE dedicates a section of the School Workload Reduction Toolkit to reducing data workload. The Teacher Workload Review Group also has some useful advice for managing data more efficiently in schools. We’ve broken this advice down into a six-step checklist for Senior Leaders:
Read how LEO Academies Trust launched a brand new digital strategy
Once you’ve completed a systems audit, you should discover that you can cut down the amount of systems your school uses and replace them with one MIS that can do it all.
A smart, cloud-based MIS not only saves you paying for multiple subscriptions; the right one can (and should) help you to work faster, smarter and collaborate more across your school.
Here are the three main ways a good MIS can support staff and reduce workload burden – access, automatic actions and alignment:
As school staff are having to work more flexibly, across multiple sites, and sometimes remotely, cloud-based systems allow them to do their work and access the data they need from wherever they are.
The best MIS systems not only make data available remotely but also give staff access to the right data at the right time. If staff have in-built, easy-to-understand dashboards that give them instant reports, they can integrate reporting into their everyday routines, rather than having to wait for a spreadsheet to come from the Office.
Access to the right data also makes it easy for staff to pull together a rounded picture of their students, with data from all areas of school life. By looking at academic progress and attainment data alongside patterns in behaviour, attendance and pastoral information all in one place, staff can get to the root cause of performance faster, so they can support students sooner.
Discover effective strategies for tracking pupil progress at your primary school
Since time in schools invariably gets sucked away by “busywork” (or time-consuming admin), having a good MIS that automates key tasks can save staff hours every week.
Communications
Sending communications home is one of the most essential and most time-consuming tasks in schools. It might seem impossible to automate, but the best MIS systems give staff the option to send different types of communications wherever they are in the system, which saves them time jumping over to an external app. For example, from a daily whole-school attendance report, they could filter for absences with No Reason, and send emails to the parents of those students in a few clicks.
Having a specialised Parent Portal or App is another great way to save time on your communications. Even better are MIS systems that give you the option to share information or reports automatically with targeted groups of parents. With communications built into your MIS, you’ll also have all your contextual information at your fingertips, you’ll be able to target your communications to the most hard-to-reach families. This also makes it easier to track, and improve parental engagement over time.
Find out why 73% of staff at The Parks Academies Trust say communication has improved throughout Covid-19 thanks to Arbor
Escalations
When something happens in the classroom like a negative behaviour incident, Teachers need to act fast, such as scheduling a detention. But often they end up with limited time between lessons to follow up on their admin. MIS systems that can automate escalation actions, such as assigning detentions or notifying senior staff when certain behaviours are recorded, can save staff lots of time. At scale, automatic escalations can allow MATs to make sure their schools are adhering to consistent behaviour policies.
Bulk actions
Having a system that allows you to take bulk actions (doing the same task like adding information for multiple students at a time) is also a massive time-saver. Think about how much faster your follow-ups would be if you could do these things in bulk:
Reporting
You can save hours of reporting time by setting up recurring reports which generate themselves automatically on a given basis and at a given frequency. This cuts down on the time you would spend manually gathering data and creating the report each week. The best MIS systems will also allow you to schedule your reports to be sent out to key stakeholders. For example, you could schedule a weekly attendance report to all SLT showing students with < 90% attendance.
If you rely on other staff to send you information on a regular basis, having a system that can automatically chase those colleagues without you even thinking about it, can be a huge help to your workload, too.
Check out how you can use Arbor’s Microsoft Power BI Connector to visualise your MIS in brand new ways
For Central Teams in Multi-Academy Trusts, a lot of their time is spent gathering data from all their schools so they can put together a clear picture of how their initiatives and processes are working. But setting targets, analysing performance and communicating across a MAT are difficult without centralised tools. Different ways of working and disconnected systems can also pose barriers to schools working together as one.
As MATs grow, many move towards centralising and standardising key processes and policies in order to work in the most efficient way. Having an MIS that’s designed for MATs allows you to truly work as one organisation. Setting common expectations and procedures around behaviour, attendance and assessment helps you to bring everyone onto the same page, and makes reporting and decision making quicker, too.
Find out more about Arbor MIS – the only true MIS for MATs
Arbor MIS is designed to make a measurable improvement to the way schools of all sizes work. Arbor’s intuitive tools free staff from busywork and help them work more easily and collaboratively. With over 1,900 schools and trusts, we’re proud to be the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community.
One of our impact goals (which we analyse each year for all the schools we work with) is to reduce staff workload to free them up to focus on their students. In fact, 92% users save time with Arbor compared to their previous system. 92% say Arbor has changed the way they work for the better and 81% say Arbor has improved how they analyse and understand data.
We’d love to show you how Arbor could transform the way your school or MAT works. Get in touch with us at tellmemore@arbor-education.com or 0208 050 1028. Or arrange a personalised demo today.
Case Studies
In our recent blog, we took a behind-the-scenes look at the role of the School Data Manager – a hugely important role that contributes to key decision making in schools. It’s also a position that looks quite different from school to school, depending on its size, phase and priorities. This week, we spoke to Tom Kedie,
In our recent blog, we took a behind-the-scenes look at the role of the School Data Manager – a hugely important role that contributes to key decision making in schools. It’s also a position that looks quite different from school to school, depending on its size, phase and priorities.
This week, we spoke to Tom Kedie, IT Lead at The Open Thinking Partnership, to find out about the particular challenges and responsibilities involved in his role. Read his interview with Arbor’s Senior Partnership Manager, Daniel, below.
The Open Thinking Partnership is a Multi-Academy Trust serving three special schools (Dorothy Goodman School, Cleveland House, The Fusion Academy) in Leicestershire. The trust’s Executive Headteacher, Janet Thompson, was a member of the group behind The Rochford Review, a pioneering 2016 report that made recommendations to the Government about assessment for SEN students at primary level.
Because we’re a relatively small trust, my role tends to be a “Jack of all trades”. A typical day sees me doing everything from replacing a printer cartridge, to resetting passwords, to working on our five-year IT strategy. I do have a part-time helper and the plan as we scale is for them to handle more of the administrative tasks in order to free me up to focus solely on strategic planning.
As a SEN trust, we find that the goals of standardisation that many trusts are pursuing, don’t always apply to us. For some trusts, for example, it might make sense to roll out a standard policy or IT system across the trust (such as everyone to use Chromebooks) but for us, it’s unlikely that one decision will accommodate the unique and varied set of requirements our students have. So we usually have to tailor plans and be a lot more flexible.
We had an original plan to replace Microsoft Office with Google platforms across the board, but we have to keep the flexibility of sometimes using a hybrid. For example, most of our educational work is done on Google, with our more administrational work done on Office.
I see the purpose of my role as finding ways of making staff lives as straightforward and efficient as possible through technology. I look at ways staff are working and perhaps what they’re struggling with, and reflect on better solutions. For example, when I joined, the school office was using a physical diary for events, which I knew immediately we could improve by moving online.
One of the next things we’re launching is a new Intranet using Google Sites, which will bring everything that staff have to access day to day together into one place.
Cloud-based systems give us the flexibility to allow staff access to everything they need no matter where they’re working from. Being online also means we save staff needless, time-consuming admin such as updating hard copy forms and spreadsheets, because everything is kept up-to-date automatically in systems like Arbor.
One of the main reasons we moved to Arbor was so staff could access school information without having to be physically at school. We had brought forward our Arbor implementation date to Easter 2020 which was timely just as the pandemic hit, and meant that staff could perform all their essential daily tasks (like processing payments and managing attendance) at home right away. I don’t know how this would have been possible with our previous MIS (Management Information System), which was only accessible via the school servers.
We’re also going to look into Arbor’s Single Sign On functionality which will allow staff to log into Arbor and all our Google or Microsoft apps with the same username and password, saving lots of time.
Moving to Arbor has made a huge difference to how we operate. It has not only given us more flexible and remote ways of accessing information, it’s helped us save money by getting rid of all the systems we used to use for things which you can do in Arbor.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule; some specialist systems are worth keeping alongside your MIS. But if you’re paying a lot for multiple systems to fill the gaps that your MIS can’t fill, you should question the value for money you’re getting.
The next thing we’re considering using in Arbor is the Interventions module which will allow us to create and cost specific provisions for their SEN students much more easily.
The nature of our work means our staff have to complete a high number of specialist qualifications as part of their roles. In our previous system it was near impossible to get a record of which staff had completed which training, and when they had to complete it by. Now, using Arbor means we can set up automatic checks which make it much easier to keep track of training for all staff. We’re also making use of Live Feeds to take reports out of Arbor into Google Sheets, and use conditional formatting to show us when training is due in less than three months.
Because information is much more easily accessible in Arbor, staff across the trust, including Teachers and Middle Leaders, do not have to rely on the school office when they have to get hold of contact information or other key student data. This speeds things up whenever they have to make a quick phone call to a parent, for example. Parents can update their own information via Arbor’s Parent Portal, such as when they move to a new address, and all the school office need to do is approve it, which saves them lots of time.
Arbor saves huge amounts of staff time on admin, which all adds up and frees them up to focus on more valuable tasks. The lasting impact of staff having access to Arbor remotely will also be that we can work towards having fewer site-dependent roles, and more staff who can perform tasks for the whole trust, such as routine data entry or census.
“Arbor listen, adapt and help so our school management information system is efficient and effective. We are only at the start of what we can do with Arbor and already our administration has improved considerably. It is so easy to input, access or analyse data, send information or messages to parents or staff. The visual appearance of information is clear with easy to set permissions so that security is strong.
The reporting function is very flexible, we are easily able to customise our own reports. The support and training available is very high quality, with many easy-to-follow help guides supplemented by highly effective personalised online training.”
– Janet Thompson, Headteacher, Dorothy Goodman School
If you’d like to find out how Arbor could transform the way you work, come along to our free webinars to see the system in action. You can also arrange a personalised demo here or get in touch with us at tellmemore@arbor-education.com or call 0208 050 1028.
We’ve love to hear how Arbor is helping your special school improve the way you work. Why not add a comment to the Arbor Community forum of 2,378 members? Join the online Community forum today.
Tom Kedie comes from Ekte, a leading provider of Managed IT Services and an Arbor Partner. To find out more about Ekte and how they could help your school or MAT, click here.
School Improvement | School Operations
Schools are used to change. New students come in, classes rotate and cohorts move on. Leadership changes, each coming in with a new vision for how to run the school. Schools also need to react to changes in requirements, regulation and funding imposed by the Government, Ofsted and their Local Authority. Recently the Covid-19 pandemic
Schools are used to change. New students come in, classes rotate and cohorts move on. Leadership changes, each coming in with a new vision for how to run the school.
Schools also need to react to changes in requirements, regulation and funding imposed by the Government, Ofsted and their Local Authority. Recently the Covid-19 pandemic has given schools perhaps the most changes they’ve had to deal with in years, often having to adapt overnight.
Schools may well be used to changes on a daily basis, but when it comes to implementing changes to technology, ways of working and culture, schools can learn a lot from the change management principles used in industries like tech and business to make sure changes are successful and have a lasting positive impact.
Each term and each year, staff work to cycles of continual improvement with the objective to provide the best quality of education and care to their students. From updating textbooks and materials, to adjusting teaching and assessment strategies, to training and upskilling staff, to procuring new systems (like an MIS, or piece of online learning software) – schools are always looking for ways to improve their provision, to ultimately improve student outcomes.
When changes are managed well, they can be transformational. The most successful changes have a positive impact on both students and staff, bringing everyone together in the shared goal of working in new and better ways.
Changing a system, or a way of working, doesn’t automatically bring improvement. Changes need all staff behind them if they’re going to work. Often when Leadership introduces something new, some staff are not brought into the change in the right way, they may think the change is being done to them – mandated from the top. This might mean they’re either confused or sceptical, and the change therefore might not have the desired effect.
In busy schools, one of the central concerns of introducing new ways of working is the impact on staff’s already high workload and the highly time-pressured environment they work in. Staff can be reluctant to change ways of working that they’ve been familiar with for years, fearing that learning new processes will impact their ability to do their job to their best standards.
“People should come before systems… In any systems change, if people don’t have a sense of ownership or the right skills, this simply creates an added challenge.” – Jason Brown, CFO at Bath and Wells Multi-Academy Trust
Since March 2020, schools have had to deal with rapid changes to regulations, online teaching and learning, as well as changes to student and staff personal situations, their wellbeing and vulnerability. Very quickly, schools have had to get used to totally new ways of working internally, with parents, and with other services in their local area.
As with any crisis, humans tend to react and adapt to change in a curve – which starts with panic but ultimately results in finding new ways of operating under the “new normal”.
As the dust settles a little with the pandemic, schools have started to take a step back and reflect on the lessons they’ve learned over the last year, and changes they can make to prepare themselves for the future.
Hear how six MAT Leaders have coped with the pandemic, and how they’re creating sustainable plans for the future in our new free ebook for MAT leaders.
At the top of Leaders’ minds is asking themselves whether the systems they have in place can cope with flexible ways of working going forward.
Check out advice from Rachel Coldicutt, expert on tech and social impact, on how to reflect on the rapid technological changes that have happened during the pandemic, and how to plan for the future.
One of the most important changes that many schools have undertaken is to move to cloud-based systems like Arbor MIS (Management Information System), to give them more flexibility in the way they run their school. Did you know that almost 1 in 5 schools are predicted to switch to a new MIS in the next year?
At Arbor, we’re experts in change management. We’ve worked with over 1,890 schools and MATs to roll out Arbor MIS successfully to make a measurable improvement to the way they work.
In fact, 92% staff say Arbor has changed the way they work for the better. 81% say Arbor has improved how they analyse and understand data, and 92% say they save time with Arbor compared to their previous MIS.
Any big change that you introduce at your school should be planned and implemented using change management principles to make sure the change is manageable and impactful for staff. Effective change only happens when people change their habits, which is when they are adequately prepared and buy into how the change will benefit them.
“When we bring in change, it’s not mandated from the top-down; it’s based on research and best practice – for example, when we see something working well or we see a strength that we want to embed across the cluster.” – Nick Cross, CEO at Kings Group Academies
Here are our top five change management principles from our in-house experts to bear in mind when making any large scale change at your school:
The first things to think about when you’re starting a project are why you need to make the change and what you want to achieve over the long term. The reasons you need to make the change will have a lot to do with:
Once you know where you want to be, you can break down your vision into manageable steps you need to go through to get there. You’ll then be able to track the progress you make from your baseline towards your target.
Our teams at Arbor have found some great free online tools for planning, for example Miro, the smart whiteboard tool.
When you start your project it’s important to work out which of your staff will be directly involved in or impacted by the change. Putting in place roles and responsibilities across your team will help you assign clear owners for every stage in your project.
Staff who have a positive attitude towards the project will make great advocates to promote it to others. It’s often worth nominating one of these people to be your official Change Manager (or a few), who will be responsible for leading the project.
Change Managers can work closely with other staff in a “change network” in order to coordinate communication, respond to feedback, provide support and report on progress.
When schools move to Arbor nominating a Change Manager (called an Arbor Champion!) is a really useful part of the process.
When you’re undergoing a big change at your school or organisation, the easiest thing to do (but most often forgotten) is to talk to each other. When you’re coordinating the priorities of different staff members, communication can be challenging, but keeping everyone motivated and on the same page is one of the most important aspects of successful change management.
However you create your communication strategy, remember these two top tips:
It’s inevitable that some colleagues will be resistant to changing the way they work. It’s a good idea to ask them to explain why they view the change as a challenge. It could be that they’re worried their job is at risk or that they lack the right skill set.
We recommend involving everyone who is going to be impacted by the change in meetings and decisions right from the start. It’s also important to make sure there are channels for staff to give feedback throughout your project. When schools switch to a new MIS, for example, we encourage them to bring staff into demo meetings with us early on to make sure they understand how the system will impact their day-to-day work, and they can voice any concerns.
“If you know you need to make a change that’s important to the direction for the trust you want to set, have confidence. Managing ‘through’ people is too problematic, and the pace and direction of change is not guaranteed.” – Nick Cross, CEO at Kings Group Academies
Finally, when a project comes to a close, too often we think about the problems that came up along the way, rather than celebrating what went well. Marking key milestones and successes helps demonstrate the progress that your team has made together and gives due credit to everyone who has given time to the project. It also validates your reason for the change and keeps everyone on track to achieve the longer term goals of the project.
We hope our change management tips have given you some useful food for thought when you come to lead change successfully at your school or MAT.
If you’re considering moving to a cloud-based MIS at your school, we’d love to walk you through the tried-and-tested approach we take to making the move manageable and tailored to every school, with support from us every step of the way.
We work with school teams throughout the year to move them to Arbor’s cloud-based MIS (check out our blog on how to work out the best time in the year to switch). We can also manage the whole process 100% remotely – we’ve moved over 700 schools to Arbor since the pandemic began!
To learn more about Arbor MIS, arrange a personalised demo for your school here, or get in touch at tellmemore@arbor-education.com | 0208 050 1028.
If you’ve recently made the move to Arbor, why not share how it went for you on the Arbor Community forum (of over 2370 users!).
The way each primary school tracks the progress of their pupils through school varies considerably depending on the pupils in their care; their needs and learning styles. The areas schools choose to focus on will also be a reflection of their philosophy and ethos. How do primary schools assess their pupils? Primary schools must report
The way each primary school tracks the progress of their pupils through school varies considerably depending on the pupils in their care; their needs and learning styles. The areas schools choose to focus on will also be a reflection of their philosophy and ethos.
Primary schools must report on their pupils’ progress to the DfE via three statutory assessments and one Teacher assessment:
Apart from these tests, schools are free to track progress and attainment using their own methods, without direction from the DfE. In fact, Ofsted’s 2021 directive states that “Inspectors will not expect or accept internal data from schools either instead of or in addition to published data.”
Many use pre-made frameworks from third party suppliers such as RS assessments (PIRA/PUMA), NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) tests and the DfE’s EYFS Development Matters framework.
Given that Ofsted does not inspect primary schools’ progress data, Headteachers may well be asking themselves, what is the purpose of assessment and why do we spend so much focused time on managing and presenting it?
It’s important to remember that when assessments are managed effectively, and in such a way that conclusions can be drawn clearly from the data, this can have a huge impact on improving pupil outcomes.
Although they don’t look at the data itself, Ofsted explains in it’s 2021 framework that “Inspectors will ask schools to explain why they have decided to collect whatever assessment data they collect, what they are drawing from their data and how that informs their curriculum and teaching.”
Since the introduction of the “Assessment Without Levels” approach in 2014, there has been little guidance for primary schools on how they should assess. As a result, many schools have a sense of working in isolation without measures of best practice. The ways that schools are held accountable has also changed, with less intervention from Local Authorities and many schools transitioning to academies within a MAT.
For many primary schools, “Life without Levels” has prompted them to rethink the methods and systems they use for tracking pupil progress, and whether they’re suited to their needs.
The stages of a school’s yearly assessment cycle – setting up, collecting, adding and analysing data, as well as actioning interventions – increase staff workload, whilst they’re juggling lots of competing responsibilities across school.
With admin tasks taking up a shockingly large amount of time for Teachers and Middle Leaders (4.2 and 5.7 hours a week respectively*), many find they don’t have time for formative assessments at all.
*GSR Teacher workload survey 2016.
Check out our tips for saving hours a week on admin here.
The majority of primary schools tend to rely on manual methods of tracking progress, such as spreadsheets or even paper! These methods may have been used for years, but are very time-consuming to enter, check and analyse data. They’re also much more prone to human error and bias.
Some schools subscribe to online progress trackers which give them a wide range of frameworks to choose from, and crunch the data for them. The downside of this method is that schools’ data is not linked to all the other data that they hold about each pupil in their MIS (Management Information System), which makes it difficult to understand the wider context of factors behind pupils’ attainment.
See our guide to finding the right system for tracking pupil progress below.
The pandemic and the restrictions that have come with it, have not only put an added strain on staff time, they’ve also raised new concerns for pupils’ wellbeing and set some pupils back in their academic progress. Staff and pupils have had to adapt to online or blended teaching and learning – which will be here to stay for many classrooms going forward.
Covid also made schools re-evaluate and reflect on how they measure and track pupil progress, with questions such as:
When the assessment cycle goes smoothly, staff at all levels have quick and easy access to the data they need to really understand which pupils are on track, and take the right action straight away to support those who are struggling.
When planning your next year’s assessment cycle, here are some of the most important things to remember, put together by former Arbor Assessment Trainers Jackie Gazeley and Patricia Beechey. Check out their bios below.
It might seem like you’ve always done assessments in the same way – either using trusty spreadsheets or a subscription to an online tracker. But have you ever thought about how much time it takes to input or upload assessment data manually every cycle?
The analysis reports might be just what you need, but do they give you the fullest picture of how pupils are doing across their whole life at school – including pastorally, in behaviour and attendance?
Using the Assessment feature within your MIS might well be the answer. Here’s our comparison of assessment solutions so you can see what we mean:
It’s also worth bearing in mind the benefits of a cloud-based system (rather than a system that stores your school data on a server). Check out our blog for more info.
When choosing the framework you’re going to use to track pupil attainment, you should gear it to the way you visualise progress at your school. There’s no right or wrong way to track, but watch out – some assessment tracker products give you tons of choice which can leave you not knowing where to start.
From our work with schools, we’ve actually found that the foundation of most approaches are either a Flat or Rising grade scale. Find out how to work out which is right for your school with our handy quiz. Here’s a quick comparison to get you thinking:
From September 2021, the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) framework and Development Matters guidance are changing. Find out more from the DfE here.
Find out how Arbor can help with the new framework, whether you’re an early adopter of the new framework or will change over in September.
It’s important to make sure you establish a way of working in assessment that makes it as easy as possible for staff to input and access the data they need, and to cut down on the number of steps it takes to act on the results (e.g. to follow up with parents, or to set up an intervention).
Here’s a few more tips to cut down staff workload:
When it comes to analysing your assessment data, it’s good practice to make sure there’s a closed feedback loop which makes clear how you’ll adapt provision, teaching methods or whole school initiatives based on the findings of your results.
As Ofsted states, its “Inspectors will be interested in the conclusions drawn and actions taken from any internal assessment information, but they will not examine or verify that information first hand.”
Make sure it’s clear to key members of the school community the next steps you’re putting in place to support pupils and groups of pupils, staff and whole school development. Everyone has a role to play:
Jackie Gazeley
Jackie has been working with schools as an Arbor Trainer since Autumn 2017 specialising in assessment. Before Arbor, she was a Teacher for 32 years in a range of schools, a SENCO and Behaviour Lead in three different schools, and then a Headteacher for 12 years in two inner-city Primaries.
Patricia Beechey
Patricia has more than 40 years of experience in education. As a teacher she has both taught in and worked with, a wide range of schools across the UK and internationally. Her roles within schools have been varied, but include 17 years as a Headteacher, leading an outstanding primary school. Since leaving Headship, Patricia has continued to work as a freelance Education Consultant for both the International Values Education Trust and Arbor Education.
Arbor Assessments for Primary Schools is more than a tracker – it’s an integral part of your MIS. Capture pupil progress alongside attendance and behaviour, and build a rounded view of your pupils from Early Years to Year 6 – at last.
Understand your data using familiar Arbor tools, and create interventions or follow up straight from your Assessment data. Plus, because Arbor has in-built communications, it’s easy to keep colleagues and parents in the loop.
“It is both clear and detailed. Arbor assessment has completely changed how we report to both children and parents as they are able to see what progress has been made both in a granular way and in broader terms.”
– Anthony David, Executive Headteacher, St Paul’s Church of England Primary School and Monken Hadley School
Already using Arbor? Find out how easy it is to set up and use our built-in Assessments feature – including ready-to-go assessment approaches. Get in touch with your Account Manager today at: account.management@arbor-education.com.
New to Arbor? We’d love to show you how Arbor could not only transform the way you manage assessments, but could make a measurable improvement to the way your primary or secondary school works more widely. Get in touch to book a personalised demo today.
Case Studies | MAT Operations
As part of our popular webinar series for MAT Leaders – “Building a Resilient Trust” – Arbor’s CEO, James Weatherill spoke to Anna Hennell James, CEO of Orwell MAT about her strategies for guiding her trust successfully through Covid-19, as well as how to plan for the future. Anna talked specifically about her decision to
As part of our popular webinar series for MAT Leaders – “Building a Resilient Trust” – Arbor’s CEO, James Weatherill spoke to Anna Hennell James, CEO of Orwell MAT about her strategies for guiding her trust successfully through Covid-19, as well as how to plan for the future.
Anna talked specifically about her decision to move Orwell to a new cloud-based MIS in order to work more effectively as a Central Team during the pandemic and going forward.
You can catch up on Anna’s interview, which took place on 24th February 2021, below. If you’re a fellow MAT Leader, it has some great practical tips on that you can take back and reflect on for how to lead your own trust through this next stage of the pandemic.
You can also catch up on key interviews from the rest of the series in our exciting new ebook. Download your copy of the free ebook for MAT leaders here.
Orwell Multi Academy Trust was founded in 2017 and is made up of six primary schools in Suffolk. Several of the schools are in areas of high deprivation, with high rates of free school meals and pupil premium. One of the schools is currently being sponsored. Prior to being CEO, Anna Hennell James was a Headteacher at one of the schools in the trust. She’s worked in education for her whole professional life. Orwell MAT switched from SIMS to Arbor’s cloud MIS in September 2020.
We chose to change our MIS system for a variety of reasons, and we carried on with the decision even when the pandemic hit. When we formed the trust, we shouldn’t have been quite so reluctant to maintain the status quo. Having seen the impact of changing systems, the only thing I’d say in retrospect is that I wish we’d done it sooner!
The biggest driver was the frustration of staff who work centrally. We’re a relatively small trust and a pretty small team, so we don’t have huge capacity. Any time we wanted any information around employees and staffing, or pupil data and attendance, I had to contact each school separately.
To start with, we felt that was something we could live with, but it soon became frustrating. If trustees asked us for information, it was a pain to have to ask busy schools to send it over. I’d then have to collate it and pull it together myself. It became quickly apparent that we needed something that did this for us, and could show us all schools at once. We needed a cloud-based system.
We involved quite a lot of people in the decision, but on a manageable scale. In January of 2020, I attended BETT (British Educational Training and Technology Show) with our CFO, a couple of Headteachers, plus a couple of Teachers. I thought it was important for people who would be using the system to come along to see what was on offer.
After having narrowed it down a bit, we arranged demonstrations and, by the time they all happened, everything had moved online. At the demonstration stage, we involved all of the Headteachers and Office Managers. Because we had so many different stakeholders involved in the decision, we managed to cover all aspects, and it meant we were confident in making the right decision for everyone. That’s the approach we take on any kind of change that we’re going through. If we’re looking for a new system or a new project, we always hunt in a pack.
When we first started looking for a new system, we hadn’t planned to roll it out as quickly as we did. When we realised it could be relatively straightforward, we brought the switch forward. One of the things that helped us was a basic Excel spreadsheet, a bit like a Gantt chart which had all the things that were going on across the trust. When we started looking at making the change, we plotted it in and we could see what else was happening and where pinch points might be.
We made the decision to switch on 1st September 2020 and gave ourselves the Summer Term to get trained and ready. Starting the new school year on a new system was great because it meant no one could procrastinate. It was actually a very smooth process.
To be honest, not very. I think that’s because, although people were very familiar and comfortable with the systems they were using, they recognised that they weren’t the most efficient and that it was quite difficult to get the information they wanted out. Once people had seen the demonstrations of Arbor and could see what it could do, they were positive about the change.
We also had a couple of eager Headteachers who wanted to start even sooner and were asking if there was a test site to practise on, which there was. That was really helpful because people felt they could go in in their own time and have a play around. This built confidence and, once those Headteachers started sharing what they found, the excitement rippled out and encouraged more people to start getting involved. By the time we actually hit the date to press the button and switch, people were already feeling confident and were ready to make the move over.
I don’t think we’ve been disadvantaged at all by the training not happening in person. In fact, I think people preferred it because some Office Managers chose to do the online training from home so they weren’t getting interruptions in the office. We were able to offer adjusted timings for training, and the beauty of it was that it was all recorded and sent out straight after each live session.
Arbor also provides very comprehensive workbooks and instructions and the Help Centre is really intuitively organised. Our team felt they could help themselves and get ready for the change. Plus, they had the option to speak to somebody if they needed to, so people felt there was a lot of support around it. It has made us discuss the other sorts of training we do at Orwell, because whilst we all miss being in the same room as each other, it’s definitely the most efficient and effective option.
I don’t think anything went hugely wrong. One thing that happened was we ended up with four schools going live on 1st September and two going live on 1st November. In hindsight it would have been better to have everyone go live at the same time. From 1st of November, we’ve had everybody using the system and that’s been when we’ve seen the real impact of it.
Any fears about losing data or children disappearing off the system, never materialised. There were only a few little issues around historical data that were transferred in, but this was due to mistakes in the old system and it was fixed very quickly.
When we were looking, we wanted to be sure the other systems we use would sync with the MIS. For example, we use CPOMS across all of the schools for recording safeguarding and Inventory for door systems, which all sync with Arbor.
The move to Arbor is causing us to reflect on our culture and our approach, as well as the systems we’re using. It highlighted the fact that, although we mostly leave our schools to do what they do best, there are times when it could be beneficial to have more consistency and alignment. For example, as a trust we’ve never imposed a particular way of doing assessments. Assessment data that comes to me is always summative, and the formative process that people go through in schools is up to them. We’re now realising that if we can have a singular system that everyone is putting data into, it would be transformative. We now have an assessment working party who have had training from Arbor on the Assessment module and we’re getting a few bits personalised. This will help us become more of a joined-up trust with more robust discussion and moderation because we’ll be comparing like for like.
I don’t think we would have changed anything because the process was well managed and there was a lot of hand-holding throughout. Everybody was given a really clear timeline of dates and deadlines and I had weekly meetings with the schools to check in and receive feedback on any issues that might be cropping up. The Arbor team is clearly very experienced at doing the process.
It’s made a huge difference and made our lives a lot easier. We get an overview of the trust as soon as we log into the Group MIS dashboard, and we can also drop into individual institutions to get things. I have absolutely loved the Covid-19 attendance dashboard for each school because when I’m reporting to trustees or to the RSC on attendance, or the proportion of our students with EHCPs or FSM, it’s all there for me. I just love it.
It’s also been great in terms of openness between the trust team and the schools because the schools know that we’re working in the same system. We don’t have permission to change anything, but they know what we can see. This has led to discussions around more open sharing of other things.
There’s so much you can do in Arbor that we’re not necessarily doing. One of our schools that is keen to use Arbor to its full capacity is using it as the place to record all their staff performance management. The Headteacher has given me access to that so I can go in and get a sense of what’s being worked on across the whole school and how that compares to the other schools. It’s generating conversations around the commonality of need for CPD in particular areas such as leadership development. It’s changing our way of thinking about a lot of things and we’re only at the very early stages of using it.
I’d say if you’re going to change MIS, make sure you include the right people in the decision making process.
It’s also not as scary as you think. You can often delay these things if you think it’s not the right time. But honestly, our move was incredibly smooth. It was a really tight, well managed process with clear systems, clear lines of communication, good contact and support for everyone involved. This has carried on once we moved over. I think if you can pick the right system with the right support, you can feel confident that even if there are some glitches, they’ll be managed quickly. If we’d had done it four years ago it would have made our life so much easier.
Data and Insight | School Operations
School Data Managers play a vital role in how schools run, yet they can sometimes get forgotten. Doing everything from resetting passwords, to churning out graphs and spreadsheets – it’s a really varied role. Often as one of the only members of staff with highly technical skills, it can sometimes seem like magic how Data
School Data Managers play a vital role in how schools run, yet they can sometimes get forgotten. Doing everything from resetting passwords, to churning out graphs and spreadsheets – it’s a really varied role.
Often as one of the only members of staff with highly technical skills, it can sometimes seem like magic how Data Managers are able to transform data into something understandable for other staff. But behind the scenes there’s a lot of (usually manual) work involved.
Arbor Key Account Manager, Leanne, who worked as a Data Manager for almost 12 years, mostly for large secondaries in London, shares her insights into what this important role involves day to day.
“Being a Data Manager is a really rewarding role, especially in the right school and I am lucky to have worked in some of them. I loved my job, loved helping people and seeing small things I did have big ripple effects on the staff and students I worked with.”
The role of Data Managers is varied and complex, with the results of their work driving a lot of the decisions made in schools. Depending on the school, the Data Manager will either be relatively specialised on data analysis or perform quite a generalist role, covering IT and systems admin. Some Data Managers are responsible for exams and timetabling, whilst some schools have separate Exams Officers and Timetablers. Schools also usually have a separate Attendance officer who handles attendance data.
The general areas of oversight for a Data Manager are usually managing the core systems of the school, including the MIS (Management Information System), collecting data from Teachers, generating key reports for SLT and Heads of Department, and managing statutory reporting and census.
Data Managers are expected to be the expert on everything about all software in the school. A large part of the role is therefore training colleagues on how to use new systems, as well as supporting them on how to manipulate and learn from data.
In busy schools, staff roles often include lots of other responsibilities around school, and the Data Manager is no different. They will commonly have lunch or break duties, and will often help colleagues out with general daily tasks like answering calls, covering reception, post, collecting students from classrooms and taking them to reception.
Data Managers often have to also respond to urgent queries or requests from colleagues that could come at any time, sometimes when they’re halfway through doing something else. The most time is usually taken up with working out exactly what the staff member is looking for, for instance what they want to use that piece of data or report for, before they can work out a solution.
System admin
Managing data
Data analysis and reporting
Statutory reporting and census
Data collection
IT support
General admin
Arbor’s built-in data dashboards give staff at all levels accessible data they can understand and act on day to day. In fact, 81% of Arbor users say Arbor has improved how they understand and analyse their data.
Data Managers say this helps reduce their workload as staff can complete their routine reporting without having to go to their Data Manager for every small request. Instead, Data Managers have more time to get on with the deeper, more satisfying analysis that they love. Our Microsoft Power BI Connector, for example, makes it easy to explore Arbor data in the popular analytics tool, Power BI.
Read more about Arbor’s Microsoft Power BI Connector here. If you’re an Arbor school and you’d like to get started with our Microsoft Power BI Connector, get in touch with your Account Manager at account.management@arbor-education.com .
Discover 5 ways Data Managers are using Microsoft Power BI today
Hear more from Kate Ferris, Data and Systems Analyst at Baxter College, about how using Arbor has transformed how she works with her colleagues.
Last term, we launched Part Two of our popular webinar series for MAT Leaders – “Building a Resilient Trust”. In each webinar, Arbor’s CEO, James Weatherill spoke to MAT leaders and industry experts about their strategies for running a trust successfully during Covid-19 and beyond. The series explored different facets of “resilience”, including culture, change
Last term, we launched Part Two of our popular webinar series for MAT Leaders – “Building a Resilient Trust”. In each webinar, Arbor’s CEO, James Weatherill spoke to MAT leaders and industry experts about their strategies for running a trust successfully during Covid-19 and beyond.
The series explored different facets of “resilience”, including culture, change management, school improvement, and finance, and gave MAT leaders the chance to hear from peers, share ideas and leave with practical tips to take back to their own trust.
In case you missed the series, don’t worry! We’ve written up all the talks in an exciting new ebook. Download your copy of the free ebook for MAT leaders here.
In your ebook, you’ll find interviews with established MAT leaders (from Ormiston Academies Trust, Academy Transformation Trust, Romero Catholic Academy Trust and more) as well as industry experts, sharing all the lessons they’ve learned from the past 12 months. They also share their advice for how to rewrite your five-year trust development plans with new, more ambitious goals.
You’ll discover how to manage change more effectively, hear ideas on what assessment can and should look like in the future, as well as the steps to making your trust more financially sustainable.
You’ll find yourself reflecting on how to prioritise the things that have the greatest impact at your trust, like how to create a culture of learning to attract and retain the best staff.
Here are the interviews you’ve got in store:
Fill in your details on this page and we’ll email you a PDF copy of this new ebook, for free. We’ll also include “Building a Resilient Trust” Part One, so you can read how another group of MAT leaders navigated the first wave of the pandemic.
Our “Building a Resilient Trust” webinar series is part of our wider MAT events programme, attended by over 600 trust leaders this year so far. We’ve got lots of other great events coming up this term with spaces still available.
On 1st and 8th July, we’re holding two intimate and interactive roundtables online (limited to 12 places each) on scaling, systems and leading successful change at your trust. The discussion will be led by our co-hosts Owen McColgan, CEO of Howard Trust and Nick Doy, Head of Data Quality at Nicholas Postgate, who’ll share how they approached a recent trust-wide systems change.
Read the full agenda and book your free spot at a roundtable here.
If you’re starting to think about a move to the cloud but don’t know where to start, our Switching Made Simple webinars are perfect for you. We’ll talk you through the process from start to finish so you can see what’s really involved in switching MIS and what the next steps would be for you. Perfect for your school level staff.
Click the links to book your spot below:
5 Ways Arbor Will Transform the Way That you Work Wednesday 30th June, 10am; Thursday 8th July, 2pm
Switching MIS Made Simple for Primary Schools Tuesday 29th June, 2pm; Wednesday 7th July, 10am
Switching MIS Made Simple for Secondary Schools Tuesday 29th June, 10am; Tuesday 6th July, 2pm
At Arbor we pride ourselves on working closely with school staff across the country to help us develop the tools that will make the biggest improvement to the way they work. 92% of school staff say Arbor has changed the way they work for the better. 81% say Arbor has improved how they analyse and
At Arbor we pride ourselves on working closely with school staff across the country to help us develop the tools that will make the biggest improvement to the way they work.
92% of school staff say Arbor has changed the way they work for the better.
81% say Arbor has improved how they analyse and understand data.
92% save time with Arbor compared to their previous MIS.
It’s also important to us to hire former educators and education experts on our staff. With over 15 former teachers and many more who know schools inside out, we live and breathe school life!
We recently asked four of our former Teachers to share a little bit about their experience working for Arbor. They’ve also got some tips for current Teachers looking to brand into EdTech, too. Watch their interviews below.
We asked Joe: How do you feel your school/teaching experience has allowed you to add value and become a success at Arbor?
We asked Stephen: What steps did you need to put in place to move into the business sector and what advice would you give someone wanting to make the move?
We asked Chris: How has your school experience allowed you to be a success at Arbor and do you also get the same satisfaction after moving over to the business/MIS side?
We asked Maggie: What were the main challenges for you moving to the business side and how did you overcome them?
Discover the live roles we’re hiring for today! https://careers.arbor-education.com/
With students at different levels, with different learning styles, behaviours and personal issues, classrooms can be hugely diverse and fast-paced environments where Teachers have a lot to juggle. Whilst keeping everyone to task, Teachers also have their own list of admin tasks to think about, technology to navigate, as well as incidents and distractions to
With students at different levels, with different learning styles, behaviours and personal issues, classrooms can be hugely diverse and fast-paced environments where Teachers have a lot to juggle. Whilst keeping everyone to task, Teachers also have their own list of admin tasks to think about, technology to navigate, as well as incidents and distractions to deal with during the lesson.
When social distancing, staggered start times and other covid restrictions are added to the mix, keeping the classroom a balanced and supportive environment has been harder than ever in recent months.
With over 15 former educators here at Arbor, we’ve put our heads together and boiled down our top ten tips for successful classroom management – from building relationships, to encouraging cooperation, to the theory behind the best seating plans. Let us know what you think on Twitter #BetterWorkingLife.
We also want to tell you about Arbor’s My Classroom – our all-in-one tool that combines seating plans, registers, behaviour management and now attainment data, to take the hassle out of admin in the classroom. Jump down to find out more.
The first tip (from Arbor Partnership Manager, Daniel) is to get to know your students as early as possible in the year. It might sound obvious, but knowing the names and a few personal details about the students in front of you helps you build their respect by showing them you care. It’s also helpful to be able to direct questions at individuals to keep everyone engaged.
It’s handy if you have a system in front of you (like Arbor’s My Classroom) that shows you at a glance your students’ names, photos, SEN status, pastoral notes, their behaviour and how they’re doing against their targets – all on your seating plan. This is particularly useful for Teachers in secondary schools who have lots of faces to remember!
The second tip (from Arbor’s Head of Training, Rebekah) is to adapt your teaching style to the space you’re in. Perhaps especially important if you’re teaching in non-traditional layouts like theatre or art rooms, knowing the types of activities that will work best in your space is key to keeping your class on task. Be aware of challenges that the space might pose, like curtains or beams that students might be tempted to play with, or corners where not everyone can see you.
To make the best use of your classroom space, it’s also vital to arrange your students in a way they’ll work at their best. Make sure you have as much information as possible about your students to hand when creating your seating plan – from demographic and pastoral information, to behaviour patterns, to academic ability, as well as your own knowledge of their learning styles and personalities. This will help you make sure they influence their neighbours positively – either challenging or supporting each other. Stay flexible, too. Be prepared to switch around combinations of students to try a better arrangement if it’s not working.
As all Teachers know, the best lessons involve less Teacher talk and more student-led learning. Arbor Partnership Manager, Andrew, recommends the best way to achieve student engagement is through cooperative learning. His top tips are to make sure group activities involve clear instructions and differentiated roles for students roles (e.g. spokesperson, reporter, researcher) to allow for different strengths and learning styles. It’s good to have a variety of tasks available to allow for students’ different starting points, and to make sure the learning is accessible and suitably challenging for everyone.
Cooperative learning approaches give students the chance to take ownership of what they’re learning. Students can also build skills in decision-making, communication, and gain self-confidence. Take a look at these cooperative learning strategies you could put in place in your classroom – from “Think, pair, share” to “Corners”.
AfL (Assessment for Learning) is all about making sure you have ways of knowing how well your students are grasping what they’re learning, so you can adapt and improve your teaching methods. The best Teachers build AfL into their lessons as a natural part of what they do. For example, to find out if the class is with you, ask an open question or, better yet, ask them to give an example, rather than asking them “do you understand?” which they can respond yes or no to.
Arbor’s Head of Partnerships, David, says AfL is also about allowing students to become more independent learners. When students are encouraged to take an active role in their learning, they can see clearly how they’re doing, where they’re going and what they need to do to get there. You can achieve this by giving students the chance to demonstrate how they’re doing themselves. For example, ask students to go to a certain corner of the room in response to a multiple-choice question, or to put their work in a colour-coded drawer as they leave to indicate how they think they did.
A recent survey of adults showed that 89% of people remember not what they were taught but how they were treated by their Teachers. Arbor’s Product Manager, Stephen, says building relationships with students was the most important technique he implemented as a Teacher. The key is knowing what each of your students respond well to, and adapting your approach to make sure you connect to them on their level.
For example, for some students who are used to a lot of shouting at home, it’s unlikely that raising your voice in a classroom will help with behaviour management. For students who don’t get any praise at home, praise will work as a motivational tool in the classroom. However, this might not work for other students who might respond better to fair, directed feedback.
The best piece of advice Arbor’s Key Account Manager, Maggie, has to share is to always follow through with what you say. This shows your students they can rely on you and is key to earning their respect. If you say you’ll help them with their homework, arrange a time and do it. If you say you’d love to watch them play football, go and watch them.
Being consistent is also central to managing behaviour. Be consistent with how you react and respond to certain behaviours and set clear expectations for all your lessons. If you say students have to stay during break time for one minute in silence, time one minute visibly and if there isn’t silence, start again. Students will always notice if there seems to be one rule for some and one for others. And remember, if you make a mistake, own up to it.
Our next tip comes from Arbor’s Software Trainer, Zuhal, who explains the importance of keeping lines of communication open with families, and remembering to emphasise the positives as much as the negatives. Sometimes it can be easy to always phone home about causes of concern. But making sure you also take the time to talk through what students are doing well (not just at Parents’ Evenings) helps build a positive relationship with parents and guardians, which will filter down to the students, too.
You should find that creating this atmosphere makes families more confident to reach out to the school for support, especially if their child isn’t showing the same behaviour at home as they do at school. Zuhal found this particularly helpful with SEN students.
When it comes to managing behaviour, Arbor’s Head of Product, Hilary, says your starting point should be that no child is simply misbehaving for the sake of it. Rather, their behaviour is as a result of a range of factors – from something that happened at home the night before, to their relationship with other students, to their emotional needs and struggles. Hilary used the iceberg model to explain this to colleagues and families – the tip of the iceberg above the water is the behaviour you can see, and under the surface is what the child is going through.
Understanding why young people are behaving a certain way will help you to look past any stereotypes or biases you might have built, such as those you might label “the trouble maker”. Allowing for what students are dealing with will help you build a better rapport and encourage students to open up and participate in class.
Get advice from Educational Psychologist Dr Rob Long on how to understand and better manage “difficult” behaviour in the classroom.
Arbor Software Trainer, Joe, shares the success he found implementing a “growth mindset” with his classes. This approach can apply both to the way you present learning material and to the language you use in the classroom, and is all about emphasising that students are on a journey of development. Instead of talking in terms of things students can or can’t do, it’s about emphasising that they’re things they can’t do yet. The main thing is to show students it’s okay to not quite get things right at first – and that actually this is the point!
Another aspect to developing a growth mindset is encouraging regular reflection on learning. Carve out time for “DIRT” (Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time), where the class looks through the week’s learning and the feedback they’ve received, respond to it and set targets for the following week. Make sure these sessions are open, honest and optimistic – allowing students to learn from and support each other.
So many things can crop up when you’re trying to keep your class engaged, not to mention the long list of admin tasks to take care of at some point during the lesson. From announcements to give, to behaviour points to award, to homework to collect, to safeguarding concerns to note. With all this on your mind, it’s best to have a tool in the classroom (like Arbor’s My Classroom) that makes admin tasks quick and easy so they don’t have to disrupt the flow of the lesson.
The former Teachers at Arbor have also been hard at work this past year developing teacher-focused features in Arbor MIS. My Classroom is our popular, all-in-one classroom management tool designed to help you organise your lessons and manage your class seamlessly – giving you your time back to focus on teaching and learning instead.
My Classroom brings seating plans, registers, behaviour management and attainment into one place for the first time. Create your seating plans using easy drag-and-drop blocks, take the register and record behaviour points directly onto your plan throughout the lesson – either on your tablet or desktop.
See key information about each of your students directly on your seating plan, including student photos, demographic data, plus how your students are doing against key targets. With all this information to hand, My Classroom helps you arrange your students in a way you know they’ll learn best.
The best part is that My Classroom is powered by Arbor MIS, which means you can follow up on absences or behaviour straight from your seating plan, without switching screens. Plus, everything you capture in My Classroom shows up on students’ profiles, helping you share information with staff across school.
If you’re new to Arbor, our Partnership Managers would love to show you how Arbor’s intuitive tools could help you transform how your school or MAT works. Get in touch to book a free demo here.
If you’re already part of the Arbor community but don’t have My Classroom, get in touch with your Account Manager to learn more at account.management@arbor-education.com
Popular | School Improvement
School staff work hard every day to improve standards and student outcomes. But it’s the responsibility of School Leaders to bring staff, parents and the wider school community together behind core values and objectives which focus their attention and efforts. As students’ circumstances have changed during the pandemic, schools have had to be flexible with
School staff work hard every day to improve standards and student outcomes. But it’s the responsibility of School Leaders to bring staff, parents and the wider school community together behind core values and objectives which focus their attention and efforts.
As students’ circumstances have changed during the pandemic, schools have had to be flexible with their resources, making quick decisions in order to prioritise what’s best for students. In many cases, schools have made vast improvements to the way they work, faster than they would have before. More students now have access to devices at home, staff have gained extra digital skills, and school communities have been brought closer together.
Above all, Covid-19 has brought to light the students who need the most support, and schools now have the opportunity now to put objectives in place that will really help them long term.
The School Improvement Plan or School Development Plan (SDP) is the central document in which School Leaders map out their strategic plans for the development of their school. Based around the school’s established values, it sets out the actions and resources needed to achieve priority objectives. It is often shared with Governors and published on the school’s website.
All other key plans, such as staff appraisal objectives and CPD programmes tie back to the SDP. The school’s strategic financial plan will also link closely to the strategic improvement objectives, in order to plan sufficient funding to achieve them.
Every school’s SDP will look different, but the most important thing about an SDP is that it’s developed based on evidence of where the school is at, and what it can realistically achieve in order to best support its students. It is also a living document that’s reviewed and updated in an ongoing cycle.
When you come to write your SDP, there are several resources you can draw on. First, refer to your four-year strategic plan which will provide the foundation of your key aims. Second, return to last year’s plan to assess what you’ve achieved and how your priorities might have changed. Third, your strategic financial plan (usually written in January) will show you where you’ve committed spending, and what still needs to be addressed as part of your four-year plan.
Next, remember you’ll need to back up each of your objectives with evidence showing why you’ve identified each focus area, and what your actions will achieve. For this, you’ll need to first carry out a school self-evaluation (SSE) which will help you judge your school’s past performance, strengths and areas for improvement. Your SDP should then align with each of the points in your SSE report.
Check out guidance from the Education Endowment Foundation on how to create school plans this year.
The first (and arguably most important) step in creating an effective SDP is to really understand your school’s performance in depth, including the attainment gaps between different student groups and the factors that cause them. You should look at both summative and internal assessment data in order to build a full picture of how students have been doing this year compared to previous years.
Discover how Arbor’s free Insight performance reports could help you prepare your SDP.
In combination with your past performance data, you can also look at data from other sources, such as:
Look critically at your performance data before writing up your SSE report. Ask questions like “Why did these trends happen?” and “Are they typical of our school?” These will help to make sure your judgments are not based on any bias or previous assumptions.
The best way to make informed judgments about your school’s performance is to benchmark against schools like you nationally and in your LA (local authority). Arbor Insight reports will help you with this, by showing you:
But you still might not know:
You can take two approaches to help answer these questions:
1. The Socratic approach – Think about your data from various angles (e.g. “Do boys underperform in reading in all year groups?”, “How does this affect SEN pupils?”, “Should we look for another reason for this?”) to uncover any hidden assumptions you might have before taking action
2. Ask “why” 5 times – This single, repetitive question is a really useful way to dig deeper into the context behind your results and again, challenge your assumptions
A big focus of most SDPs this year will be how to get students back on track after lockdown. Your Governors will need to understand the impact of partial school closures on students’ learning and wellbeing to help them review your plans for recovery.
To understand the impact of Covid-19 on your students’ attainment, you might have carried out various baseline tests, and compared these results with where students were at before lockdown. Full and broad evidence of students’ prior performance will help you reliably understand what has changed and set the most effective goals for how to get students back on track.
Think about other areas that have been impacted by the pandemic, such as students’ mental health and wellbeing. Find out how The Mead Academy Trust investigated how students’ vulnerability, educational needs and wellbeing had changed as a result of Covid-19, and the interventions they’re putting in place to support students.
Similarly, hear how Aspirations Academies Trust are banning the terms “catch-up” and “behind”, to focus on positive recovery.
Schools should structure their School Improvement Plans (or School Development Plans) around Ofsted’s four inspection categories:
1. Quality of education 2. Behaviour and attitudes 3. Personal development 4. Leadership and management
Under each category, you should map out your key objectives with actions and targets associated with each of them. A good model to use is SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed), which means making clear the associated costs, timescales and resourcing needed to achieve each of your objectives.
Get advice from education advisor, writer and speaker, Mary Myatt on how to carve out time for satisfying work on curriculum improvement.
Check out these helpful articles in Schools Week about how to improve sectors of your curriculum: Science, Maths, RE.
If you’re a new Headteacher, it can be really useful to have a look at example SDPs from other schools, particularly those with similar sizes, cohorts, or in your geographical area.
The Key for School Leaders has some great guidance and resources on creating your SDP, including a school improvement plan (SIP) template and checklists to help you implement and evaluate your SIP.
As you’re writing your plan, it’s important to share your findings, judgments and reasoning with your Governors and staff, so you can work together to perfect it. Governors will especially have an eye on how you plan to close certain high-profile gaps in attainment such as disadvantaged students.
As the school year goes on, the needs of your students may change (the world they live in certainly will!). That’s why your school improvement planning should be done in cycles; with ongoing evaluation throughout the year to help you figure out what’s working.
If the objectives you set in your SDP are measurable, you’ll know what evidence you need to look at to work out if you’re on track. The most effective way to track the impact of your school improvement initiatives is in your MIS. Systems like Arbor give you a clear, visual view of how your students are doing at school or MAT level across behaviour, attendance and attainment. It’s then easy to problem-solve your student performance and understand the root factors using relevant information such as students’ background and personal circumstances.
This evidence will show you where you might need to tweak the focus of your objectives so they have a more meaningful impact.
Got a question about how to write an effective School Development Plan? Why not ask fellow schools in the Arbor Community of over 1,800 schools? Join the online Community forum today.
Want to find out how our schools use Arbor to work faster, smarter and collaborate more? Listen to our case studies here.
2020-21 was one of the most challenging years on record for schools. From navigating changing DfE guidance, to keeping tabs on vulnerable students, staff have had a lot on their plate. On top of all this, leadership teams have had to grapple with legacy, server-based software, which slowed schools down as they adapted the way
2020-21 was one of the most challenging years on record for schools. From navigating changing DfE guidance, to keeping tabs on vulnerable students, staff have had a lot on their plate.
On top of all this, leadership teams have had to grapple with legacy, server-based software, which slowed schools down as they adapted the way they work.
Next year won’t be without its challenges, so you’ll need smart, flexible systems that can do the heavy lifting for you.
That’s why hundreds of schools are switching to a cloud-based MIS like Arbor to help them react to anything that’s thrown at them, without missing a thing. Over 600 schools have moved to Arbor since March 2020.
Check out The Arbor Guide to managing your school during Covid-19 – based on the learnings we’ve gathered from schools and MATs during the pandemic.
1. Stay on top of DfE requirements 2. Get the information you need wherever you are 3. Pivot and stay flexible
Let’s break that down…
Having a cloud-based MIS in place makes it easy to adapt to rapid changes in regulation, like socially distanced timetabling, new attendance and absence codes or key worker status.
Whatever the DfE introduces, Arbor can make updates to the system as soon as we can (sometimes even on the same day), meaning you can keep on top of new requirements. No more patches or workarounds!
You’ll also have everything you need to follow the new DfE reporting requirements thanks to Arbor’s Covid-19 dashboard. Every day, Arbor crunches the numbers for you across all the DfE’s categories, including students with an EHC plan, a social worker and confirmed cases of Covid-19, giving you everything you need to submit the Daily Form each morning.
Schools are having to work in lots of new ways – some Teachers are moving between classrooms, some staff are quarantining at home, and some schools are going into local lockdown.
In order to keep your school running whatever happens, your staff need access to their student information so they can complete their essential tasks, like tracking attendance, reporting on vulnerable students and following up with parents and guardians – all from wherever they’re working.
That’s where a cloud-based MIS like Arbor comes in, which gives staff all the data they need wherever they are, without being restricted to school computers or setting up a VPN. Plus, Arbor’s people-friendly dashboards help you get insight from your data and take action in a few clicks.
In an unpredictable term, you might have to change your social distancing arrangements, timetables and staff rotas at short notice.
Arbor gives you the flexibility to plan or switch up your arrangements whenever you need to. Here are just some of the ways the system will work around you:
Because managing your school how you need to right now is so difficult with a server-based system, the question has become not if you should move to the cloud but when.
To help, we’ve made the process of moving to Arbor simple and we can get you up and running in a matter of weeks, 100% remotely. From migrating your data to Arbor, to training up your staff to use the system confidently, a dedicated Project Manager will guide you every step of the way.
Read about how Woodland Academy Trust moved to Arbor remotely during lockdown, along with more than 600 schools!
Interested in finding out how Arbor’s cloud-based MIS can help you work more easily and collaboratively this term? Book a demo today, or join one of our webinars.
tellmemore@arbor-education.com | 0208 050 1028
People buy and sell every day, and schools are no exception. As a product manager developing payment systems, the main ‘use cases’ I consider when thinking about school payments include school meals, paid clubs, and field trips. There are a lot of other use cases depending on what kind of additional services the school provides,
People buy and sell every day, and schools are no exception. As a product manager developing payment systems, the main ‘use cases’ I consider when thinking about school payments include school meals, paid clubs, and field trips. There are a lot of other use cases depending on what kind of additional services the school provides, such as selling snacks, school uniform, items in the school shop, books, tickets for school events, and more.
The most popular ways to process payments from parents and guardians are:
Let’s discuss the pros and cons of each of these methods!
On the school’s side, cash has the major benefit of no processing or transaction fees. Parents at many schools may also prefer to use cash to pay for activities and meals – this is generally a question of demographics, as lower-income families are less likely to use cheques or have credit/debit cards as their main form of payment.
Cash does have its downsides though, from the stress of counting bags of coins and banknotes, to the security required to safely store them in school and take them to a bank at least several times per week (hello, staff time and safety).
Cheques are another way of accepting payments that mostly have similar pros and cons to cash. The specific downsides of cheques, however, are that there is a longer lag time between the parent making the payment and the school being able to cash it. This can cause problems with, for instance, having the money you need for a trip in time for every child to go, or even with cheques bouncing altogether.
It’s probably fair to say that in a lot of places this way of accepting payments is slowly dying out because of its inefficiency, and the long time needed to process money. A lot of people these days simply don’t use cheques, or even own a chequebook.
This payment method doesn’t involve dealing with banknotes and papers, everything is in one place on the screen, and the accounting is so much easier. However, this payment method is not as popular at schools because it tends to be very time-inefficient when it comes to making frequent, smaller payments of different sizes – as you do with school meals. The time that it costs to make a bank transfer is worth more than the £2.40 you’re actually sending.
Research shows that most people prefer using card payments when they can. From the parents’ point of view, card payments provide several incentives to pay reliably and on time: it’s fast and easy, refunds are simple, and they can track their payments in their account or on their phone.
Schools must always consider the fee that comes with each payment and understand whether this is feasible for them to use (remember, that lots of providers don’t use a flat fee and usually charge some percentage plus a couple of pence, which become super expensive for micro-payments that are most common in schools). However, sometimes it’s better to lose a small percentage on a transaction fee, rather than losing 100% of a payment when a parent says that they don’t have enough cash with them!
All these considerations are why we take a holistic approach to school payments and have given our MIS the ability to log cash, cheque, bank transfer, and online card payments. Arbor provides a sophisticated solution for managing school payments via the MIS and our Parent Portal. Together with taking payments for school meals, trips and clubs, it gives flexible possibilities for setting up and accepting payments for bespoke accounts, such as for books or uniforms. You can also use Arbor to audit and report on all these transactions and accounts.
This is up to you, but on balance out of all four options, it’s no secret that going cashless is the current trend in today’s world. The United Kingdom had the highest revenue rate in cashless payments among all EU countries in 2017 – more than 100 trillion pounds. More and more schools are joining this trend and deciding to opt for a cashless payment system (or mostly cashless), for simple reasons:
A payments system like Arbor will help you go cashless in a format designed for schools and integrated with all your other MIS modules.
Image 1: A screenshot of the Arbor App
The benefits of card payments in Arbor:
We are at the beginning of a fascinating journey for different ways of accepting payments, and the future may bring even more developments, from mobile and biometric payments, to things like cryptocurrencies. If your school trip funds are still tied up in a lockbox in reception though, a decent card payments system may just be the best place to start.
If you’re an Arbor customer, you can talk to your Account Manager about getting started on Arbor Payments and Parent Portal in your MIS. If you’re not yet an Arbor school, and would like to find out more, get in touch via our contact form or on 0207 043 0470.
Arbor Updates | School Operations
Working to meet the needs of a diverse range of students is a universal challenge in schools today. For SENCOs this is even more challenging, given the specific and complex needs of the students they look after. SENCOs also have a lot of student data to manage (and not to mention lots of paperwork).
Often with other teaching or wider school responsibilities, SENCOs have limited time in their days. Not only have they got to run effective interventions, they’ve also got to be able to communicate well with their colleagues to recommend the best ways to support SEN students and guardians across the school.
To be most effective, SENCOs need good data management, organisation and communication. Above all, they need good tools at their disposal that make reporting and communications as quick and easy as possible, so they can make the best use of their time.
Our in-house SEN expert, Tammy, who has over 30 years experience in working with SEN children from EYFS to Key Stage 5, has put together her top four tips. If you’re a SENCO or staff member with SEN responsibilities, these principles will help you maximise your time.
Organising your students’ SEN data in an efficient way is the first thing that will help you quickly access the information you need regularly. It’s best to identify the data you need to cross reference or report on a lot, as well as the SEN information you need to share with Teachers and other staff. Keeping this data together will save you time and effort when it comes to running reports and preparing for meetings.
It can be time-consuming to keep staff across the school up to date on critical SEN information. Having a consistent format for communicating information can help your colleagues know what to expect so they can immediately jump to the most important parts.
Find a format that’s easy to produce and to speak to, time after time. Think about sending weekly updates, sharing access to a live document or folder, or setting aside five minutes during staff briefings for SEN announcements.
As every SENCO knows, it’s vital that parents and guardians are part of their child’s SEN journey but it can be a challenge to achieve open communication between school and home. Building a rapport with your parents and guardians outside of meetings can help achieve this.
Look for ways to connect on an informal basis, such as spending a few minutes outside after school to say hello. Think about ways to celebrate students’ successes in the form of a short email, phone call or postcard home. You could even create a termly newsletter providing helpful tips and information for parents.
Provision Maps are great tools for organising your SEN information and monitoring the effectiveness of the support you have in place to meet students’ needs. They’ll also help you target and plan future interventions.
When creating your Provision Map, make sure you include details of the interventions you’re providing, with measurable outcomes and individual students’ aims and strategies. If you’re tracking intervention costs, be sure to add these details as well. Consider including student behaviour and attendance information to help you track student progress.
Arbor MIS is built to make a measurable improvement to the way schools work. It’s intuitive, people-friendly tools free staff from busywork so they can focus where it matters most – on their students.
For SENCOs in particular, here are a few ways Arbor helps you support the students in your care:
Are you an Arbor user? Do you want to grow and develop in your SENCO role? Our new CPD course – Core Skills for SENCOs – is designed to give you a deeper understanding of your data so you can make the biggest impact for your students.
Led by our in-house SEN specialist, Tammy Middleton, who has over 30 years experience working with SEN students, this online course shows you the best way to manage your data and take action to support your SEN students.
By the end of this course you’ll be able to:
Perfect for:
Get in touch with your Account Manager to find out more today! Accountmanagers@arbor-education.com
Schools have been adapting and innovating endlessly over the past 12 months. It’s been tough, but it’s also resulted in some innovative, positive changes to how schools work. To handle these new ways of working, we’ve seen more schools than ever before planning to move to a cloud-based MIS (Management Information System) like Arbor, with
Schools have been adapting and innovating endlessly over the past 12 months. It’s been tough, but it’s also resulted in some innovative, positive changes to how schools work.
To handle these new ways of working, we’ve seen more schools than ever before planning to move to a cloud-based MIS (Management Information System) like Arbor, with over 900 schools switching fully remotely in 2020.
1 in 5 schools are looking to switch MIS in the next year, so we want to make it as easy as possible for you to get all the information you need to make the right choice.
Older school systems that rely on servers make it really difficult to run your school flexibly. They also work slowly and put a huge admin burden on staff.
Arbor is people-friendly, giving staff the tools and data they need wherever they’re working from. As a result, Arbor schools work faster, smarter and collaborate more.
To help demystify the move to a cloud-based MIS, we’re running lots of free webinars this term.
From case studies, to demos, to deeper dives into core parts of the system, our webinars are designed to show you why over 1,700 schools and 180 MATs have joined Arbor – the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community.
Whether you’re uncertain of a system change right now, or you’re struggling to get your team onboard with the decision, these webinars will give you the information and tools you need to take that next step.
Check out our free webinars and events below, and pick the session for you:
1. Switching Made Simple: The benefits of the cloud 2. Discover Arbor MIS: Demos of Arbor MIS 3. Moving to Arbor: How the MIS switch works 4. A Deeper Dive: How Arbor works 5. Hear from real Arbor users: Case studies 6. Virtual Tea and Cake: Personalised demos with tea and cake!
If you’re starting to think about a move to the cloud but don’t know where to start, our Switching Made Simple webinars are perfect for you. We’ll talk you through the process from start to finish so you can see what’s really involved in switching MIS and what the next steps would be for you. Click the links to sign up today!
Switching MIS Made Simple: Conversations with MAT Leaders – A roundtable on scaling, systems and change management CEO Roundtable: Thursday 1st July, 2pm COO and CIO Roundtable: Thursday 8th July, 10am
As you’re starting the process of moving MIS, it’s a good idea to get an in-depth demo of systems on the market so you can make an informed choice. Our Discover Arbor MIS series will give you a quick introduction to Arbor and how it could transform the way your school or MAT works. It’s also your chance to ask our education experts any questions you might have.
Discover Arbor MIS for Primary Schools (live demo with Q&A) – various dates
Discover Arbor MIS for Secondary Schools (live demo with Q&A) – various dates
Discover Arbor MIS for Special Schools/APs (live demo with Q&A) – various dates
Discover Arbor MIS for MATs (live demo with Q&A) – various dates
We work with school teams throughout the year to move them to Arbor’s cloud-based MIS – last year over 400 schools moved to Arbor 100% remotely! We know it can seem like a daunting task, which is why we’ve designed a tried-and-tested approach to help you manage the change in a way that’s right for your school, with support from us every step of the way. Discover the journey in one of our short webinars:
Moving your Trust to Arbor: From Procurement to Implementation (live webinar with Q&A) – various dates
Moving your Primary School to Arbor: From Migration to Implementation (on-demand webinar)
Moving your Secondary School to Arbor: From Migration to Implementation (on-demand webinar)
Once you’ve got more of an idea of what you need from your MIS, a more in-depth look at a core area of Arbor – from assessments, to behaviour, to office functions – can be really helpful in seeing if it’s right for you. Come along to one of our live or watch an on-demand webinar in your own time:
Managing Primary Assessments with Arbor (live demo with Q&A) – various dates
Managing Secondary Assessments with Arbor (live demo with Q&A) – various dates
Managing behaviour in Arbor MIS (on-demand webinar)
Increasing Parental Engagement in Arbor MIS (on-demand webinar)
Running an effective school office with Arbor MIS (on-demand webinar)
Arbor’s Group MIS: The Benefits of moving all of your schools to the cloud (on-demand webinar)
If you want to hear how schools and MATs across the country have made the move to Arbor, and how Arbor’s smart, time-saving tools are helping them work better, check out one of our on-demand webinars:
How to move your MAT to a cloud MIS: A panel discussion with Watergrove Trust and Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust (on-demand webinar)
Why Red Kite Trust Moved to Arbor (on-demand webinar)
Why we chose Arbor MIS for Rainbow Education MAT (on-demand webinar)
Why Northlands Wood Primary Academy Moved to Arbor (on-demand webinar)
Between 10th and 17th June, we’re running Virtual Tea and Cake with Arbor, giving you an informal way to learn about Arbor’s MIS over tea and brownies on us! We’ll walk you through what the process of moving to Arbor could look like for your school, including how we can get you up and running around your time scale, and 100% remotely. Once you book your spot, we’ll send you free tea and brownies in the post to enjoy over a call with a member of our expert team.
This term’s Virtual Tea and Cake with Arbor is currently sold out this term, but if you join the waiting list we’ll get in touch with you if a spot becomes available.
If you’d like to speak to us directly about how Arbor could make a positive difference to the way you work, we’d love to hear from you. You can send us an email at tellmemore@arbor-education.com, call us on 0208 050 1028, or book a personalised demo here.
As a former Maths teacher at an Alternative Provision in Leeds, I’ve encountered more than my fair share of students and parents reluctant to get involved in school life. Here are the top five methods I found worked to increase parental involvement in schools. Why parental engagement in schools is important Parental involvement can have
As a former Maths teacher at an Alternative Provision in Leeds, I’ve encountered more than my fair share of students and parents reluctant to get involved in school life. Here are the top five methods I found worked to increase parental involvement in schools.
Parental involvement can have a significant impact on a child’s performance at school. Not only do studies show that good engagement improves their academic success it also helps with behaviour, homework, and a child’s confidence. Teachers and schools need great communication with parents and to establish an environment for collaboration.
At a school where most students had already been excluded, parents were used to receiving nothing but negative news. But effective parental engagement doesn’t mean only speaking when things go wrong. Tell parents about positive events too, with greater frequency. At the Alternative Provision, we’d send a quick text for positive events. If a student had a really good day, we’d use a phone call. Track what’s been said by keeping a communications log.
Parents Evenings aren’t just for telling parents about their child’s grades. They can also be an opportunity to talk about their social development, friendships, career goals, attitude and behaviour, and agree an action plan of how to support the child at home and at school. To increase the number of parents who attend, stop relying on sending kids home with sign-up sheets and use an online booking system, letting parents book slots whenever they want.
Image 1: A screenshot of the Arbor MIS Guardian Consultations feature
Education has changed so much since parents were in school, they may have no idea what their children are studying. Keep parents engaged by assigning homework that they can help their children complete. For primary school students, try giving tasks to read aloud. For secondary schools, let parents know what assignments their child has to complete and if it’s been submitted on time using a student or guardian portal.
Parents are most likely to get involved if they feel like they can make a real difference. Whenever parents visit or contact you, be willing to listen to their responses, answer their questions, and make them feel their contribution is welcomed. Make sure parents feel they can come to you if they have questions about how your school works, and let them know which person they should contact about certain issues.
Despite your best efforts, there will always be some parents who won’t respond to a text, email or letter. You also can’t rely on students to pass on information. Maybe they’ll forget to mention something, or they simply don’t have a good relationship. To overcome this, give parents all the information they need in the palm of their hand by using an App. Not only does this notify parents instantly, but they can also refer back to it later if they forget.
Image 2: A screenshot of Arbor’s new in-app messaging feature
At Arbor, we’re always trying to improve how we can support schools to take parental engagement to the next level. We’ve recently introduced an in-app messaging feature that allows fast, free communication between schools and parents – take a look at this article to see how else you can use our new Arbor App!
Popular | School Operations
It’s been a tough 12 months for schools across the country, with staff having to learn and adapt week-by-week to the changing situation to best support their students. With concerns around the impact of the past year on creating a “covid generation” who have supposedly fallen behind, schools are feeling the pressure to support students
It’s been a tough 12 months for schools across the country, with staff having to learn and adapt week-by-week to the changing situation to best support their students.
With concerns around the impact of the past year on creating a “covid generation” who have supposedly fallen behind, schools are feeling the pressure to support students to “get back on track”.
But is this the right way of framing the next phase of the pandemic?
For some students, the challenges thrown up by the pandemic and the cycles of lockdown have meant their situation has changed, with many becoming more vulnerable and detached from their learning. For others, the challenging time has exacerbated their existing vulnerabilities.
However, as the 15 schools within the Aspirations Academies Trust have found, the remote learning programme they ran during lockdown was highly effective. Recent assessments have found that the majority of students are where they should be with their learning. What is more of a concern, however, is the impact on their mental health that has suffered from the lengthy time away from school and their friends.
We’ve seen a lot of headlines in the media dominated by the terms “catch up”, “lost learning” and “Covid generation”, but many schools are starting to step away from this language, finding it unhelpful in creating the right atmosphere for students to thrive in.
Schools in Aspirations Academies Trust have found that these negative words actually have the effect of reducing students’ self-esteem and giving them the message that they’re the problem and need to change.
Aspirations Academies Trust are championing new approaches to “catch up”, by reframing the negative language associated with it and focusing instead on boosting student wellbeing through more creative subjects, extra-curricular clubs, and a Quality First Teaching approach.
Get advice from education advisor, writer and speaker, Mary Myatt, on how to carve out time for satisfying work on the curriculum
Since being back at school, Rivers Academy in West London have banned use of any negative language to refer to the “covid generation”, which they’ve found has boosted student happiness.
Words and phrases such as “catch up”, “what you have missed’’, ‘’you’re behind’’, ‘’we don’t have time to finish the syllabus’’ and “Covid generation’’ were replaced with “Let’s build, strengthen or enhance what we already know”, “map where you are”, “master the skills’’ and “everyone is in the same position”.
The decision was inspired by academic and author Judith E. Glaser who said “words create worlds”.
The Rivers Academy has also seen the benefit of positive language. According to Tim Wormald, the school’s Wellness Lead & Assistant Principal, “We have support zones set up for our pupils where they can come and talk to staff about any concerns they have and they have been quiet. You can see and feel the impact that positive language has had at the academy, it feels settled and the students are happy.’’
Plugging the gaps in knowledge has started by acknowledging the effectiveness of the remote learning that was put in place. As Tim Wormald explains, “The kids did make progress during lockdown. The key has been identifying gaps in their knowledge not through testing but discussions. It is their evaluation skills that have suffered because you can’t question and discuss online in the same way that you can in class with face-to-face contact with your peers. Tackling the issue has come not through extra lessons but focussing on Quality First Teaching.’’
Executive Principal at Harriers Academy, Alex Pearson, explains that the vast majority of students at Harriers also engaged well with remote learning during lockdown and are now either where they should be or only just behind. In a survey of their parents, 98.5% rated the remote learning and support provided as good or excellent.
Harriers Academy in Banbury also banned the phrase “catch up”, and instead have put the focus on boosting the wellbeing of students and incorporating “the three M’s”: Measuring, Mapping and Mastering, combined with a focus on Quality First Teaching.
Alex Pearson explains, “Once our students returned, we introduced daily “calm time” with yoga sessions, mindful colouring or simply time to talk. Each class also has a calm zone where children can go if they feel it’s necessary.”
Alex Pearson explains how they’ve implemented “the three M’s” at Harriers Academy:
‘’We have continued with the curriculum and have ensured the children have exciting topics to keep them motivated and engaged. We have focused on lots of time to play with one another and build precious social interactions with peers.’’ – Alex Pearson, Executive Principal, Harriers Academy
At Park Academy in West London, the focus since returning to school has been on interactive lessons that engage students, and increasing the number of timetabled hours for creative subjects including music, drama and art.
Principal Juan Delgado said, “Rather than having extra lessons or asking our students to stay late, the focus has been on increasing their love for learning through lessons that are engaging and interactive. We’ve also focused on increasing their passion for reading to help with closing any attainment gaps and also incorporating little “Do Now” activities in their lessons, so it’s low stakes testing. The overall aim is to make sure our students settle back into school life positively without feeling overwhelmed.’’
Increasing the number of hours devoted to PE, Art, Drama and Music for KS3 per week, has had the effect of boosting the mental health and wellbeing of students at Park Academy. According to Principal Delgado, the benefit is that “although the lessons are practical, the students are using their creativity and imagination”.
The school has also introduced an extra-curricular programme of activities which includes a wide variety of sports, such as football and netball, music, art, technology and STEM. These clubs have proven really popular with the students with numbers increasing throughout the term.
Hear how this secondary school is using Curriculum-Led Financial Planning to address gaps in learning during the pandemic
For information on how Arbor can support you manage your post-covid challenges, check out our latest blog The Arbor guide to managing your school during Covid-19.
If you’d like to find out how Arbor MIS could transform the way you work for the better, join our webinar series, which includes live demos, as well as sessions walking you through how we move schools to Arbor and work with you to drive long term impact. Check out what’s coming up and book your spot.
Parents’ evenings are an integral part of the school year. They give parents the chance to feel involved in their child’s education and the school ethos. With so much to consider – from organising, to making sure parents sign up, to keeping meetings running smoothly – managing successful parents’ evenings can be a stressful process.
Parents’ evenings are an integral part of the school year. They give parents the chance to feel involved in their child’s education and the school ethos.
With so much to consider – from organising, to making sure parents sign up, to keeping meetings running smoothly – managing successful parents’ evenings can be a stressful process.
At Arbor, we make it easy for you to manage all of your school milestones in one place, and parents’ evening is no exception. Check out our top tips to help make your next parents’ evening a success:
Busy parents need to know when parents’ evenings are coming up so they can get organised, so it’s good practice to start planning how you’re going to run them early on in the year. To give parents flexibility, you might want to run meetings over multiple dates or at different times of day (some of our schools run them in the early afternoon). Think about how long you want each meeting to last – some parents might benefit from a longer session, or one outside of the timetable you’re offering.
Make sure your schedule of meetings is realistic for your Teachers. Assess how many meetings you’ve got in a block and build in at least 15 minute breaks. It’s also a good idea if some Teachers can share the load, particularly those who job-share and might not need to do all of the meetings together.
You might have a perfectly planned programme of parents’ evenings, but making sure parents know about them can be an added challenge. The trick is to make it as simple as possible for parents to find out the details, as well as book onto a session, all in one place.
Make sure you send out key dates of parents’ evenings well in advance, including links or instructions to book their slot. It’s also a good idea to send out text or email confirmations to parents that they can refer back to, plus reminders in the weeks before.
Many schools have been running successful online parents’ evenings during school closures via Google Hangouts, Zoom or other video calling platforms. Many are continuing to run a combination of physical and virtual meetings as a useful way to engage harder-to-reach parents, or as an option for those who are particularly busy. For this to work, make sure your Teachers are comfortable using the video system, and that everyone does a practice run before the day to iron out any technical issues.
We’re all human, and sometimes let’s face it, Teachers might struggle to remember the names of every single student and parent in their care. A top tip is to have a list to hand in the meeting of your students’ key information, including their guardians. Before the meeting, it’s also helpful to gather some summary reports of each student’s performance across assessment, behaviour, plus where they compare to other students. You could print out reports from your MIS (management Information System) or show these on a device.
It’s a good idea to decide as a department or Year group a standard format for your meetings that works best. That way, Teachers have guidance to fall back on and each meeting flows. Consider starting with an overview of the student’s performance this year across attendance, behaviour and assessment. Highlight their strengths first, followed by areas they need to improve.
Some schools find standardised record sheets effective, which Teachers fill out before and during the meeting, in order to make the main points clear for parents, keep terminology consistent, and to bring a sense of mutual accountability.
The highlight of a good system for running your parents’ evenings is one that allows you to schedule meetings, communicate information to parents, and for parents to book, all in one place. The best systems also make it easy for Teachers to access all the information they need about their students’ performance at their fingertips.
Arbor MIS brings everything together, so you can manage every stage of your parents’ evenings in one platform, without having to use a separate communications app.
1. Schedule sessions in the calendar, including video links (if appropriate) 2. Invite parents by email, SMS, letter or via a message in the Arbor App (straight to their phone) including sign-up links 3. Schedule-in breaks in for Teachers in the calendar 4. Arrange custom meetings to suit certain parents 5. Confirm parents’ appointments by email or share via the Parent Portal (they’ll be able to access video links via their calendar) 6. Prepare instant reports for parents on students’ performance across assessment, behaviour and attendance, with comparisons against their class, Year and demographic averages 7. Access or download a timetable of all of your meetings 8. Access or download students’ profile information to have handy
Townley Grammar School have recently had success running virtual parents evenings in Arbor MIS. Hear from Louise Maddison, Data & MIS Manager, why it works for them:
“It’s easy to share the links with Parents and Teachers, making the whole Virtual Parents Evening very slick. No need to email parents links separately; it’s all there for them. Parents can access the booking system through the Parent Portal & App, this is a very easy process for them. They can either download or use our location links live. Teachers see the appointments on their calendar and can access their appointments via the Guardian Consultations screen – very clear.”
Head to the Help Centre for everything you need to know about setting up parents’ evenings in Arbor.
If you’d like to find out more about how Arbor MIS could help your school or MAT work faster, smarter and collaborate more, why not arrange a personalised demo. Alternatively, join us at one of our upcoming free webinars.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented changes to how schools run. Throughout phases of partial and full closures and local lockdowns, and government guidelines changing regularly, schools have had to adapt to flexible ways of working. Technology has played an important role in supporting schools to adapt, with cloud-based tech giving them reliable access to
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented changes to how schools run. Throughout phases of partial and full closures and local lockdowns, and government guidelines changing regularly, schools have had to adapt to flexible ways of working.
Technology has played an important role in supporting schools to adapt, with cloud-based tech giving them reliable access to school information away from the physical school site.
Top priorities have been ensuring key processes can continue as usual wherever staff and students are, from attendance admin, to finances, to day-to-day communications, to teaching and learning.
As soon as the first lockdown hit, schools had to find a solution to virtual teaching and learning practically overnight. High on the agenda was making sure that students had access to high quality teaching despite classrooms looking quite different.
Many turned to Google Classroom™ and Microsoft Teams, benefiting from procurement and support grants, as well as other tools such as Class Dojo, to hold remote lessons, or to share and collect in class work. Some schools were more prepared than others, and the picture of remote provision started to look very different from school to school.
Even now in a more stable phase of the pandemic when most classes in the UK are back to face-to-face, the impact of the last year is still very clear. The loss of learning as a result of lockdown is a concern, but there are also more positive possibilities that technology has opened up.
Check out advice from an EdTech expert on how schools can learn from the rapid changes in technology usage since Covid-19
The shift to online learning has highlighted vast differences between schools in terms investment and training in digital technology. What’s more, depending on location, demographics and funding, schools have differing challenges and find it difficult to provide the same level of quality when it comes to virtual teaching and learning. Some might have the resources to live-stream a full programme of lessons, whilst others might be limited to uploading worksheets. Of course, every school will find the online learning style that’s best for them; the same approach for a large inner city secondary school will most likely not work for a small rural primary school.
Those schools who already used a digital learning platform like Microsoft Office 365 before the pandemic found it much easier to transition to using it full time during the pandemic. For those who didn’t, it meant setting up accounts for students and staff from scratch. Without an integration with their MIS (Management Information System), setting up a new digital learning platform can mean time-consuming manual work entering student and staff data.
See Arbor’s integration with Microsoft Office 365 and Google Classroom™ below.
Online learning has also drawn attention to the levels of disadvantage that many students across the country are experiencing, which has an impact on how they engage with online learning. From home environments which aren’t fit to study in, to lack of internet or devices, to parents who are less able to support with school work, many schools have found it difficult to reach students remotely.
As schools have found during the pandemic, online learning can open up new issues around safeguarding. For example, when live-streaming lessons, Teachers have to think about the environment they’re teaching in, as well as what might be going on in the homes students are learning from. Many schools have created new rules and policies for online classes, including camera and microphone usage, uniforms, as well as ways of communicating appropriately. It’s also important to make sure there are clear boundaries between school and private life, as well confidential spaces for students to confide in Teachers outside of lessons.
Remote education naturally means it’s harder for Teachers to be in touch with students and to sense how they’re getting on. It’s been clear, though, that some students have had experiences during the past year which have now put them into vulnerable categories which they perhaps weren’t in before, with many feeling the impact of trauma on their mental health. As a result, Teachers have noticed the varying mental states of students as they come back to the classroom bringing with it some new and challenging behaviour to deal with.
Check out tips from Educational Psychologist, Dr Rob Long, on supporting students’ mental health in the classroom
As a result of the challenges of learning from home for many students, schools have found attainment gaps have emerged between particular student groups. It’s now a top priority to identify students who are behind, and to put in place initiatives to get them back on track. However, due to the lack of consistency of provision from the past year, schools have also had absences of student progress data which presents a challenge to analysing their data.
As flexible ways of working are looking like the future of the corporate workplace, new uses of technology could also have a lasting impact on the way teaching and learning is delivered going forwards.
Blended learning means a combination of remote and face-to-face teaching and learning activities. This might involve part of the class joining remotely, or could be a mixture of digital and physical resources being used in the classroom.
During the pandemic, schools have become used to offering blended teaching and learning, having to provide remote education during lockdown, whilst maintaining face-to-face provision for vulnerable and key worker children.
Since the chance of students and staff having to isolate is still a reality, a blended approach to teaching and learning seems to be the new normal, at least for a while. This means it’s more important than ever to have a reliable virtual learning environment that staff are comfortable using alongside normal teaching, which you could also fall back on for full remote provision if you needed to.
Even though face-to-face teaching looks to be the default again, the investment schools have made in technology has not gone to waste.
EdTech brings lots of opportunities to rethink the format, pace and content of lessons. Research also shows that technology can increase students’ retention of knowledge, and allow for more interaction, creativity, student choice and motivation.
Here are a few ways blended learning can support the classroom:
“If implemented in the right way, tech can improve and transform the way schools work so they can weather any storm.”
-Richard Martin, Special Projects Lead at LGFL
Read how LEO Academy Trust rolled our digital technology across their schools
Discover the vision of Red Kite Learning Trust for a centralised and collaborative IT infrastructure across their trust
With digital technology here to stay, schools need a platform they can rely on, that not only makes it easy to run blended learning, but will also allow for a pivot to full remote provision at short notice if you need to.
Setting up your courses and classes from scratch in your digital learning platform (e.g. Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams) by manually entering all your student and staff data could take hours or days defending on how big your school is. To avoid this, it’s a good idea to have an integration between your MIS and your digital learning platform, so that your data is synced automatically.
At Arbor, we’ve developed integrations with Google Classroom™ and Microsoft Office 365, which make managing online learning fast and secure for your school. With our integrations, all your student and staff information sync automatically into your Google or Microsoft accounts, saving you any manual data entry. What’s more, once you’re set-up, data syncs every 24 hours, meaning your information is always up-to-date.
What is financial benchmarking? Financial benchmarking means comparing your finances with other schools and academies who have similar characteristics and challenges. Areas that schools often compare are their income, expenditure, balance and workforce with either schools of a similar size or within their Local Authority (LA). Why is financial benchmarking so important for schools? We’re
Financial benchmarking means comparing your finances with other schools and academies who have similar characteristics and challenges. Areas that schools often compare are their income, expenditure, balance and workforce with either schools of a similar size or within their Local Authority (LA).
We’re all aware of the widespread funding shortfalls in the education sector, and it’s definitely a challenging time to be a budget holder in schools and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs). In recent times especially, schools have had to be even more resourceful with their budgets to adapt to the challenges of Covid-19.
Managing the school budget is a balancing act between lots of different factors, with a high level of scrutiny from Governors, the LA, Ofsted and the DfE. To make the right decisions when planning an effective budget, it’s vital to see how this year’s spend not only compares to previous years, but to other schools too, so you can see what’s working and where you could direct your resources more efficiently.
Financial benchmarking can also help you identify areas where you could cut back on spending (e.g. building improvement) in order to allocate more resources towards your curriculum initiatives or support for students and staff. This kind of analysis will be useful in shaping your school development plan.
First, for financial benchmarking to be most effective, make sure you comparing against schools that are in either the same geographical area as you, are a similar size (in terms of staff and students), have a similar demographic cohort of students (e.g. proportion of FSM, Pupil Premium and EAL), as well as student attainment. This level of comparison gives you the best chance of learning from how these schools are managing their finances.
Second, when you look at your data, bear in mind some key questions:
The DfE’s schools financial benchmarking service compares the spending, staffing structures and performance of all schools in England each year. You can identify schools like you, then reach out to them for advice via their websites.
Once you’ve looked into your benchmarking data, you should evaluate how this data will help you make the best budgeting decisions. Your Governors will be interested to know how and why your financial approach differs to similar schools, and how you plan to redirect your resources to support better outcomes for students.
Why not present a benchmarking report to your Governors at the next meeting? Some Management Information Systems (MIS) like Arbor MIS have a benchmarking portal, which allows you to compare your school’s behaviour, attendance, attainment and school context data to national averages at key points in the year. This gives you useful context to support your budgeting decisions.
At Arbor, we create Financial Benchmarking Reports each year for every school and academy in England. The reports give you an overview of all your income and expenditure over the past three years, with comparisons against national financial results, schools like you and others in your local area.
Arbor Financial Benchmarking reports are visual and easy-to-read PDFs, with helpful commentary and colour-coded stats, giving you reliable evidence needed to drive forward budget planning decisions. Perfect for presenting at Governor meetings.
Simply sign into your free Arbor Insight portal to download your copy of your latest report:
*Out soon! Watch this space
Over 10,000 schools and 300 trusts have been using Arbor Insight over the last four years to benchmark their performance, dig deeper into their results and shape school improvement. Arbor Insight helps you focus on what matters, with intelligent dashboards showing your attainment, attendance, behaviour and school context data from the last 5 years. And it’s free!
We update your dashboards every academic year with your latest ASP data from the DfE. As soon as you log in you’ll see your headline performance measures benchmarked against your student groups, national averages and local schools. Click on any measure to uncover which student groups are driving over or underperformance.
Since the pandemic began over a year ago, schools have been working in lots of new ways, adapting sometimes week by week to changing guidelines from the Government. At Arbor, we’ve worked with our community of over 1,600 primary, secondary, special schools and MATs to develop new product features which support you with the new
Since the pandemic began over a year ago, schools have been working in lots of new ways, adapting sometimes week by week to changing guidelines from the Government.
At Arbor, we’ve worked with our community of over 1,600 primary, secondary, special schools and MATs to develop new product features which support you with the new challenges – from remote teaching and learning, to reporting to the DfE, to rolling out covid testing. During this time, we’ve also moved over 600 schools to Arbor during 100% remotely.
Since the Government introduced Catch-Up Premium funding, it’s been important for schools to identify where the attainment gaps have opened up across their student groups as a result of lockdown disruption, and the “catch-up” initiatives that will support students the most.
Arbor can support you with closing your attainment gaps at each step of the way:
Read an interview with the Director of Inclusion and SEND at The Mead Educational Trust about how their “catch-up” strategy is going
To help you deliver Covid-19 testing, we’ve made it easy to track everything in Arbor with our new Testing Register. Schedule regular tests for staff and students, see who is due for a test each day, manage guardian consents, update test results and log confirmed cases. Parents can also instantly log covid test results for their children on their Arbor App. What’s more, Arbor’s My Classroom is a really handy way to trace contact between students by using our live seating plans.
To save you time completing the DfE’s Daily Form, Arbor’s Covid-19 Dashboard crunches the numbers for you, giving you all the student attendance data you need to submit in the form each morning. Plus, staff absences are flagged to everyone who needs to know, making arranging cover simple.
Your Dashboard is up-to-date with the latest attendance codes and categories that the DfE is tracking, including key vulnerable categories and confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19. Click on each category for a breakdown by year group and a full list of students, and follow up with guardians straight away if you need to.
For a MAT-level overview, you can use Arbor’s Group MIS to analyse all your student and staff data in one place. Monitor attendance patterns, student and staff absence, key disadvantaged and vulnerable groups and manage Covid-19 related issues centrally.
Check out our latest community article about how Arbor can support you as an Attendance Officer.
Forget switching between systems or uploading or downloading contact lists, in Arbor you can follow up with parents, students or other staff members as soon as you spot something important, from wherever you are in the system. Simply choose the method that’s best for your message – from an email, an SMS, a mail merge letter or a message via the Arbor App.
Find out how Arbor’s communications allowed The Parks Academies Trust to improve the way they contacted hard-to-reach students during the pandemic.
Check out three top tips for communicating with your staff, parents and guardians from our Head of Support, Emily.
Depending on the various year groups, bubble classes, plus a range of clubs, trips and activities, your timetable is probably quite the balancing act. Arbor makes it easy to design exactly the right timetable for your school, with an easy integration with TimeTabler if you need to build something particularly advanced. Stagger your start and end times, meal times, and keep tabs on where everyone is with a live central calendar.
Plus, Arbor is designed to be flexible, making it easy to adjust and change your timetable whenever you need to – which has come in handy throughout the changes in government regulations over the past year.
It’s now important to have a reliable virtual learning environment so that you can continue provision for students who are isolating at home. Having everything set up also means you’ll be able pivot to remove provision at short notice if you need to.
Since schools started to offer virtual teaching and learning, we’ve developed integrations with Google Classroom™ and Microsoft Office 365, which makes managing online learning fast and secure. With our integrations, all your student and staff information sync automatically into your Google or Microsoft accounts, saving you any manual data entry. What’s more, once you’re set-up, data syncs every 24 hours, meaning your information is always up-to-date.
In Arbor, it’s easy to pull together custom reports on key demographic groups, including children with EHCP, child protection status, FSM, and children of key workers at school or MAT level. Given that Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) staff and students have been told to shield at home, you’ll easily be able to track their attendance, send out communications or add them to an intervention in Arbor.
Arbor’s in-built safeguarding features also help you keep on top of any changes to your students’ circumstances – from automatic notifications on the Homepage when any student records change, to medical notes and key pastoral information flagged on every Lesson Dashboard.
Check out our most popular blogs on supporting vulnerable students:
At this time in the year when School Budgeters are looking ahead to next year and how they can use school resources best to support students. It’s also a time when there will be a lot of reflection on the extreme and challenging year it’s been since Covid-19 began.
Using your latest financial data from the DfE combined with expert analysis, we’ve created Financial Benchmarking Reports for every school and academy in England. The reports give you an overview of all your income and expenditure over the past three years, with comparisons against national financial results, schools like you and others in your local area.
Find out more about schools’ financial benchmarking in our guide.
As we’ve been working with school staff closely this past year, we’ve learnt a lot about the impressive job everyone has been doing, as well as the enormous pressure you’ve been under. Mental wellbeing is really important to us at Arbor, and our in-house wellbeing experts have been putting together tips and advice for how you can encourage positive wellness at your school. Discover the latest blogs:
Because Arbor is cloud-based, you can manage your school with more flexibility, accessing what you need to do your job from wherever you’re working. Plus, if the DfE brings out any new guidelines, we make updates to the system as soon as we can (sometimes even on the same day!) to help you keep up to date.
Don’t forget the Arbor Team is here to support you whenever you need us.
Arbor Community | Popular
We were honoured to welcome education advisor, writer and speaker, Mary Myatt, to give the keynote speech at this term’s ArborFest – our two-day virtual festival exploring innovative ways of working with Arbor MIS. Mary gave a brilliant talk about how schools can carve out time for satisfying work on the curriculum by focusing on
We were honoured to welcome education advisor, writer and speaker, Mary Myatt, to give the keynote speech at this term’s ArborFest – our two-day virtual festival exploring innovative ways of working with Arbor MIS.
Mary gave a brilliant talk about how schools can carve out time for satisfying work on the curriculum by focusing on fewer things in greater depth. You can read her talk below – or catch the recording here.
You don’t need me to tell you how demanding, exhilarating, exciting and exhausting it is in schools, even in normal times (and it has been that to the power of ten recently). So while there’s nothing we can do about what’s happening in the wider world, I think there are some things we do have control over.
I often hear staff in schools complaining that they’re not as far ahead as they’d like to be in certain areas such as curriculum or school improvement. But what I encourage them to recognise is that they only have so much bandwidth. Sometimes we must accept how things are and not beat ourselves up.
On flights when they give out the health and safety instructions, they say that in the case of an emergency, if we’re travelling with someone vulnerable or a young child, we must put our own masks on first. Why is that? Because we can’t look after other people unless we’re safe and sound ourselves.
Greg McKeown talks about rest as a responsibility. It’s not a luxury. It’s really important, for example, that we eat proper food on a regular basis, that we get a bit of fresh air every day and that we go to bed at a reasonable time.
Trying to do everything is a problem for us as a sector. We want the best for our children and our communities, but we simply can’t do everything.
A real mantra of Greg McKeown’s work is the need to cut back in order to set clearer prioritie that are likely to make the biggest difference. And in the context of education, priorities need to be framed around a focus on what is likely to make the greatest difference to children’s learning. As McKeown says, if we have too many priorities, we’re simply not going to do anything really well.
Pareto’s 80/20 rule is also worth remembering. In Italy in the 1890s, Pareto found that 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population. What has emerged from this insight is that across many sectors, a relatively small amount of input has a disproportionate impact. And this broad 80/20 rule also applies to schools. If we cut out some of the processes and resources we use, for example in the curriculum, that have less impact, we’ll be able to focus on the things that make the greatest difference.
There is overwhelming evidence from all quarters, not just my own work, that it’s the quality of the curriculum that makes the greatest difference for the greatest number of children. The quality of the curriculum has certainly gone up the agenda recently since the addition of the “quality of education” judgement to the latest Ofsted framework in 2019.
There are eight main things we need to get right when thinking about quality education:
1. Realign priorities
Both my work and Ofsted’s research have found that in some schools, priorities have become distorted. In some primaries, for example, in order for children to do well in their SATs, they are given a diet of SATs in the mistaken belief that that will produce better results. But if you look at the scores for the children who didn’t do so well in the reading papers for 2019, it was because of a lack of vocabulary. So how do we develop children’s vocabulary? Through a broad and balanced curriculum, not just a list of spelling.
2. Address curriculum misconceptions
I notice some misconceptions around the curriculum, such as focusing on skills and thinking of them as “cross transferable”. Just because a child can evaluate and dissect something really well in geography doesn’t mean to say they can do the same in history if they don’t know any history. We need to think of skills and knowledge as being like conjoined twins; through rich exposure to and engagement with the curriculum, skills develop.
3. Remember children’s entitlement
It’s also important to consider the idea of entitlement. What I’ve found is that some children who need additional support get so many interventions that they actually miss out on the wider curriculum with their peers. Interventions are important but they need to be bespoke and have impact as quickly as possible, so that children can rejoin their peers.
4. Be more ambitious
For the first time, the Ofsted framework now has a discussion of ambition. We should be asking to what extent the curriculum is ambitious for all our pupils, regardless of their starting points, and what the children themselves are saying about it. Pupil voice is a strong thread in my research, and I’ve found that at the heart of it, children want more demanding work.
5. High challenge, low threat
According to Daniel Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, “human beings are curious, but thinking is hard”. If we make things too easy, then the learning is likely not to be so secure. We should therefore not dumb things down for our children.
About 18 months ago I was working in a school in London with some students who were identified as high priority but underachieving. They said the only lesson they engaged with was geography because the teacher gave them really difficult, demanding stuff to do, such as articles from National Geographic. The teacher would say “You’re not going to understand it all, but that’s alright.”
When I looked at the results for geography in that school, these students were the highest by a margin. The teacher wasn’t giving those students work that was above their “pay grade” in order to get great results; the great results followed from the students relishing the high challenge that was accompanied by low threat.
6. Be prepared to be surprised
One of the most worrying results of our current system is the reading deficit. In 2019, over a quarter of our children did not reach the expected standard. Research a few years ago found that only about 30% of children are read to on a daily basis, and in 2018 Teacher Tapp found that only 15% of all children are read to in class every day.
Research from Sussex University found that simply reading challenging, complex novels aloud at a fast pace in each lesson repositions poorer readers as good readers, giving them a more engaged, uninterrupted reading experience over a sustained period. The teachers were actually surprised at what the students achieved.
7. Underpin learning with high quality texts
When introducing new units over time, we should underpin them with high quality texts. Why? Books contain complex ideas and sentences of greater lexical depth and complexity which enrich children’s vocabulary. Through rich resources we’re able to draw out the important vocabulary we want our children to be fluent in by the end of the unit.
For example, a high quality text to support the Year 6 science unit about the theory of evolution and inheritance could be Sabina Radeva’s “The Origin of Species”. Sabina trained as a scientist and then she retrained as an artist, which gives the book two threads: high quality information and beautiful imagery.
For more examples of high quality texts to use across the curriculum, see the recording of Mary’s talk here
8. Use meeting time to talk about books
So what should we be cutting in order to find time for these marvellous resources? Firstly, we should think about how we use staff meetings. There are plenty that could be handled in an email or just a brief summary. Instead we should turn our meeting time into opportunities to discuss the books and reading we’re going to do with children.
Harvard professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter talks about the six keys to doing good work in any organisation. I think these are useful when thinking about curriculum work:
As a final note, let’s remember that we’re human beings first and we’re professionals second. The young people we work with are human beings first and they’re learners second.
If you enjoyed Mary’s talk, make sure you download her further reading list to learn more.
Click here to find out about ArborFest: The New Features Edition, taking place virtually on May 5th, 2022. Last Thursday and Friday (18th-19th March), we were delighted to host the third ever ArborFest – a two-day virtual festival with talks, workshops and forums exploring innovative ways of working with Arbor MIS. A huge thank you
Last Thursday and Friday (18th-19th March), we were delighted to host the third ever ArborFest – a two-day virtual festival with talks, workshops and forums exploring innovative ways of working with Arbor MIS.
A huge thank you to our sponsors 4Matrix, MyConcern, SchoolsICT and The Key for helping to make the event such a success.
The dynamic programme was a real showcase of the completely new ways in which schools have been working, especially over the past year, with topics ranging from data analysis, to assessment, to MAT expansion.
There was a real energy across the sessions, with everyone leaving with ideas for how they could work in new ways to improve how they support students, and create a better working culture for staff too.
1,300 people including SLT, Teachers, Admin Staff from 700 schools, MATs and partner organisations joined our 31 talks happening across five event stages!
For Arbor schools and MATs, it was a chance to network with fellow staff across the country, and to share tips and tricks for getting the most out of Arbor MIS.
For schools who are only just hearing about us, it was an opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes insight into what it means to be part of the Arbor community of over 1,600 schools, and how moving to Arbor could transform the way they work.
Arbor’s CEO, James, and Chief of Customer Success, Sonia, kicked off the festival with a welcome address, setting the tone with an analogy of schools in 2021 like playing table tennis with a quick-fire machine (compared to the dodgeball metaphor in his welcome talk at ArborFest in November 2020!).
As James said, “the pace of change is changing. There are still lots of balls being thrown at us but we’ve coped with more change than we thought was possible.”
James also shared some of the recent developments at Arbor, including our growth to 1,600 schools and our joining of The Key Group. Sonia demonstrated some of the ways we’ve been supporting schools to adapt to the new government guidelines and work flexibly over the past year, having moved over 600 schools over to Arbor 100% remotely, with a customer satisfaction score of 98%.
Catch up on James and Sonia’s welcome address here
Keynote speech
Education advisor, writer and speaker, Mary Myatt, gave a brilliant keynote address on how schools can carve out time for satisfying work on the curriculum by focusing on fewer things in greater depth. And it created a lot of conversation on Twitter! If you enjoyed Mary’s talk, make sure you download her further reading list to learn more.
Guest talk from The Key
Caroline Doherty, Head of Education Strategy at The Key, was joined by Mark Talbot, Chief Executive Officer of the Diocese of Chichester Academy Trust, and Matt Crawford, CEO of Embark Federation, for a great discussion around both the opportunities, and the challenges of expanding a trust.
There were some excellent talks led by our partners MyConcern, 4Matrix and SchoolsICT on safeguarding, managing a summer without exams, and blended learning. We also had 70 school staff join us for a relaxing Mindfulness Workshop at lunch.
We had an all-star cast of Arbor schools and MATs including Watergrove Trust, Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust, Glenmoor & Winton Academies, Hyndburn Academy, Red Kite Learning Trust and Northlands Wood Primary Academy, each sharing how moving to Arbor MIS has helped them work in new and flexible ways.
We also had a special appearance by Kirsty Woolls, HR Director at Academy Transformation Trust, and Abby Brayford, Director of ATT Institute, who shared what people development (rather than CPD!) means for them. Abby Brayford said, “change is relational. To effect change and drive improvement you have to think about people’s values.”
The Arbor Team led some deep-dive sessions showcasing tips and tricks for a range of Arbor modules. They also launched some brand new features including:
Our Product team led a series of Feedback Forums which were a great opportunity to gather feedback from Arbor users to help us shape the future of our MIS. Find out more about how we use schools’ feedback to inform our Product Roadmap.
“I was inspired by the attitude of the team and the drive and dedication that came across, ethos can only work when it comes from the top and is intrinsic throughout the leadership team. This was evident throughout.” A primary school customer
“it was useful to hear some of the roadmap items, and helpful to have our say in suggested improvements for the future.” A MAT customer
“Sessions were appropriate and interesting. The online nature (and recordings) meant I could fit it around work commitments”. A secondary school customer
“Just wanted to say thank you I will have to leave early as I have another meeting, however it was very interesting and a very nice layout, user friendly etc. Something definitely worth us looking at taking on for our school in the future. Look forward to seeing the last bit on the recording.” A prospective special school
New to Arbor?
If you want to discover how Arbor MIS could help you work faster, smarter and collaborate more, get in touch to arrange a free online demo for your school or MAT. Alternatively, you can email tellmemore@arbor-education.com or call 0208 050 1028.
Already using Arbor?
If you’d like more information on any of the new features showcased at ArborFest – or if you need some support – get in touch with your Account Manager or contact accountmanagers@arbor-education.com.
Case Studies | Popular
As part of our continual work to improve and expand Arbor MIS, we work hand-in-hand with our secondary schools to understand the features we should develop that will best support staff in their everyday roles. We spoke to Rebecca Pickles, Deputy Headteacher at Beacon Academy, about the successes they’ve experienced since moving to Arbor remotely
As part of our continual work to improve and expand Arbor MIS, we work hand-in-hand with our secondary schools to understand the features we should develop that will best support staff in their everyday roles.
We spoke to Rebecca Pickles, Deputy Headteacher at Beacon Academy, about the successes they’ve experienced since moving to Arbor remotely during the pandemic. Rebecca talks about how Arbor has supported their goals to work more efficiently as a school by giving staff the data they need so they’re not reliant on others. Rebecca says she was surprised how straightforward it was to switch systems remotely, and encourages other schools to be open to changing the ways they’ve been used to doing things in order to improve their working culture.
We were already partly cloud-based with our previous MIS, but the hosted model was fraught with issues when trying to use it quickly and efficiently. The hosted platform often failed during work and it was slow. Moving to a fully cloud-based MIS means that we can access all the functionality wherever we choose to work that has an internet connection.
Cloud-based data storage assures us that we’re not dependent on hardware in school, backups don’t have to be assured and we can work with Arbor to ensure that we’re securely meeting all legal and security requirements in law. It’s a cleaner system and much easier to manage for all users.
There were no concerns that weren’t easy to address. The only major stumbling block is for those high-level MIS users having to ‘get used to’ a new system. This was something that took some time to work through but concerns around this were easily dealt with and supported by our team at Arbor (a level of support we hadn’t experienced when migrating to our previous MIS!).
Arbor provided a wealth of information and the migration process was well planned to ensure we were all ready when our site went live. Because the MIS is so easy to navigate, it didn’t take long for people to realise what we’d missed for so long; something intuitive that just does what we want it to do!
We were encouraged to try Arbor when we joined our trust (Wellspring Academy Trust). We understood the benefits of being in a group of schools who could support us on our journey and there were lots of very experienced people that could can help us out.
That being said, Arbor for us was also a journey into working with a company whose ethos and approaches to school support aligned with our working model. From the first meeting we realised that the MIS and the development behind it was invested in improving the functionality and making school data management as efficient and user-friendly as possible. The MIS seemed intuitive, built for school use everyday and was built for power and simplicity!
Irrespective of whether the trust was part of the system already, the move was motivated primarily by making our day-to-day MIS lives more efficient, paperless and usable by all. Our previous MIS was clunky, difficult to navigate, and setting up day-to-day functions for efficient processes required many hours of work and was not easy to access by all users in the Academy. We needed a change!
The process of implementing Arbor remotely was actually a lot easier than I’d anticipated. I actually think that remote working was a better method as it allowed more people to join in, we could keep recordings for training purposes and it allowed things to happen more quickly i.e. we didn’t have to arrange meetings, rooms, people being on site together etc. I would highly recommend it as a way of going into the migration process.
There are a number of benefits that we have seen in the short time we’ve been on board:
Arbor has been particularly useful for us in the following ways:
The objective for Beacon Academy was to automate and create efficiency. It was to reduce our environmental impact (particularly around the use of paper communications) and be able to share the system with wider stakeholders to allow for transparency and support in our day-to-day business. This has been evident in its infancy as our new MIS and I’m constantly impressed with different developments and features that I believe will contribute to our overall goals.
We hope that in the long term the power of Arbor for our school will continue to amaze as it has so far. We’ve never looked back and are always surprised and pleased with new product developments and the Arbor Product Roadmap. A real MIS gift that keeps on giving!
Discover how Arbor could transform the way you work with a free online demo for your school. Get in touch here, or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
For over a year, schools and MATs have been dealing with continual changes to the way they work. One of the most important changes that many schools have undertaken is to move to cloud-based systems to give them more flexibility in the way they run their school. We work with school teams throughout the year
For over a year, schools and MATs have been dealing with continual changes to the way they work. One of the most important changes that many schools have undertaken is to move to cloud-based systems to give them more flexibility in the way they run their school.
We work with school teams throughout the year to move them to Arbor’s cloud-based MIS – last year over 400 schools moved to Arbor 100% remotely! We know it can seem like a daunting task, but that’s why our tried-and-tested approach helps schools manage the change in a way that’s right for them, with support from us every step of the way.
Whatever change you’re managing at your school or MAT, our in-house experts in change management have put together five simple things to bear in to make successful changes.
The first things to think about when you’re starting a project are why you need to make the change and what you want to achieve over the long term.
The reasons you need to make the change will have a lot to do with:
Our teams at Arbor have found some great free online tools for planning, for example Miro the smart whiteboard tool.
If you’d like to find out more about how we support schools to switch to our cloud-based MIS, come along to ArborFest – our virtual conference exploring innovative ways of working with Arbor MIS. On the “Why Arbor?” Stage, you’ll hear from schools and MATs who’ve recently moved to Arbor about what motivated their switch, and the impact Arbor is having so far.
For the full programme of sessions across our five stages, head to http://bit.ly/ArborFest-2021
Every school has been working hard on ensuring they have an inspiring, rich and challenging curriculum for the pupils recently. Whilst a great curriculum has always been at the heart of learning, the extra focus of the updated Ofsted evaluation schedule has led to schools revisiting their curriculum design. Reviewing Curriculum Design Whilst reviewing curriculum
Every school has been working hard on ensuring they have an inspiring, rich and challenging curriculum for the pupils recently. Whilst a great curriculum has always been at the heart of learning, the extra focus of the updated Ofsted evaluation schedule has led to schools revisiting their curriculum design.
Whilst reviewing curriculum design, schools should ask themselves not only what pupils should know, be able to do and understand, but also how these aspects work in a cross-curricular way. Is there a skill that will help a pupil’s understanding of many subjects? Should we have explicit goals for learning behaviours that will assist learning in a global sense? Many schools will already do this but – when asked why – they often assert that such learning behaviours are impactful -, without being able to reference any real evidence.
Is this really a problem? Perhaps not. After all, a skilful teacher or leader often draws on years of experiential learning of what works well. High performing professionals are known to work in a constant loop of self-feedback that informs future practice.
On the other hand – maybe this is a problem. Those of you who are familiar with the work of John Hattie will know that his research into the impact of what strategies truly improve learning can be very insightful. For example, his work highlights the relatively small impact of class size on outcomes – yet many still believe this is crucial.
Before we make changes, we need to be sure we are making decisions based on sound evidence.
This brings me to my main point: all schools should be actively researching and monitoring the impact of their curriculum design. If you are about to spend significant time building a change to your curriculum, training teachers and updating documents, then you need to know this change will make a meaningful impact.
During my time working with Computing At School, I saw what I believed to be evidence that computational thinking had a positive impact in other areas of the curriculum, with a focus on problem-solving, decomposition of problems and self-evaluation of solutions. But how could I be sure?
This is where we need to design a process that tests the theory by providing clear evidence of impact; this means building in a way to make the important measurable (as opposed to making the measurable important).
In my example, I may believe that pupils who are better at problem-solving perform better across the curriculum. I might decide, therefore, to explicitly teach problem-solving. In order to effectively judge whether I am right, I need to know two things: which pupils are good at problem-solving and does this correlate with other educational outcomes?
Time, then, for some active research. Using a rubric, I could evaluate pupils’ problem-solving skills.
(Image 1: A table taken from Livingstone Academies part of the Aspirations Academies Trust – Copyright 2016)
I could then cross-reference this to academic outcomes in English and Mathematics. If a strong correlation exists, then it will be worthwhile integrating the teaching of problem-solving into my curriculum.
As ever though – this can be time-consuming work. If schools are to engage in research like this, they need a hassle-free way to get it done. They need a tool that can bring together what you already know about your pupils, such as their background and current academic grades, and your research evidence.
Luckily for Arbor schools, it’s very easy to make a rubric for assessing almost anything, such as the problem-solving example above. Once this has been used, clear analytics can then be used to determine if a strong correlation exists.
Research like this needs to be a continual process, as the needs of your pupils may change; the world they live in certainly will! So, having the tools to make the process easy and hassle-free should be a high priority.
1. When you review curriculum design, look for opportunities that improve outcomes across all subjects
2. Beware of falling back on assumed knowledge of “what works well”
3. Instead, find ways to make what you believe to be important measurable and generate your own research data
4. Use this data to make evidentially driven changes to secure maximum impact on pupil learning
5. Don’t start work without having the right tools at your disposal that will make the process hassle-free and help you get the work done quickly.
If you’d like to find out why Arbor is the MIS schools love to use, why not contact us? You can also book a demo by calling 0207 043 0470 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
Data and Insight | Popular
By School Improvement Consultant, Ed Cadwallader Since I started my career as a School Data Manager nearly 20 years ago, I’ve seen a lot of EdTech come and go. In some areas there have been impressive advances – Arbor MIS, for example, has analytics features that are light years ahead of anything SIMS could offer.
Since I started my career as a School Data Manager nearly 20 years ago, I’ve seen a lot of EdTech come and go. In some areas there have been impressive advances – Arbor MIS, for example, has analytics features that are light years ahead of anything SIMS could offer.
Luckily though, Management Information Systems (MIS) haven’t just been improving their in-built analysis tools, the best ones are also opening up secure data feeds to allow you to export your MIS data and analyse and share it exactly how you want to.
Arbor users can connect secure, customisable data feeds to visualisation tools including Excel, Google Data Studio or, my favourite, Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is enterprise grade business intelligence (BI) software that lets you combine and analyse data from multiple sources to create interactive dashboards and apps.
Of course, as a busy Data Manager or School Leader, you don’t have bags of free time to learn new software, so I’ve put together five of the top things you can do in Power BI so you can see if it’s for you.
As a Data Manager, I used to share screenshots of reports with SLT, but I would often get asked lots of basic questions, such as “who is this 20% of Year 9?” I would reply with a static student list that was accurate on that day but would soon be out of date.
You could solve this by using Excel, but this comes with a host of other problems, such as users typing over formulas, changing underlying data and sharing outdated versions.
Microsoft Power BI gives you all the benefits of Excel without the drawbacks. You can combine data from your MIS, online assessment tools and spreadsheets to produce the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that matter most right now. For example, if you’ve got an initiative around punctuality, you could add the start date onto a graph of lates to see if it made an impact.
Link your data analysis to your interventions
The best MIS systems or analysis tools give you an overview of the big picture while also allowing you to zero-in on the key data points and see the students behind the numbers.
Power BI lets you do just this. You can arrange multiple tables, KPI index cards and charts on a single page, then “drill down” into any of them to see the list of students behind the data. Hovering over a chart will also give you useful context, helping you take the best course of action.
If you spot a problem in a particular year or class group, clicking on that data point will filter the rest of the page by that group’s data. This would allow you to see, for example, if a spike in behaviour incidents within a year group has led to an uptick in exclusions.
Tooltips give additional information and context
Unlike Arbor, many MIS systems don’t allow you to take action directly from your analysis. This means you might be carrying out your analysis and communicating your plans via different channels which can lead to people misinterpreting information and a lack of shared purpose between staff.
Power BI’s web portal gives you a shared online space where your stakeholders can analyse, plan actions and carry out on-going reviews of interventions, all in one place. You can comment on specific pages and tag colleagues to bring data points to their attention.
Alternatively, you can share a dashboard in a Microsoft Teams chat so that a group of staff who are working towards a specific school improvement goal could use live data to inform their efforts.
Make data informed decisions using Comments and Chat in Teams
Not everybody can work with a big table of unstructured data. But when you turn raw records into visuals, you might inadvertently present the problem in a biased way. For example, if your school has seen a spike in behaviour incidents, breaking the data down by either year group, subject or time of day might imply one of these factors is behind it.
Power BI’s “Decomposition Tree” is an elegant solution to this problem. This visual allows you to choose from a list of factors that might affect a measure (such as number of negative behaviour incidents). You can change the order and number of break-downs, either choosing a specific category or one that Power BI has calculated to have a large effect. If a line of investigation leads to a dead end, you can remove, rearrange and look at your data in a new way.
You can also cross-highlight; in the example below, where the user has chosen to break the data down by year, subject and Teacher, selecting “Mr M Parting” shows you that his incidents are resolved slightly faster than the overall average but that a far higher proportion of them are negative compared to the school as a whole (1:1 when the overall ratio is 1:4).
Empower leaders to explore the data themselves with the decomposition tree
The flexibility of Power BI allows you to explore data from your MIS in different contexts. For example, using the map visual, you can plot your students by their home postcode to see if their location correlates with attendance or punctuality issues. You could also create a heat map showing days of the week and AM/PM sessions to see if particular times in the week see higher or lower attendance.
This is another way you can tailor your data analysis to your top priorities, which is more important than ever during Covid-19. With so much disruption to accountability measures because of missed exams, being able to bring in other data sources into your analysis allows you to stay flexible and self-sufficient when it comes to monitoring your school’s performance.
Analyse student locations and journeys with the map visual
The most important thing to remember about Power BI is that it’s a tool not a solution. While licences are cheap at around £20 per year, the platform isn’t pre-programmed to cater to all of your data needs, you need to create your own data model and dashboards. This requires a considerable investment of time, both to learn the program and create the content.
The good news is there’s a friendly and growing community of school-based BI developers on Twitter, free tutorials on YouTube and a dedicated blog, Power BI for Schools.
Arbor gives you sophisticated out-of-the-box dashboards and easy custom reports at school and MAT level, designed to give staff at all levels a shared view of progress.
Arbor has also created a Power BI Connector and five report templates helping you to visualise Arbor data any way you want to.
To find out more, join me for a Power BI masterclass webinar during ArborFest – Arbor’s virtual conference exploring innovative ways of working 18-19th March.
Power BI Masterclass, 18th March, 2pm Book your free spot
Arbor Updates | IT Support | Popular
Since the pandemic began, schools have had to rapidly change the way they manage their lessons, communications and admin. This has meant using technology in lots of new ways to keep lessons going, and smarter ways of using data to understand students’ changing needs. At Arbor, we’ve been developing new tools to support leaders and
Since the pandemic began, schools have had to rapidly change the way they manage their lessons, communications and admin. This has meant using technology in lots of new ways to keep lessons going, and smarter ways of using data to understand students’ changing needs.
At Arbor, we’ve been developing new tools to support leaders and Admin Staff manage the challenges of Covid-19.
Today, we’re excited to launch brand new integrations with Google Classroom™, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Power BI, designed to help you save time and manage your school data in the ways you need to.
As schools have been ramping up their use of digital learning platforms for remote or blended learning, we’ve built an integration with Google Classroom™ and Microsoft Office 365. Arbor automatically syncs your student and staff information into Google Classroom™ and Microsoft Office 365 so you don’t have to enter any data manually. What’s more, once you’re set-up, data syncs every 24 hours, meaning your information is always up-to-date.
We’ll also partner you with a Google or Microsoft accredited support team who’ll give you tailored support to get your integration set-up. They’ll also be your port of call if you need any help along the way.
What does this mean for you?
Check out The Key for School Leaders for some great guidance on getting the most out of a digital learning platform.
Arbor MI