Management Information System (MIS) for schools
Expert ideas for a better working life at your school or trust
Innovation | School Operations
Category : Blog
AI is astounding, controversial, and here to stay. In this blog, I look at how it is already being used by schools, and what it might mean in the longer term. AI in the classroom Teachers have proven to be early adopters of ChatGPT as a tool for generating lesson resources. English teachers quickly spotted
AI is astounding, controversial, and here to stay. In this blog, I look at how it is already being used by schools, and what it might mean in the longer term.
Teachers have proven to be early adopters of ChatGPT as a tool for generating lesson resources.
English teachers quickly spotted the opportunity to create model texts. One of the earliest examples was using ChatGPT to draft similar content in various styles – like three versions of the same news story, one written by a journalist, one by Shakespeare, and one in the style of a song lyric.
Another of my favourite examples was hearing from a teacher who uses ChatGPT to generate distractors (wrong answers) for their multiple-choice quizzes. It turns out this is very useful as it can be surprisingly tricky to come up with convincing but incorrect answers.
AI can also be used to create a more personalised experience for students – even if that’s just including a student’s name in an example text, or quickly generating a quiz that specifically suits a group of pupils or a topic.
These approaches save time for teachers and allow them to be creative, using AI in a relatively low-risk way.
As soon as ChatGPT arrived there was a debate about whether it should be allowed in schools. Some schools and trusts took the cautious approach, and banned it from their networks.
This is similar to the debate about mobile phones, and before that calculators – and the truth is it’s too early to know which of those technologies AI is more akin to when it comes to the impact and use in the classroom.
But whatever you do in school, you can’t stop students from having access to ChatGPT and other AI tools at home.
One idea I liked is telling students that they have to use ChatGPT for a piece of homework. This gives them the opportunity to try it, and see the pros and cons. That’s a great way of engaging with a new technology, and having a productive and open conversation about it. The truth is there are lots of things that ChatGPT is not great at, and students need to learn about that too.
ChatGPT can also be an excellent research tool for students. There’s a lot of benefit to learning through conversation (as we know from teaching and learning in the classroom). I’ve personally found it really useful when I’ve got a specific question about a topic. It can be much more useful than reading through a wikipedia article or searching for answers via Google. Of course you have to be mindful of AI hallucinations and bias, and think carefully about the types of topics to use it for.
My daughter has learnt a lot at her primary school about using Google search effectively and safely. I’d love to hear from schools that have taught similar skills for ChatGPT, as part of encouraging students to then use it for research.
School leaders and administrators have also seen the potential of AI.
Tools like ChatGPT, Bard, Office Co-pilot and Copy.ai are a great way to create a first draft of something – like a letter to parents or a piece of newsletter content. Schools have to produce a lot of writing – for lessons, for stakeholders, for their community, for governors… the list never ends.
Another example is student reports. Lots of schools use comment banks for this, and that exercise can be quite a copy-paste process. With AI the teacher can enter a summary set of bullets about the student, and get the system to draft a full report which they can then edit.
It’s very hard to write well at pace, so these tools can really help.
We’re also seeing these features added to the tools that schools already use – with Ask Arbor being a great example. It allows schools to draft communications and student reports, based on their input and the data already held in the MIS.
I like these smart and pragmatic examples, where the generated text is time-saving and very useful, and where there is always a person reviewing and adapting the output.
It is very early days for tools like ChatGPT, and over the coming months and years we’re going to see rapid improvement in the technology itself, along with better understanding and regulation.
We’re also going to see lots of new AI-powered products and features across all areas of education and work. We’ll probably look back nostalgically at the simpler days when all we spoke of was “ChatGPT”.
What might that future look like? A few idea that interest me are:
Duolingo already offers an AI chatbot that helps learners by discussing incorrect answers and doing roleplays. And teachers are already experimenting with tools that allow students to have a conversation with an AI version of a subject expert or a historical figure.
How sophisticated could this become? It’s going to be fascinating to see. Imagine a student being able to have a 1-to-1 conversation with Albert Einstein about GCSE Physics. Being able to bring learning to life is exciting for both students and teachers.
Almost all of the focus over the last year has been on ChatGPT and the use of AI to understand and generate writing. But the same technology can also be applied to other content. Indeed, ChatGPT itself has just been updated so that it can both understand and generate images. AI is also already being used to generate music, and edit photographs, So while lots of the early use cases have been for subjects like English and the humanities, it is worth remembering that all the same opportunities and questions will come along for the other subjects too.
I think some of the most exciting opportunities for AI lie in the back office and in the operational running of schools and trusts. This technology is going to revolutionise the ways schools work with data, complete administrative tasks, and communicate. Schools will see lots of really useful features coming to their existing platforms like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. And this is exactly what we’re thinking about across The Key Group too – in Arbor, GovernorHub, The Key, and beyond.
Popular | School Operations
A school MIS, or management information system, is a piece of software which brings together data into one place. An MIS helps organisations make decisions, from daily tasks through to top-level strategy. Every school in the UK has to have an MIS. As a school MIS manages data around all aspects of school life, it’s
A school MIS, or management information system, is a piece of software which brings together data into one place. An MIS helps organisations make decisions, from daily tasks through to top-level strategy. Every school in the UK has to have an MIS.
As a school MIS manages data around all aspects of school life, it’s used by lots of different people. By teachers to take the register or log behaviour incidents, the headteacher to see cross-school statistics, and the office staff/data team to analyse information and contact parents.
At Arbor, we believe that a moving MIS is a real chance to change the way you work for the better – but more on that later…
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Over the past five years, more and more schools are moving away from legacy, server-based MIS and are instead choosing to move to a cloud-based MIS. As of October 2023, this number stands at over 9,000 schools. And, according to the latest DfE census data, 3 out of 4 schools who make the switch choose Arbor.
A recent survey of over 1,000 schools by The Key showed that these trends are set to continue:
Arbor MIS helps schools of all sizes work better, with intuitive tools designed to make a difference. Chosen by over 5,500 schools and 450 trusts, we’re proud to be the UK’s most popular cloud MIS.
Given the impact that switching can have on everything from workload, to staff happiness, parental engagement and school collaboration, we believe that choosing the right MIS is a real opportunity to change the way you work for the better.
But just don’t take it from us, hear below from one Assistant Principal sharing his experience after choosing Arbor MIS for his secondary school of over 2,000 students.
We know that switching MIS can be a daunting process. If you’re thinking about moving MIS, but aren’t sure where to start, there are a couple of ways you can find out if Arbor is a good fit for your school:
IT Support | School Operations
With the pressures on schools and trusts across the country, it goes without saying how important it is that School IT Managers are able to save time and drive efficiency across their organisation. Based on our years of experience and conversations with IT Managers at EduLife, we’ve put together some top tips on efficient school
With the pressures on schools and trusts across the country, it goes without saying how important it is that School IT Managers are able to save time and drive efficiency across their organisation. Based on our years of experience and conversations with IT Managers at EduLife, we’ve put together some top tips on efficient school IT administration and how you can save time in your role.
There are many reasons why efficient school IT administration is the backbone of a well-functioning school or multi-academy trust:
Smooth operations: Efficient school IT administration keeps everything running smoothly, from network connectivity to software applications. It means fewer interruptions and more focus on teaching and learning.
Enhanced productivity: Being able to rely on smooth-running systems, means that students can access resources seamlessly and teachers can focus solely on their role in the classroom, thus boosting productivity for everyone involved.
Optimal resource allocation: Efficient IT administration makes sure that resources are used effectively, preventing wasteful spending and allowing for strategic investments in technology infrastructure.
Seamless communication and collaboration: With efficient IT administration, communication channels work seamlessly. Teachers, administrators, students, and parents can connect, collaborate, and share information effortlessly, creating a supportive learning environment.
Data Security and privacy: Efficient IT administration prioritises data security and privacy by implementing robust security measures, updating systems and educating users to protect sensitive information. This means that trust is maintained and compliance with privacy regulations is upheld.
Despite the great importance put on the output of IT Administrators, we know it’s not always plain sailing:
Spinning many plates: From managing networks and systems to troubleshooting tech issues, there’s always a lot to manage in schools.
Keeping up with technological Advancements: Technology moves at lightning speed, and as IT Managers, it can be tough to keep up! New devices, software updates, and emerging trends require continuous learning.
Limited resources and budget: As is often the case in schools, budgets can be tight, meaning teams have to be creative with their investments to make sure they’re as effective as possible.
Balancing security and accessibility: Striking the right balance between security and accessibility is a challenge IT managers know all too well. You want to protect sensitive data and keep networks secure, but you also need to give seamless access to educational resources for students and staff.
User support and training: With varying degrees of technological ability in schools, it can be a challenge to address differing tech skill levels and ensure everyone feels supported.
With all that in mind, here are some strategies and technology-driven solutions to help you overcome those challenges and boost productivity at your school.
Automated provisioning: Invest in tools that integrate various administrative functions like student records, scheduling, communication and classroom set-up. Tools like EduLife’s data synchronisation feature simplify processes and eliminate the need for manual data entry across multiple systems.
Master digital communication: Use instant messaging, collaboration platforms, and email automation to streamline communication among staff, parents, and students. These tools make information sharing quick, reduce delays, and enhance collaboration.
Go cloud-based: Storing your documents and information in the cloudgives you easy access, real-time collaboration, and seamless file sharing – plus, it’s a step closer to going paperless!
Give Users the Power: Empower your users with self-service password reset solutions like LastPass or Azure Password Reset. They can reset their passwords independently, freeing you up for more exciting IT projects.
Let the machines do the heavy lifting: Find those repetitive tasks that zap all your time and automate them. Whether it’s updating software, backing up systems, or managing user accounts, use nifty tools such as EduLife to save yourself some serious time when trying to simplify school management.
Make best use of your MIS: Use data analytics and reporting in Arbor to generate insightful reports and analyse trends in student performance, attendance, or resource allocation. These tools provide quick access to data-driven insights, making decision-making easier and reducing the effort spent on manual data collection.
Keep it organised with a ticketing system: Say goodbye to chaos! Get yourself a cool ticketing system like Zendesk to manage all those support requests. It’ll help you stay on top of things, prioritise tasks, and get stuff done faster. Plus, no more lost sticky notes!
Say goodbye to the mystery of missing equipment: Asset management solutions like Fleet Management are your superhero helpers. They’ll keep track of your Chromebooks. You can easily know what’s where, schedule maintenance tasks, and stay on top of warranties. It’s like having a trusty sidekick that keeps things organised and saves you from endless searching.
Embrace your inner tech wizard: Take advantage of remote management tools like TeamViewer. They’ll give you the power to access and fix devices from afar. No need to teleport to every corner of the school or multi-academy trust for routine tasks or minor issues.
Efficient school administration is the key to optimising resources, boosting productivity, and creating a fantastic learning environment. As an IT manager, you have the power to implement time-saving strategies that empower your team and educators. By embracing technology solutions you can make your school or multi-academy trust more productive and efficient for everyone involved.
About EduLife
Edulife is a dynamic synchronisation engine that automates and maintains user management across Google Workspace for Education, Microsoft Active Directory and Apple School Manager by harmonising and provisioning data from your school MIS.
School Operations
Today’s guest blog is another from our very own Digital Customer Operations Analyst, Chelsea Hopkins, who was previously an school Attendance Officer. You can read more from Chelsea here, but in this blog, she looks into her top reports she thinks all Attendance Officers will find useful. Now as we know every single staff member
Today’s guest blog is another from our very own Digital Customer Operations Analyst, Chelsea Hopkins, who was previously an school Attendance Officer. You can read more from Chelsea here, but in this blog, she looks into her top reports she thinks all Attendance Officers will find useful.
Now as we know every single staff member that works in a school, only do so for the perks, the salary, job satisfaction, good work-life balance.
I’m smiling as I write that, but apparently, those people exist?!
Joking aside, I think I can confidently say that we all work in a school because for some crazy reason we want to make a real difference in this world and mould the future generation.
I’ve worked alongside many incredible people, who work their magic and are just incredible but they can’t work their magic on those that are simply not there. That’s why keeping an eye on your student’s attendance is crucial in improving the outcomes for our young people!
Now you will be glad to hear that Arbor is full of wonderful built-in Attendance reporting tools and I’m going to explain some really useful ones that can be used on a daily basis and reports that can be shared with others.
So we’ve all taken part in staff meetings, where we sit and learn that Year 11’s have decided that what they are wearing to prom, is far more important than focusing on their GCSEs.
….Or that the Year 8s think that harmlessly flipping bottles onto tables is no longer fun and have now started throwing them from balconies….
In a strange way, I looked forward to the meetings. It was a nice change speaking to actual human beings older than 16 after your day of having conversations with Year 9 students that turning up to school 15 minute late, just really isn’t acceptable.
(Spoiler! They obviously listened and decided to make a change, that change being turning up 30 minutes late instead.)
As an attendance officer, you can sometimes feel like a one-man band, so it’s useful to have an opportunity to share your data/concerns with other members of staff such as Head of Years, Senior Leadership Team, Pastoral staff etc…
I found it useful during my time as an attendance officer, to run reports and distribute the data. I have created an article on our help centre that details all the reports I liked to use, you can find the article here – Common Attendance Reports
Below I have listed the top 4 reports that I found most useful and why:
Attendance breakdown for the week
You can use attendance statistics to get this information. In the article above take a look at the Percentage Attendance Report with steps on how to do this. You will need to amend the dates to show a Monday, then re-run the report with dates for Tuesday etc…
I find this particularly useful as you begin to see if there are any days in which attendance drops.
Students that have been absent this week
You can view this information by the Absentees by date page in Arbor, take a look at the Session absences report in the article above.
As attendance officers our sole purpose is to monitor attendance. Whereas this is not the focus for other members of staff, it is useful for them to be reminded of students that were absent.
Students that have been late to school this week
In the attendance reporting article, take a look at the Minutes Late Report section.
Now ten minutes late here and there, we can overlook and forgive. However if a student is late every school day by 30 minutes, that’s 2.5 hours a week. if this was to continue for a month, that would amount to 10 hours, equivalent to 2 school days. It is useful to monitor this as minutes late, that build up, can amount to a significant amount of missed learning.
List of students that are currently a persistent absentee
To view a list of students that are currently persistent absentees, head to Students > Attendance > Absentees (on the left) > Persistent Absentees
It’s good practice to constantly be familiar with our students that are persistently absent. Even though teachers are incredible at their jobs, ultimately they can’t teach those that are absent. Sharing this data with other members of staff allows you to put in place interventions in a bid to improve attendance.
Arbor Community | School Operations
Today’s guest blog is from Chelsea Hopkins, Arbor’s Digital Customer Operations Analyst and former Attendance Officer, sharing her experience of working in schools. Everybody who has worked in a school knows that no two days are the same. However, my experience of being an Attendance Officer is that we will tend to have a routine/structure
Today’s guest blog is from Chelsea Hopkins, Arbor’s Digital Customer Operations Analyst and former Attendance Officer, sharing her experience of working in schools.
Everybody who has worked in a school knows that no two days are the same. However, my experience of being an Attendance Officer is that we will tend to have a routine/structure to our morning that we try to stick to.
I thought it would be fun to share my experience of being an Attendance Officer and how that would look whilst using Arbor. So here goes…
Let’s set the scene, it’s a dark gloomy winter morning. I’m already late as I didn’t factor in the extra ten minutes to defrost my car. I roll up to the empty car park, usually I was always the first person in!
I unlock my office door and turn on the lights and can see the phone blinking red with the voicemails from my parents. My first port of call – turn the kettle on!
Now armed with caffeine, I start my day.
The majority of Parents & Guardians would contact the school prior to the school day starting. They would get in touch via email, telephone, SMS. I would always add these reasons onto the system. There are a couple of ways you can do this.
First Method – Bulk Edit Marks
This is useful for one-off absences such as a headache or other minor ailments.
Second Method – Record a Planned Absence
This is useful for documenting long-term absences such as an injury where they won’t be back for a week. Or future absences such as a medical appointment or a holiday.
I would then refresh my memory from the day before and see who was absent and who I need to keep an eye on today. You can do this using the Absentee’s by Date page:
Then the school day starts and there is a buzz of chatter that fills the hallway. There is a year 11 student in the corner that is crying because they’ve broken up for the twelfth time this week with their significant other (it’s Tuesday).
Amongst the crowd, you see a student that is radiating a pale green colour and is making a beeline to your office to tell you they do not feel well. You ask the student, “Who’s sent you?”, to which they reply “Miss Smith”. You make a mental note to thank Miss Smith later for sending a student to your shoebox office.
You call home for this student, someone’s on their way to collect them and you ask the student to wait in main reception. You say, “hope you feel better soon” as they are leaving, before lunging for the disinfectant.
Then all went quiet, the students are in lessons, time for the dreaded late duty!
I make a note of all the students coming in late and what time they arrive. I would like to tell you that I was kept entertained by an array of elaborate excuses. Unfortunately, when working in a secondary all you get is “slept in” or “you should be glad I even came” and well, we can’t argue with their honesty!
I then add the late marks via Bulk Edit Marks and I can then monitor/report on these students via Latecomers!
Now that the late duty has been done, time to see who is in and who isn’t!
Of course, Mr Andrews is yet to complete his register, let’s send him his first reminder of the day. (Sending reminders to complete registers or completing them for teachers)
Now to chase all the students that have been marked absent and we don’t know why. In Arbor you can do this on the Absentee’s by Date page:
I tick all the students and then use the Blue Pencil tool and select Follow-up with Guardians.
For most, receiving an SMS/Email will prompt them to call the school and explain the absence. For others, I need to initiate that phone call, so I look back at my list of absent students and identify who will need that phone call.
I can see that Lucy is off today, something is ringing a bell with this student. So, I go to her profile and look at her attendance record. You can do this by:
Looking at the Marks (by Date) section I can see clearly that Lucy has had the last 5 Tuesdays off and that a pattern is forming, I can also see she has double science on a Tuesday afternoon… interesting.
I called home and was told Lucy had a headache, but I also explained my concerns. Feeling rumbled, Lucy made a sudden recovery and will be coming in this afternoon! I also log this telephone call along with all the other calls I made this morning.
Once I’ve followed up with all my guardians, I then like to have a quick skim over my absent students from today regardless of what absence code they have. I can see this overview via the Absentees by date page:
I do this just to ensure that I always have a clear idea of who is absent and make sure I have accounted for everyone. I also like to check my students that are accumulating consecutive days of absence. I can view this from the Continuous Absence page. This will then allow me to identify those who may benefit from a home visit.
Oh and of course, one of the students that lives 5 miles from the school is off today and we have chased a reason for absence, but no joy! Home visit it is.
So, there it is, a morning as an Arbor Attendance Officer! Let me know what you think and what other Attendance topics you would like me to cover.
Today’s blog is an interview with Kirsten Beaven, the School Business Leader at Vaughan Primary School (674) since 2018. The interview was part of a wider research project into how Arbor saves schools money and time. Part of the project involved surveying over 300 SBMs and COOs about how they’re making sure their MIS is
Today’s blog is an interview with Kirsten Beaven, the School Business Leader at Vaughan Primary School (674) since 2018.
The interview was part of a wider research project into how Arbor saves schools money and time. Part of the project involved surveying over 300 SBMs and COOs about how they’re making sure their MIS is doing exactly that – you can download the report for free and hear from more SBMs here.
Arbor’s new report investigating the ROI schools and trusts get from our MIS.
During lockdown, our school realised the underinvestment we’d made into our ICT systems – we were reliant on legacy systems and antiquated manual processes. I was asked to lead a digital transformation project, creating a strategy that overhauled our systems from a core teaching and learning point of view, from an internal systems perspective and how we interface with stakeholders. All of those things that we need to do effectively to continue the popularity of our school, filling our pan and being funded appropriately.
In February 2022, we kickstarted this project and began to do away with the legacy systems and on prem solutions that we had. Servers were taking up lots of room, consuming lots of energy (particularly as kept air conditioned) and didn’t give staff flexibility – I lost count of the number of times I had to come onsite to get access to something stored beyond the system. We carried out detailed system analysis and realised we were buying into an unnecessary amount of additional systems, simply because our previous MIS didn’t support those functions that were necessary to school life: things like assessment of children’s progress, school meals, receiving payments from parents, school club provision etc. Back in February 2022, we were having to interface all these additional apps into our MIS, sometimes having to export and import continually to allow for the most up-to-date information. Not only were the additional subscriptions and applications costly, but also labour intensive from an administrative and organisational point of view.
Another significant cost was the MIS maintenance and support costs which we had to buy into from our Local Authority, when our previous MIS had to be upgraded or tweaked in the form of rolling out patches and updates, in order to support the specialist support team there.
When we looked at what we currently bought into, there was almost £19,000 worth of additional subscriptions and costs that we could effectively eliminate by moving to Arbor.
We did thorough market research, looking at other cloud providers to make sure we found the right fit for our school. What we liked about Arbor was the deep functionality – and that it joined up our processes across the school. Just having those elements talking to each other and connecting the dots is what makes the difference to the efficiency and effectiveness of the school as a whole. It’s logical thinking, and it seems evident, at least to me, that those building the system really understand education in terms of the administrative functions around it and the impact it will have on staff and students.
One good example was a previous pain point of ours, which was parents pre-ordering school meals for their children, but if the student was absent on the day, the kitchen wouldn’t be informed – this led to parents still wanting a refund and food waste, as well as the manual work this creates in order to smooth these external relationships. In Arbor, because the system is interconnected and all the different elements speak to each other, this updates automatically.
We used to spend almost £1000 a year on generating booklets to manage admissions, with parents expected to fill them out, and then our admin team manually inputting this information into the MIS. That process of transposing that information took our office team two weeks in the summer, and had an impact on data accuracy where things weren’t clearly written down. And when September would come around, there would be a mad rush of trying to correct these details when the office is already busy dealing with lots of queries that the new academic year brings.
Not only that, but I previously had to bring in an agency temp to help my office team with a volume of paperwork that was received on the admissions side. We hadn’t received everything we needed, resulting in phonecalls and chasing outstanding paperwork. Now we just click a button and send automatic reminders.
Having the Parent Portal is a massive step forward for us, then, in terms of both cost and time-saving. You’re improving data not only data accuracy, saving paper and the environment, reducing cost and relieving administrative burden on the office staff. The team then has more time to give a more personalised approach for those that do need it that way, e.g. for parents with less digital capability or those with EASL.
Having an MIS with deeper functionality, and connecting those dots across the system, relieves the administrative burden on school staff, which in my opinion, gives staff the capacity to concentrate on those higher value activities. Those things you might not always have the day-to-day bandwidth to support.
For instance, last term, we had an external organisation come in to run some financial management workshops for parents, as we wanted to recognise that some of our families are facing challenges in today’s economic climate and work with them to develop skills which help them back into the workforce or to manage their day-to-day home finances better. In the past, we wouldn’t have necessarily had the time or bandwidth to organise that in terms of administration, marketing, facilitation etc, but now that is a real example where we can say we have made a difference by and added value
We can put more of our energy into doing those kinds of things that benefit our wider community, help our families, or even simple things, like increasing our tours and marketing to make sure we receive the maximum amount of funding that we are eligible for. Because if your numbers are below pan, you’ve still got to staff the same classrooms, which puts the students at a disadvantage. So for me, marketing and lettings and generating additional income to supplement the school budget is critical, because it impacts student outcomes. With the right MIS, you should be able to free up some of the administrative capacity to manage that.
And that’s not only good for budgeting reasons – you also want to keep things interesting for people, which supports staff engagement too. Certain things have to happen at certain times in schools, and some of the more labour intensive work can be more monotonous, which causes peaks and troughs in terms of individual workload, particularly when we were dependent on lots of manual processes. Arbor is helping us to level off those peaks effectively. Of course, we’re still busy, but not to the point where people are completely overwhelmed and where work is more interesting that supports staff development, recruitment and retention.
Third party applications and support contracts: £19,638 annually
Server, warranties and maintenance: £4,000 annually
Other savings e.g. admission booklets: £1,000 annually
Don’t yet use Arbor? Find out more about our school MIS here.
What is operational efficiency? Operational efficiency can sometimes feel like a bit of a dirty word. It smacks of budget cuts, of the prioritisation of KPIs over people and of poor quality. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, I argue many of the associations above come from people not taking into
Operational efficiency can sometimes feel like a bit of a dirty word. It smacks of budget cuts, of the prioritisation of KPIs over people and of poor quality.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, I argue many of the associations above come from people not taking into account actual efficiency when making their decisions. If carried out thoughtfully and carefully, a strive for true operational efficiency should result in a happier workforce and a reduced workload.
For me, operation efficiency is defined by the amount of administrative overhead required to carry out your work. In an ideal world, everyone would spend most of their time on their core role, with a small amount of time dedicated to the admin around that. This might seem obvious, but how many of us could truthfully say that we spend less than 10% of our time on admin?
Going from an inefficient workplace to an efficient workplace takes time, investment and people, all of which are usually already earmarked for work that relates more directly to what your workplace does. If you’re a school, that might be teaching, for a company like Arbor, that’s the work of delivering a reliable platform to our customers. Taking time and people away from that work feels incredibly counter-intuitive – after all, it’s already hard enough to get everything done without giving away a load of time to some work on systems and processes.
I love working through systems and reviewing processes to find areas where they’re overcomplicated, but even I’ll admit that most people don’t find that thrilling. That can make it even harder to choose to give your (already stretched) attention to the work needed for a more efficient workplace, when there are so many exciting and new things to be looking at.
I’ve been working in this area for most of my career and I have never considered the time invested in improving efficiency wasted. From halving the workload of an analytics team, thus allowing them to carry out more complex and bespoke analyses, to reducing the errors in school migrations onto our platform by 90%, the results speak for themselves. But the benefits of increased efficiency go beyond simply improving the work produced. I’ve seen happier, more productive teams, better relationships between departments and improved flexibility, as people are able to step away from mundane, repetitive tasks and truly focus on their work.
Before diving into creating a new system or process, it’s always worth a quick sense check to make sure it’s worth the time. Will you be doing this task on a regular basis? How long does it take? How long will it take to automate/create a system? For instance, if the task takes two hours and automating it takes six hours, it’s only worth it if you know you’ll be doing that task at least four times.
A colleague of mine used to say he aimed for ‘minimum viable bureaucracy’ and that’s stuck with me ever since. It can be really tempting to try to address all possible scenarios once you’ve decided to commit to making a large-scale change, but that can slow you up more than it’s worth. While some systems will be difficult to change after the fact (and it’s always worth checking that with the provider), many will be easy to adjust as new circumstances come up.
So many people in my role come in with the view that they know more than the rest of the business about managing their workload. I don’t believe that should ever be the case. At the end of the day, no one knows your workplace better than the people who work there. Before getting into any large change, I do my best to speak to representatives from all areas of the company, so that I can make sure my perception reflects the actual experience of the people working there.
Even bearing all of this in mind, it can feel quite daunting to start a project like this. To help, there are a few exercises I like to go through. Firstly, you’ll need to decide how much resource (time or money) you’re willing to invest. This will help you keep everything on track and on budget as you go. Next, decide on the single biggest outcome you’re hoping for. Once you have that, you can work backwards to understand everything you need to allow you to achieve that outcome. If any external systems are involved in your work, it can be a good idea to speak directly with the providers, as they may be able to help you find the most efficient way to achieve your goals.
Most importantly, don’t forget to keep reminding yourself on why it’s worth it. Keep going back to those key points of why you started your project in the first place, celebrate the small wins, and look forward to a (hopefully!) reduced workload and happier workforce.
At Arbor, we believe your MIS should be doing the heavy lifting for you when it comes to laborious and manual admin. Find out more about our time-saving cloud MIS here so that you can spend your time on what matters most.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 hello@arbor-education.com or call 0208 050 1028.
You can also download our guide to Arbor for Data Managers for free here.
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
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
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!
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.
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.
At Arbor we know that every school and MAT is different, and that every school has different needs when it comes to choosing the right set of technology. That’s why we work with a growing network of apps – to make sure our schools can connect the specialist systems they rely on everyday with Arbor
At Arbor we know that every school and MAT is different, and that every school has different needs when it comes to choosing the right set of technology.
That’s why we work with a growing network of apps – to make sure our schools can connect the specialist systems they rely on everyday with Arbor MIS, helping them to manage their school data the way they need to.
We partner with specialist providers to give schools choice
We believe that when school technology companies pull together, the impact can be huge. It’s been difficult for technology providers to integrate with server-based MIS systems in the past. However, as more and more schools have been switching to a cloud-based MIS over the last few years, providers have built MIS integrations much more easily. This means schools have the freedom to continue using the tools they love, connected seamlessly to their MIS.
Connect your specialist tools to Arbor easily
At Arbor, we’ve partnered with over 100 organisations across the country who provide specialist systems and support to schools. We believe that instead of a “one stop shop” approach, where schools can only use Arbor for everything, we want to make it easy for schools to use specialist systems for things like safeguarding, timetabling and assessment if they want to, connected seamlessly to Arbor.
We collaborate with the best in EdTech
Working with specialist organisations across the country gives us the opportunity to collaborate and provide the best possible service to schools.
We want to make it easier than ever for partners of all types to give schools the largest possible choice. We’re doing that in three key ways:
1. We’ve made it easy to integrate with Arbor
As Arbor’s community of schools grows (now over 1,500!), we want to make it cheaper and easier to plug third party systems into Arbor. This means that our list of integrations is constantly growing too.
We also want to make it easy to share ideas between schools, Arbor and our partners. For example, we have an online Developer Portal, where companies who want to integrate with Arbor can sign up for free and access all our documentation (with support for free too!). We’ve also built an online Community forum where our schools and partners can easily swap tips and best practice for getting the most out of Arbor.
2. We’re building deeper integrations
We’re also working with key partners on exciting deeper integrations that give schools joined-up insight and seamless workflows. For example, schools using PUMA and PIRA tests from RS Assessment can sync marks straight into Arbor and analyse the results alongside demographic information, attendance and behaviour.
3. We’re supporting schools in new ways
With schools working in totally different ways right now and managing constant change, they’re finding the IT support they need has changed. They need access to information fast – regardless of which system it’s in. Our friendly support team at Arbor provides free support for schools, but we’ve also teamed up with support providers all over the country so schools can choose to get help with Arbor from their local team if they want to.
Our accredited Arbor Support Partners go through in-depth training to help schools get the most value out of Arbor. With skills in business intelligence (BI) and analytics, they can also work with schools and MATs to help them get even greater insight into their data.
Discover Arbor MIS for your school or MAT
To find out how Arbor’s cloud-based MIS could transform the way your school or MAT works, get in touch to book a demo or join a free webinar to see the system in action.
Looking to integrate or partner with Arbor?
We’re always looking to invest in new partnerships, so that schools can choose the systems that work best for them and benefit from the power of collaboration. If you want to find out more, get in touch at: api@arbor-education.com
Former Secondary School Headteacher and Arbor’s Senior Partnership Manager, Andrew, speaks to Steve Gibson, Deputy Headteacher at Berwick Academy In my first article on the subject of curriculum led financial planning (CLFP), I asked: Is your Curriculum planning improving outcomes for your students? In this article, I discussed with a secondary Senior Leader how schools
In my first article on the subject of curriculum led financial planning (CLFP), I asked: Is your Curriculum planning improving outcomes for your students? In this article, I discussed with a secondary Senior Leader how schools are addressing CLFP mid-pandemic, including how to juggle the challenges of budgeting whilst addressing gaps in curriculum and learning, and planning for the future.
Steve Gibson is Deputy Headteacher at Berwick Academy, a small community high school and sixth form in Northumberland that aims to improve skills, knowledge, understanding and values through friendship, learning and respect. Balancing the budget in a small, rural school is not a science but an art form, as Steve discusses the challenges he faces with outdated building stock, rural isolation and difficulties around recruiting and retaining quality staff.
You can read our conversation below.
Steve: Obviously, the main focus is on ‘the now’ but as we have funding challenges anyway, our eye constantly has to be on the budget. We have had the support of external resource advisors but sometimes they lack school operational experience and don’t appreciate the complexities of providing a balanced curriculum when numbers on roll are below average, or that by reducing staffing to any great extent we wouldn’t be able to function. We have implemented many suggestions, but some of their suggestions would be detrimental to our curriculum and the way we operate.
We have an old school building which has been well looked-after, but it’s fair to say that some parts of our site are in a poor condition and the costs associated with operating our ten buildings are high. This is a costly site and needs a lot of upkeep. As part of our Covid response and financial prudence, we have reduced movement between buildings to maintain heat and minimise student contact but the buildings are not large but do house specialist facilities. We are not able to consider any major capital projects at the moment.
S: Suddenly we find we need more people on duty and more people at the gate without any additional funding, and while this is built into our contact time allocations, changes like this rely on a lot of goodwill. We have already had to change the structure of the school day to make the site Covid safe and currently operate a three lesson day.
With the reduced movement of students, we found this approach had a positive effect on behaviour and when all students return, the reduced timetable may remain in some form. We like it because it maximises learning time as students settle more quickly. In effect, we exploded our one week timetable over two weeks so you get a good chunk of curriculum time. The curriculum is therefore protected but some subjects may only see classes once per fortnight.
Attendance follow up will be a priority when students return and we are buying a day of Education Welfare Officer time to help us get students back and engaging with learning. We’ve also maintained our EWO contract throughout lockdown last year and again this year in order to help us to reach out to some of the more difficult to engage families.
Mental health and wellbeing have emerged as strong priorities and our Pastoral Team have really stepped up in this respect to ensure that there is a wellbeing helpline, regular catch-up calls and home visits when appropriate, and support for families where we, or they, identify a need.
S: It hasn’t been easy as the information is held in a number of different places. What we do know is that staffing costs are high and recruitment is difficult, and therefore staff are expensive. We have built a planning model that shows how much each subject costs and can even demonstrate what each lesson costs.
We have found that some of our activities are cost-negative. Things like our “On Call” rotas are mostly made up of the Senior Leadership team and that’s predictably an expensive use of their time. We have used some classroom management software to analyse how often Senior Leadership have been called to assist in classroom difficulties as the basis for some calculations, and as a way of identifying trends and training requirements.
S: We have had to reduce the range of options subjects for Year 10 whilst trying to keep a broad curriculum. We have had to limit the options for students by grouping similar subjects such as graphics and design technology into a single subject offer. We only have one MFL teacher so all students study French and this is our only language GCSE in order to meet students’ language acquisition aspirations and the requirements of the EBacc.
We offer a broadly traditional curriculum, but are evaluating it annually with the needs of each cohort in mind. We have also reduced the offer in the sixth form to those subjects we know we can deliver well as we understand that it is reliant on main school funding to exist.
S: Yes we have. We have considered shutting our sixth form but the nearest alternative is 30 miles away or a difficult journey to attend college in a big city and we feel our community deserves local provision. There are many difficult decisions to make around curriculum and financial planning, but our first priority is always what is right for our students and our community, and then we work hard to make that happen within our financial means.
S: We have a clear vision for where we need to improve, and we have not allowed the lockdowns to change that course. We have built on CPD for staff, and our teaching and learning strategy has become embedded through our virtual learning to reflect our in-classroom learning.
We are seeing the benefits of increased learning time. Not all subjects are big fans of the longer lessons but we may consider changing our timetable to a 4 period day to maximise the positive effects of fewer lesson transitions and the opportunity to go deeper with students during those longer lessons.
The forced move to virtual learning to support students at home has not happened in the way we expected, but has followed our intention to move as much home learning as possible to our virtual platforms. A positive outcome of the current situation is that our students and parents are now used to accessing and learning from these platforms. Our staff have also had the opportunity to learn new skills in working remotely, and our ability to offer lessons of quality at home has been developed at breakneck speed.
S: We have, the main one is considering our status as a high school. Our students join us in Year 9 and school funding modelling nationally favours the secondary school model starting at Year 7. The modelling of two additional year groups enables us to demonstrate a balanced budget, and if we continue to believe in the current system, we therefore have to acknowledge that funding should be different for those schools who don’t fit the standard primary-secondary mould. Either changing the model of the school, or changing the funding mechanism for those of us operating in a three-tier system, would make us more financially sustainable.
S: It is just about, because we’ve carefully looked at our Teacher contact ratio and costs per lesson. We know we can’t shave any more of these costs. The challenge for us is to look at efficiencies in our operating costs so we can prioritise the curriculum. For example, when we look at our technology costs we know that on top of our MIS costs we have safeguarding software, a classroom management tool, a parent communication tool and a homework tool. All of these add up and all of them are relied upon by someone to do one specific job. Our homework tool for example has become our main vehicle for managing our online learning. We don’t underestimate the value some of them bring.
We look for efficiencies all the time, and we are good at repairing before replacing! We look after our buildings to make sure they provide the best environment that they can, and when money needs to be spent on them we make our choices with one eye on today and the other looking to the future. It’s the same with our curriculum. We want to offer the widest and most appropriate curriculum we can for our students, but to do that we need to maintain a clear understanding of the cost of any decision we make, and balance that with a clear understanding of the needs and aspirations of our students and our community.
For more information on a tool and advice on your CLFP, go to: https://www.sec-ed.co.uk/resources-products/how-schools-can-best-implement-curriculum-led-financial-planning/
Rolling out a new MIS (Management Information System) at your secondary school can feel like a daunting task. That’s why we work hand-in-hand with schools to implement Arbor at the right time and pace. There really is no best time to move – we work with schools throughout the school year and during holidays to
Rolling out a new MIS (Management Information System) at your secondary school can feel like a daunting task. That’s why we work hand-in-hand with schools to implement Arbor at the right time and pace.
There really is no best time to move – we work with schools throughout the school year and during holidays to fit your move to Arbor around your priorities, school calendar and staff commitments. During Covid-19 we’ve moved over 400 schools to Arbor.
You’ll have the support of your Arbor Project Manager who will ensure your staff have the right training they need to use Arbor confidently as soon as the system goes live. Find out more about how we help make Arbor a success at your school here.
If you’re wondering when would be a good time to move systems during the academic year, our Head of Professional Services, Emma, has some handy pointers below to help you decide:
If you want your Arbor site to go live in September, your implementation will begin after the Easter break.
What to bear in mind in your school calendar:
How Arbor can help:
If you want your Arbor site to go live in October Half-Term, your implementation will begin after May Half-Term.
If you want your Arbor site to go live in January, your implementation will begin in September.
If you want your Arbor site to go live in February Half-Term, your implementation will begin after October Half-Term.
If you want your Arbor site to go live in Easter, your implementation will begin after Christmas.
If you want your Arbor site to go live in May Half-Term, your implementation will begin after February Half-Term.
Want to find out what your implementation journey to Arbor MIS could look like? Join our free webinar on 2nd February at 11am to hear from Rebecca all about the structure and process of moving your secondary school to Arbor’s cloud-based MIS – from data migration, training, to driving long-term improvements to the way you work. Sign up here for free.
In busy secondary schools with so much information in different places, it’s often difficult for staff to find what they need. With the added demands of Covid-19 and staff and students working remotely, now is the time to switch to a cloud-based system that you can rely on to support your daily tasks. Arbor’s Secondary
In busy secondary schools with so much information in different places, it’s often difficult for staff to find what they need. With the added demands of Covid-19 and staff and students working remotely, now is the time to switch to a cloud-based system that you can rely on to support your daily tasks.
Arbor’s Secondary School MIS is designed to make a measurable improvement to the way you work by bringing all your systems, data and communications under one roof. This gives everyone at your school a single source of information so you can support the students and staff who need it the most.
Over 209 secondary schools have chosen Arbor MIS for a better working life, joining the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community of over 1,800 schools and MATs.
Moving your school to a new system might seem daunting, but over 600 schools moved to Arbor remotely during Covid-19. Below are three of the top reasons you should consider a switch this term:
Schools are working in totally new ways right now and older school software simply can’t keep up. Because Arbor MIS is cloud-based, you can stay connected to your school community and maintain all your administrative tasks wherever you need to work – with fast, secure online access.
During Covid-19, we’ve also developed market-leading tools to help free staff up to focus on supporting students and staff:
“I just wanted to say how impressed I have been with Arbor during the COVID crisis. What you guys have implemented has made my job so much easier.” Josh Pearce, Marches School
Arbor is designed to meet the needs of secondary schools of all shapes and sizes. With so much going on, Arbor helps you create a more joined-up school, with a shared view of progress and purpose for all staff.
With accessible, flexible reporting at every level, Arbor gives you a holistic view of your students’ progress across all areas of school – completely out-of-the-box – so you can direct the right support to the right students. Plus, Arbor’s powerful integrations with data analysis platforms including Power BI, SISRA and 4Matrix mean you can dig into your data exactly how you need to.
Arbor’s fast, intuitive tools, like timetabling, communications and end-to-end exams management, cut down on repetitive manual work and help make life easier for everyone, from Support Staff, to SLT, to Teachers.
92% of school staff say they save time with Arbor compared to their previous MIS, and 81% say Arbor has improved how they analyse and understand data.
When you join Arbor we’ll take the time to truly understand your school and your goals – then help you meet them, year after year. Our friendly, expert team of consultants and former educators will work with you to provide the training and services you need to drive impact with Arbor at your secondary school.
Being part of Arbor, you’ll share best practice with a growing community of like-minded schools learning from each other and sharing best practice. What’s more, we’re always keen to hear your feedback on Arbor and work hand-in-hand with schools to shape the new features we develop.
We’re proud of our 97% customer satisfaction rate for support and 99% customer retention rate.
Want to discover more about Arbor MIS and see the system in action? Join one of our free webinars this term to find out how Arbor could help you work faster, smarter and collaborate more at your organisation. See all the sessions that are coming up here.
Alternatively, get in touch with us directly – we’d love to hear from you! tellmemore@arbor-education.com | 0208 050 1028
With schools working in totally new ways right now (juggling in-person education with remote learning, remote parent engagement, and remote working, all whilst keeping up with rapidly changing DfE advice), many staff members have reported an increase in workload this year. In fact, TES reported that 84% of teachers felt stressed in Autumn Term, whilst
With schools working in totally new ways right now (juggling in-person education with remote learning, remote parent engagement, and remote working, all whilst keeping up with rapidly changing DfE advice), many staff members have reported an increase in workload this year. In fact, TES reported that 84% of teachers felt stressed in Autumn Term, whilst The Key found 48% of Business Managers reported an increased workload.
Often this increase is down to the fact that, whilst schools are working in totally new ways, the tools they’re using haven’t changed. Older, server-based software wasn’t designed for remote, flexible, and highly changeable ways of working – not least because they require the user to work at a fixed station within school.
But there is a better way to work – and it starts with finding a system that can support your staff now and in the future.
We designed our cloud-based MIS to make a measurable difference to the way schools work, and we’re proud to say that 92% of our customers say we’ve changed the way they work for the better. We’re here to help with all the extra Covid-specific admin and workload challenges you’re facing now (see how here), and we can help you build sustainable ways of working as we all start to plan for recovery.
In this blog we share 5 ways our schools use Arbor to reduce workload for their staff every day, with a focus on how we can help you in the longer term:
When you’re making decisions on how to support your students, you need the right evidence to support you in turn. Because Arbor gives you access to student progress data alongside behaviour, attendance and contextual information in one place, you’ll have the full picture you need to identify the students requiring support at your fingertips.
Plus, where some systems just show you data, Arbor goes one step further and helps you ask those “why” questions. With people-friendly dashboards that are easy to filter and drill into, and personalised reports you can make in a few clicks, you’ll be able to easily get to the bottom of patterns and problems influencing performance in your school.
Arbor is the only MIS to integrate DfE performance and finance data with your live, in-year data, so you can understand how your school’s or MAT’s performance compares with others across the country. Not only will you have over five years of attendance, behaviour, attainment and student characteristics data built-in, you’ll also get intelligent call-outs and analysis, helping you see what’s important without spending hours analysing raw data manually.
Get started today with free benchmarking for your school or trust with Arbor Insight.
We build Arbor hand-in-hand with schools, which means everything we do is focused on tackling the real problems leaders, teachers and support staff face day-to-day. In fact – you can check out what we’re working on next here. With intuitive design that just works, Arbor automates your key admin tasks like data collection, reporting and communications, giving you hours back a week to spend where you like.
Many schools have the goal of improving how they communicate with their community of parents and families. With Covid-19 making it more important than ever to keep parents in the loop, you need a reliable system in place that makes communication seamless.
Arbor MIS gives you lots of communications options so you can choose the right way to send the right messages, at the right time. Send multiple, personalised SMS, email or letters at once or share reports directly to parents’ phones via the Arbor App. What’s more, with all your student information at your fingertips, you’ll be able to target your communications to the most hard-to-reach students, and keep easy records with a built-in log.
What do Arbor schools and MATs say? Thanks to Arbor, 73% of staff at The Parks Academies Trust say communication has improved throughout Covid-19, with the Pool Academy managing to keep contact with 100% of students every day during the first lockdown.
Whether it’s schools who have lots of different systems and processes, or MATs whose schools are working in disconnected ways, a big focus for many trust leaders is finding the right balance between standardisation and autonomy. Arbor helps you set common expectations and procedures around behaviour, attendance and assessment, so that everyone is on the same page. This makes reporting and decision making much quicker and easier, plus it helps you embed an ethos and values for your organisation.
Want to discover more about Arbor MIS and see the system in action? Join one of our free webinars this term to find out how Arbor could help you work faster, smarter and collaborate more at your organisation. See all the sessions that are coming up here and if you can’t make a live webinar, watch any session on-demand!
MAT Operations | Popular | School Operations
Hundreds of schools are switching to cloud-based IT systems this year to help them work more flexibly. But with several cloud-based MIS systems on the market, it can be difficult to know where to start in choosing the system that will work best for your unique requirements. To support you in your search, we wanted
Hundreds of schools are switching to cloud-based IT systems this year to help them work more flexibly. But with several cloud-based MIS systems on the market, it can be difficult to know where to start in choosing the system that will work best for your unique requirements.
To support you in your search, we wanted to share some of the best advice we’ve gathered from our 1,700 schools and 110 MATs about how to take control of the MIS switch and choose the right system (and the supplier) for you.
Read below for top tips to help you break down the process into manageable steps, when to involve your staff, and how to work with your supplier to get the most value out of your new system.
When you’re first scoping your MIS switch, start with a small team of staff who represent both IT and teaching and learning. Together they make the perfect team to think about the full potential of what a new MIS could do for your school. Try to worry less about admin (in the beginning!) and focus instead on how you want to improve ways of working at your school.
Remember, your current system will be easier to replace than you think!
The best MIS suppliers will work with you to help you achieve your school or trust’s long-term goals. So make sure you talk through your objectives during the sales process. The company should make clear how you’ll be able to adapt the system to meet your needs, and how it will help you implement improvements at your school over a longer period of time.
Remember, switching to a new MIS isn’t just a one-off project, it should be a partnership you can trust in year after year.
Many of our schools and MATs have found using a government-approved framework like G-Cloud a really clear and compliant way of procuring MIS. Having the information about all MIS suppliers on the market in one place can save you time, and helps you choose the most competitive, reputable and secure supplier.
Read our handy guide to using G-Cloud to procure your new MIS.
A change in systems can be daunting for staff, so it’s a good idea to get them involved in the process early on, so they have the opportunity to air their concerns and ask any questions they have. The best suppliers will provide personalised demos for each of your key staff (E.g. Admin Officers, Finance Manager, Middle Leadership, SENCOs, Teachers, HR Manager) to help them visualise how the new system will work for their everyday roles.
Remember, your supplier should be able to reassure all your staff how the new system will improve (not just replace) their day-to-day ways of working.
Arbor is the UK’s fastest-growing MIS supplier, with more schools switching to us than any other supplier.
If you’d like to discover how Arbor MIS could help you work faster, smarter and collaborate more at your school or trust, join a free demo webinar or get in touch with the team at tellmemore@arbor-education.com or 0208 050 1028.
You can also check out our profile on the DfE’s G-cloud framework here:
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. Whilst most schools choose Arbor MIS to replace all the various school systems they use for different tasks, it’s important to us that schools can choose to still use the tools they love with Arbor. That’s why we’ve partnered with
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. Whilst most schools choose Arbor MIS to replace all the various school systems they use for different tasks, it’s important to us that schools can choose to still use the tools they love with Arbor.
That’s why we’ve partnered with over 30 of the best-in-breed platforms for communications, clubs and trips, data analysis, and more, so you can use them seamlessly alongside your MIS. That means Arbor will sync data automatically with your favourite apps, so you’ll only have to update your information once!
As well as working with your favourite tools, read below for the top four ways Arbor helps you create a more joined-up school – from data security, to remote working.
With Single Sign On (SSO), staff will be able to log in to their email, virtual learning environment and Arbor MIS at the same time – with only one password to remember! With the possibility of school lockdowns or staff having to isolate, these features free up your staff to access their systems from wherever they’re working.
With remote working, it’s important to make sure your school data stays secure. With our Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) functionality, you’ll have an extra layer of security to logins across your school, which requires the user to enter both their password and a unique code sent to their mobile device. You choose whether to require 2FA for all users at all times, or only for staff who are working from home.
Arbor connects seamlessly with your Google or Microsoft platform so if you’re one of the thousands of schools who has taken advantage of the DfE provisioning scheme for these platforms, this is an added bonus!
Your MIS is home to some of the most sensitive data your school collects on students, staff and guardians. This data is also an incredibly useful source of insight, so you might sometimes want to dig deeper into your data using another system.
At Arbor, we work closely with all the major data providers in the UK including Wonde, Groupcall and Salamander Soft to allow schools to connect with the widest possible range of systems. What’s more, you have total visibility and control over the data you choose to share. The biggest benefit is we don’t charge these companies to integrate with Arbor, so that costs are kept as low as possible for schools.
Arbor’s built-in dashboards surface the data most relevant to your staff, and you can build any number of personalised reports in minutes. But if you want to go the extra mile and do something even more creative with your data, we’ve made it as easy as possible to export your Arbor data quickly and securely with our Live Feeds functionality.
Export any Arbor report in a few clicks into Excel, Google Sheets or even PowerBI! Once the Feed is in, your data will refresh automatically. And don’t worry, we keep your data completely secure using a random, salted 16-digit string within the Live Feed (making them near impossible to hack!). You also have full visibility and control over who can access the Feed in Arbor, with the option to cut it off at any time.
We’re excited to announce that in February 2021, schools will be able to synchronise their teaching and learning tools directly with Arbor MIS, thanks to our new integrations with G-Suite, Microsoft School Data Sync and Apple Classroom. This means your students, staff and classes will be automatically set up in your VLE, so there’s no need to create them manually or use a costly third party service.
This is part of our new Arbor Enterprise toolkit, which helps schools and MATs simplify their setup and get more from their data. Keep an eye out for more news on this next year!
If you’d like to find out more about how Arbor could help your school or MAT work faster, smarter and collaborate more, join a free webinar or arrange a 1-on-1 demo here.
Case Studies | School Operations
We spoke to two Senior Leaders in a primary and secondary school about the biggest challenges they’re facing this term, and how they’re feeling about potential Ofsted inspections. To find out some of the questions Ofsted have been asking this term and how Arbor MIS can help you prepare, check out our blog. Martyn Essery,
We spoke to two Senior Leaders in a primary and secondary school about the biggest challenges they’re facing this term, and how they’re feeling about potential Ofsted inspections.
To find out some of the questions Ofsted have been asking this term and how Arbor MIS can help you prepare, check out our blog.
1. What are some of the biggest challenges your staff are facing this term?
The changes to the “zoning” of students has required a change of perspective for some Teachers who have cultivated their own classrooms over the years, but the biggest challenge now is keeping on top of staff and student absence, and seeking to offer the best remote learning experience for those who are not in school.
2. What are your strategies for getting your students “back on track” after lockdown?
We have deliberately avoided using language around “catching up” and “filling gaps” in order to get students back to school. Instead we reconnected with the physical space and daily social interactions without causing unnecessary mental burdens in relation to the time missed between March and July. We are making use of the excellent guidance from the Education Endowment Foundation – we are in the fortunate position that much of the back-to-school guidance chimes with initiatives we already had in place, such as targeted academic support.
3. Are you concerned at all about Ofsted inspections?
No, but I hope they are being carried out as a means to fact-find and share best practice around how schools are approaching this unique challenge.
4. How will you be preparing for an inspection?
We do not implement processes or add requirements specifically in relation to a planned or unplanned inspection, so we will continue to ensure that our systems are working effectively – supporting our students to learn and enjoy their learning, and giving us the data we require to analyse and intervene where required.
5. How has Arbor helped you prepare for inspections in the past?
The quick access to a wide variety of data in relation to students, staff, attendance and behaviour has meant that drawing up overviews and headlines has been very straightforward. But, as mentioned above, rather than it being useful specifically for an inspection, it is the way in which we have been able to integrate Arbor into all of the day-to-day routines which makes it so useful in relation to feeling prepared and on top of what is going on in school.
The close tracking of behaviour, with clear workflows and follow-ups in order to ensure nothing slips through the gaps, has contributed to behaviour in our school being both high quality and consistently managed.
With custom reports and Live Feeds, individuals can create bespoke reports which monitor the data relevant to them – this has been utilised in relation to absence and punctuality in recent weeks.
Finally, we have been able to manage a changing landscape related to timetables and when students are required to be at school thanks to the way the programmes are set up in Arbor.
At the moment, it feels like we’re dancing on the tightest of tightropes. I’ve never known Teachers to work such long hours, and students are now having to make seven steps rather than five just to meet expectations.
This next six months will be the most complicated stage of the current crisis. In some ways, last term’s lockdown was quite straightforward – we had 10-15% of our students in school and the rest we provided remote support to. But the current period is a sort of “halfway house” – we’re not fully open nor closed. The Government’s covid-related illness codes give the false impression that there is a high attendance nationally, whereas in reality the codes mark students as present. One of our schools is currently struggling to reach 90% attendance when Covid-19 registration codes are taken into consideration.
However, I’m pleased to say that behaviour so far has been very good – you can sense students feel the joy of being back to school.
Since the beginning of term, we’ve taken the opportunity to reset. Everything we are doing has been adapted to the Covid-19 situation. This has often meant we’ve had to re-evaluate what we do and why we do it. For example, we’ve re-launched our school curriculum which has gone down well.
It’s uncertain when and what the visits will look like. Under the current framework, core subject leadership is the most challenging area. Until recently, it was only senior leadership who were judged, but for the last five years Subject Leads are being judged more and more. In the 90’s, each Local Authority would have their own Subject Leads, who could upskill staff in schools. But now schools do not have such support. Many MATs and federations are developing dedicated subject leadership strategies. Our approach has been to develop a subject leadership handbook between our two schools. This handbook sets out our vision, expectations and timelines for Subject Leaders. It’s been designed to get new leaders up to speed as quickly as possible, and for experienced leaders it’s a useful touchstone. New leaders have also buddied up with experienced Subject Leaders, often across schools.
The main thing Ofsted will want us to evidence in relation to the Covid-19 learning gap, is “How do you know what students don’t know?” Baseline assessment will support much of this but running alongside this will be an adjustment to our school vision – how does our vision for learning fit in this new climate? What adjustments do we need to make? What financial impacts will this lead to? These are typically long term questions that we are having to make decisions on rapidly in a very uncertain world.
Assessment is better understood. We’re in the process of using Puma and Pira assessments which import neatly into our Arbor MIS. This will show us how student groups are doing across key measures. Equally we’re using our Early Years assessments to gauge how far we have to go in order to meet minimum requirements. Early evidence is suggesting that younger children have a wider learning gap than older children. What we know is that younger children also tend to make more rapid progress than older children. At the moment we have set a challenge to address 18 months of learning in one year. This will have to be adjusted if we are called to close again, as the suspicion is that a second round of school closures could create an even greater learning gap than the first.
Ofsted are also likely to ask whether you’re just doing the “minimum” to get students back on track with their learning, or if you’re being adaptive and creative in order to enrich their learning. The fact that we can’t get out on trips (Transport for London has closed school trips) makes this difficult for us to do, especially for foundation subjects. So we’re working with what we can do locally and internally, for example our Head of School recently dressed up as the Queen (which managed to convince our Year 1’s!)
Arbor is where we can evidence core learning and the effectiveness of our policies around attendance, behaviour etc. We can get the data we need rapidly to show where we are, how things have changed over time, and which students are behind the trends, which is vital in Ofsted conversations.
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 on tellmemore@arbor-education.com or 0208 050 1028.
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Case Studies | Popular | School Operations
Moving MIS can feel like a daunting task, particularly as many schools only have experience of their current system. Even so, the last few years have seen many schools and academies review their tech and replace their legacy, server-based systems with more efficient, cloud-based solutions. We’ve put together two interviews with schools in Hampshire to
Moving MIS can feel like a daunting task, particularly as many schools only have experience of their current system. Even so, the last few years have seen many schools and academies review their tech and replace their legacy, server-based systems with more efficient, cloud-based solutions.
We’ve put together two interviews with schools in Hampshire to show that, when you choose the right provider, moving MIS doesn’t have to be an intimidating process.
1. What motivated your move to Arbor MIS?
We used to have a number of different systems that managed all the different operational aspects of a school (MIS, attendance, communication, assessment, medical, etc), and although individually these systems worked well, we found that you had to keep switching between them to get the full picture, i.e. linking attendance to progress, or emails home to confirm social media consent. This, coupled with the extraordinarily complex processes to get straightforward answers to simple questions (e.g. What is the absence trend of our PP children this term?) was becoming increasingly frustrating for us.
I had used Arbor Insight reports for a couple of years, and loved the clarity in which detailed information was presented. The charts and graphs were consistently user friendly, and I was able to get the data I needed swiftly. I did some investigating into Arbor MIS, and spoke to a couple of schools – who all spoke highly of the system. When we costed Arbor over a three year period and found that we would save just under £6k compared to the other systems we were using, the transition was a no brainer!
2. Did you have any concerns before moving?
There were a number of issues that I needed to be confident about before moving to Arbor. Obviously we checked their reliability, ‘uptime’ status over the past few years, accounts, customer service, compliance with GDPR and other relevant legislation. We were also twitchy about the actual transition and the physical moving of all our MIS data from one product to another! We knew that we were taking a leap of faith!
However, after the delays in getting the data out of the old system, the actual transfer into Arbor was slick with several layers of verification. Additional checks by the Arbor team continued to make us feel confident that our data was being well looked after!
3. What was your staff’s reaction to changing MIS?
The office team were instrumental in evaluating Arbor before moving over to it, so they had some idea of what to expect. They were very excited about the transition, especially with regard to us being a growing school and requiring a product that would grow and help us streamline systems and processes. We are still finding time-saving devices regularly in the product!
My Business Manager is able to put all the staff details in a single system, and add staff attendance, contract details and we are investigating transferring our Single Central Record over too. Teachers like being able to locate parent’s contact details quickly, alongside assessment and attendance data. All these features make for a happy staff!
4. How has Arbor transformed the way you work?
One of the most notable areas that has been transformed is the census return. Having our own maintained nursery (with its variety of Nursery 2s and 3s, 15 and 30 hour funding, irregular sessions, non compulsory attendance, paid for sessions, etc.) used to require multiple telephone calls to the previous system’s help desk. These were often painfully long, incredibly complicated and stressful days! However, the most recent census return was completed in under 20 minutes (and when help was required, it’s always clear and accurate!).
I love the automated reports – I’ve got two main ones set up at the moment; one for safeguarding, the other for attendance. These scheduled reports are automatically generated and emailed to the relevant staff. These save so much time!
For us, however, Arbor is the one-stop-shop for everything. During parents’ evenings, we load on the pupil’s page, and we have all the information at our fingertips. We can quickly see who is social media safe, or doesn’t have permission for the administration of paracetamol, who has a food allergy, or what they achieved in their Y1 Phonics screening. We used to waste so much time digging into separate systems to find all this – having it all on the screen in one place has been fantastic!
5. What would you say to a Local Authority maintained primary school in an area like Hampshire who’s thinking of moving away from SIMS but is nervous about it?
Do it! Don’t hesitate! There are better, more efficient and more effective ways of working. Arbor holds your hand all the way through the process (and beyond – they definitely do not “drop you once you’re in!”). The ongoing communication, support and training continually reassure and help you get the most from Arbor. They are continually developing the product (the Covid attendance summary page is brilliant for the daily DfE return!), and they listen to your suggestions for improvements too! Take the plunge – you won’t look back!
To find out more about how Arbor’s cloud-based MIS could help your school work faster, smarter and collaborate more, join one of our webinars at ArborFest – our exclusive online event for schools across the country. You’ll hear how fellow school staff have transformed the way they work with Arbor MIS. Find out what’s on and book now – it’s free!
Read Part Two for our second interview with Kay Bowen, Headteacher at St John the Baptist CoE Primary
As hundreds of maintained schools are choosing to move to cloud-based systems, we’ve been speaking to schools in Hampshire about why they made their decision to move to Arbor. You can catch up on our first interview with Jason Anderson, Headteacher at Romsey Primary School here. In this blog, we speak to Kay Bowen, Headteacher
As hundreds of maintained schools are choosing to move to cloud-based systems, we’ve been speaking to schools in Hampshire about why they made their decision to move to Arbor.
You can catch up on our first interview with Jason Anderson, Headteacher at Romsey Primary School here. In this blog, we speak to Kay Bowen, Headteacher at St John the Baptist CoE Primary, who moved to Arbor in Spring 2020.
The cost of our previous system and lack of usage; feeling that it probably could do a lot but we did not have staff trained and experienced in using it over many years and thus we weren’t able to get the power from it. We wanted a system that everyone could use to quickly find out anything they needed to about a child.
We wanted to save time and make the office function more efficiently, have everything paperless, with all staff able to access all they needed themselves rather than relying on the office. We felt sure there was a more 21st Century solution to school data than the rather 20th Century system we had.
Cost was a concern as we could not afford to spend more (on training for everyone). We needed to find a really straightforward system so that everyone could do the basics and we would not have much time or money to train people. We also had the worry of losing data or things being complicated for parents at the start, thus them being disinclined to use it. I think I was also worried that a lot of these systems seem to be very “secondary centric” and would they understand that an average sized primary has different usage and needs compared to a big secondary?
They seem quite relieved, and hopeful! The office team we have are new in post in the last few months so they are keen to learn a new system that they will then know inside out.
4. How do you hope moving to Arbor will transform the way you work?
I hope that everything will be efficient and fast. The medical info will be shared more easily, and data should remain up to date every day without needing to be checked. We hope that it will be easy for parents to use to communicate messages from the school. We hope it will reduce the load on the admin team to do routine data work and they will be freed-up timewise.
5. How is implementation going so far?
OK – there has been a lot of work to tidy our current system which has been more difficult than for other schools as we have a new team and they had not learnt the old system, so it is time consuming. We are about to swap over systems, but we have had someone to talk it through with every week and check if we have any queries. Our Admin Staff have had their first training session and report that it all looks very straightforward to add information to.
6. What would you say to a local Authority maintained primary school in an area like Hampshire who’s thinking of moving away from SIMS but is nervous about it?
Don’t be afraid – having a system that everyone can use with ease as an end point to keep in mind makes it doable. Plus, financially we’re not losing out this year, even with the additional training costs of year one, when you add up all the systems we had for emails, payments, MIS – we will be saving money every year going forward and can see that we will be saving time too.
With the potential of an Ofsted inspection this term, we’ve been speaking to Arbor schools and MATs about how they’re feeling and preparing. Although Ofsted are calling this term’s inspections “interim visits” that will focus on supporting schools to welcome students back to full-time schooling, the inspections are still likely to cause upheaval for schools.
Ofsted may not be asking schools to do any formal preparation, however School Leaders will naturally want to present as much evidence as possible about how their students are doing this term.
To help you best prepare for Ofsted, we’ve gathered together some of the key questions they’ve been asking over the last few weeks, and how Arbor MIS can support you to prepare for each of them.
Gather your evidence in Arbor…
In Arbor, you can quickly pull together attendance data over time, and compare classes, Year groups, demographic groups, or Covid-19 bubbles:
Arbor’s Covid-19 Dashboard is your reference point for daily attendance across your school, split into the key DfE categories, including students with an ECHP, with a social worker and cases of Covid-19. Click into any measure to see a full list of students in each group:
For MATs, Arbor’s Group MIS gives you real-time attendance stats across your schools, allowing you to drill down from the trust-level data to the individual students:
Arbor’s built-in dashboards help you understand behaviour across groups of students (Year groups, Form groups etc.), and track how the types and frequency of behaviour has changed over time:
You can also add new types for Covid-19 related behaviour, such as pulling off another student’s mask during a lesson. Arbor will notify the relevant staff who need to know about the incident, and set up your follow-up actions automatically:
Track the effectiveness of your behaviour interventions groups by pulling together a quick report in Arbor:
Arbor’s new My Homepage gives your Teaching and Pastoral Staff live information about the student groups they look after, so they’ll never miss a new detention, pastoral or medical note. Easy filters also help them keep track of the behaviour, attendance and attainment of their key demographic groups:
Check out this interesting example from a mixed-phase MAT in Leicestershire, The Mead Educational Trust (TMET), about the methods they’re using to assess the impact of Covid-19 on their most vulnerable students.
In Arbor you can set up customised formative assessments which allow you to track how your students are developing during the year. Easy-to-use colour-coded dashboards will then help you monitor performance, and show you clearly where you need to intervene:
You can then filter your results to see how particular Covid-19 groups are performing:
Set up interventions to get certain students back on track, and review the cost and effectiveness of your interventions in one dashboard:
For guidance on how to utilise the Government’s Catch-Up funding, you might find this cheat sheet from The Key useful.
If you’re new to Arbor and want to find out how our cloud-based MIS can help your school work faster, smarter and collaborate more, join one of our webinars at ArborFest – our exclusive online event for schools across the country. You’ll hear how fellow school staff have transformed the way they work with Arbor MIS. Find out what’s on and book now – it’s free!
We spoke to Educational Consultant David Hughes about why such a large wave of schools have started moving to cloud-based tech in recent years (approx. 1,700 have switched to a cloud-based MIS since 2017). David Hughes is the author of “Future-Proof your School” and “Re-examining Success”, as well as the popular blog “Learning Renaissance’” He
We spoke to Educational Consultant David Hughes about why such a large wave of schools have started moving to cloud-based tech in recent years (approx. 1,700 have switched to a cloud-based MIS since 2017).
David Hughes is the author of “Future-Proof your School” and “Re-examining Success”, as well as the popular blog “Learning Renaissance’” He has over 40 years of experience in schools and Education Technology, with particular expertise in change management, professional development and flexible learning.
Read below for David’s advice for how schools can make sure large-scale technology changes support learning in a sustainable way.
The challenges of running a school remotely during Covid-19 have accelerated the cloud-based revolution – but this is a trend that was already well established.
There are two main drivers:
1. Economies of scale 2. School improvement
Schools now recognise that they can save money using cloud-based solutions, which place the technical support burden on the vendor, meaning schools no longer have to maintain costly servers on site. In times of stretched budgets, this is enough to encourage many schools to switch.
However, there are also deeper educational motivations at play. Although the first generation of EdTech products greatly improved the productivity of collecting, collating and presenting information, schools are rightly now demanding more intuitive and granular information.
For example, schools recognise that their Management Information System (MIS), not only saves time for office staff, can actually drive iterative school improvement. Where previous systems merely showed the “what”, they can now use their MIS to ask deeper “why” questions. They can use their own data to experiment and collaborate in the search for better learning outcomes for students and more effective professional development for staff across the school.
I think a lot of this comes down to negative past experiences with technology roll-outs. Schools often didn’t realise that a technology change isn’t just about installing a system and teaching staff what the buttons do – it requires a cultural change and a behavioural adjustment for teachers.
I’ve seen many companies who are too keen to make a sale and let schools skimp on training or rush through the implementation. This always leaves teachers exasperated that as well as their normal teaching load, they now have to incorporate a confusing new technology.
Instead, good technology providers take the time to demonstrate how they can drive up standards across the school, either by saving time, enabling better collaboration, improving teaching practice, or shining a light on successful strategies. Ultimately, schools and vendors need to be critical friends and share a vision centred around educational outcomes.
Companies need to realise that there’s no point in building a great piece of tech unless it’s totally aligned with the needs of your customers. Too often, companies are at risk of letting the “tail wag the dog” – making decisions based on what’s possible, rather than what’s needed.
One aspect of Arbor’s offering that greatly impressed me was the number of experienced former Teachers and Senior Leaders in the company. Hiring and consulting with Educators means companies understand their users’ context and can be more responsive to development needs in a timely and iterative way.
Having flexible, cloud-based systems is now a necessary condition for driving school improvement, but it’s far from the only thing you can do. There are a number of other dimensions that need to be addressed if technologies are to support learning in a sustainable way.
The most critical aspect, which is often least addressed, is to do with the dominant school culture, or “the way we do things in this school”. This will decide where, when, how and why change is initiated or stalled. School culture comes down to more than leadership – it’s a commonwealth of perspectives which drive behaviours in the school.
School Leaders should engage the whole school in change right from the start – this means involving people in the preliminary discussions, not just when unveiling the final plan. Leaders should also be clear about their goals, whether short or long-term (e.g. maximising exam performance in a particular year, versus a longer-term transformation).
Having worked in and with both high-achieving and struggling schools, a common theme that shocks me every time is that senior leadership teams often don’t think to audit what skills and experience staff have at the outset of a project. Change is done to rather than with them. This management-centred perspective limits the scope, success and sustainability of change.
With simple tools, such as a survey of “can do” statements, School Leaders can generate a complete picture of the skill level across the whole school before starting an initiative. Staff who consistently score highly become the “champions” of the project, developing materials and processes which other staff can then adapt to suit their own needs in the classroom.
Covid-19 has (understandably) forced schools to be far more reactive in their approach. There is much talk of the “new normal” which, in my view, is extremely premature. The current situation is not normal, it is transitional.
There is some truly transformational potential in determining not to go back to the “old normal” and instead exploring how the disruption of the pandemic has changed the way staff and students have shown they can learn. For example, both students and staff have found new ways of working in the disruption, and students have, to an extent, become independent and autonomous learners.
Here are a few ideas for how we could be more ambitious going forwards:
This blog post references materials developed in the books “Future Proof Your School” and “Re-Examining Success”, as well as the Learning Renaissance blog by David Hughes, which schools are welcome to incorporate into their staff CPD library.
To find out more about how Arbor MIS could transform the way you work, get in touch on tellmemore@arbor-education.com, arrange a demo or join a free webinar.
When school systems are working well, you shouldn’t even notice they’re there. They should run in the background, helping you to speed through your daily admin and giving you all the information you need, when you need it. However, many schools find that over the years, they’ve somehow accumulated lots of different IT systems that
When school systems are working well, you shouldn’t even notice they’re there. They should run in the background, helping you to speed through your daily admin and giving you all the information you need, when you need it.
However, many schools find that over the years, they’ve somehow accumulated lots of different IT systems that only do one job each.
A messy network of systems which don’t “communicate” with each other, also leaves your student data in lots of different places. This puts an added burden on staff who have to enter data manually multiple times over, and added risk of errors or things going missing.
If you counted the number of hours your staff spend every day entering data or logging into various systems to find information – it would really add up. This is valuable time that they could be spending on tasks that matter – like speaking to a parent, or supporting students in the classroom.
By auditing your school systems, you’ll spot immediately where cutting down on your systems could save costs and give staff quicker access to the information they need. You might be surprised by the amount of overlap you have where two or three systems could be replaced by just one.
For MATs, using lots of different systems becomes especially unsustainable when they grow to 5-10 schools or more. At this scale, consolidating and centralising systems can not only hugely cut costs, but will also allow staff across the trust to work together more easily. Dave Noble, Director of Operations at Red Kite Learning Trust, has a great example of his vision for centralisation.
The most important question to have in mind when you start reviewing each of your systems, is Why do we need it?
And more precisely:
What does it do that another system can’t?
Do staff use it frequently? If not, why?
Do staff use every feature of it?
For example, a school might have been using a behaviour tracking software for many years, and are happy with how it charts behaviour points over time. But this is the only feature they use this software for. In cases like this, and with many other systems that are an added cost, it’s worth questioning whether you could do it all within one tool – such as your MIS.
We recommend tackling your systems audit using this four step process. Many schools find it helpful to work in an Excel template like this:
How you can approach a systems audit
Step 1
Start by listing out all the systems your staff use for their core tasks, like attendance, assessment, behaviour and communications. Remember to ask staff at all levels and from all areas across the school – don’t assume that one person will know what everyone is using!
Step 2
Move on to listing the annual costs of each system. If you don’t have to pay for something annually and you already have it, you can mark the cost as £0. Make sure to split out all software products even if they’re from the same company because you might find one is more useful than the others.
Step 3
Go back down your list and note each software’s functionality – not just what you’re currently using it for, but what it could do if you used every feature within it.
Step 4
You’ll probably have come across several overlaps by now. This is the tricky part: for everything that overlaps, consider which has the greater value, and which you could think about cutting.
This value judgement can’t entirely be based on price, although that is important. You should also question why you had several systems in the first place. Is one of them more user-friendly? Is it quick to train new staff on? Could you get a better deal and a better product by getting rid of both altogether?
If you decide to cut out some of your systems, this might require a change in mindset for staff who have been used to working in a certain way for years.
Working now with over 1,200 schools, most of whom chose to move to Arbor MIS to consolidate their systems, we’ve seen schools manage this change and come out the other side with much more efficient ways of working.
Arbor brings together all your core school tasks into one place, giving everyone shared access to information and a shared view of progress. Staff save time by only having one login to remember and no longer having to transfer data manually between systems.
Of course, your audit might have shown you that some systems are worth keeping alongside your MIS, and that’s great – now you know you’re making a good investment. At Arbor, we integrate with over 30 powerful external systems to give you the flexibility to use the ones that work for you, whilst making sure your data is all joined up.
To find out more about how Arbor could help you work faster, smarter and more collaboratively, join a free webinar or arrange a personalised demo.
Tellmemore@arbor-education.com | 0208 050 1028
It’s the time of year when most School Admin Officers have one thing at the top of their minds – census. With the end of October deadline fast approaching, and workforce census on the horizon, you’re probably somewhere deep into the process by now. Census can be a bit of a daunting task, and with
It’s the time of year when most School Admin Officers have one thing at the top of their minds – census. With the end of October deadline fast approaching, and workforce census on the horizon, you’re probably somewhere deep into the process by now.
Census can be a bit of a daunting task, and with so much unexpected admin to cope with this year, another lengthy, clunky process is the last thing your back office needs.
Here are five ways that Arbor takes the hassle out of census management, giving you valuable time back in your day:
Preparing and updating your data is quick and easy in Arbor, thanks to bulk actions. Update information about a group of students, such as attainment grades, UPNs, or student contact details at the same time, in just a few clicks.
Click the pencil to update all students in one click
In Arbor, you’ll always have the most recent DfE validation form for your school built into the system, so you don’t even have to think about it. This cuts out a major step in the process, allowing you to run the same checks on your census data as the DfE, all within Arbor.
Forget scrolling down endless tables and forms, in Arbor you can review your census data in an interactive dashboard, which means you can click into each category and easily check the students listed.
Click on any category and review which students are listed
You can then cross check which students should be in each category from your demographics dashboards:
Get quick access to demographic information for all students
Once you run checks on your data, Arbor will flag any errors or missing data so you can see what needs your attention at a glance. You can then amend and correct each line instantly from the same screen.
Spot an error and fix it right away without leaving the screen
We’re the first MIS to integrate with an HR platform (CoreHR XD) giving schools and trusts a smarter way to manage HR tasks like workforce census. If you’re using Core HR XD, integrating with Arbor means you’ll always have up-to-date information about your staff right when you need it, helping you complete your census in half the time.
Our Help Centre is full of handy guides and videos that help make your census process as smooth as possible.
But don’t just take it from us – here’s how some of our schools have found completing census in Arbor:
Interested in finding out how Arbor’s cloud-based MIS can help you work more easily collaboratively this term? Book a demo today, or join one of our webinars.
Over the last three years, there has been a big movement of schools choosing to replace their server-based school systems with more flexible, cloud-based ones. We’re proud to say that 1 in every 3 schools that switch MIS choose Arbor – that’s a new school every day! We’re now working with over 1,400 schools and
Over the last three years, there has been a big movement of schools choosing to replace their server-based school systems with more flexible, cloud-based ones.
We’re proud to say that 1 in every 3 schools that switch MIS choose Arbor – that’s a new school every day! We’re now working with over 1,400 schools and MATs across the country and since March 2020, we moved over 400 schools to Arbor completely remotely.
When thinking about moving your school to a new cloud-based system, it can often seem daunting, especially if you haven’t gone through a large-scale change at your school before.
That’s why we wanted to walk you through how we move schools to Arbor, from data migration, through to making long-term impact, and all the support we provide along the way.
The most common worries schools have about moving MIS are: that it will put a big burden on school time, that their data might get lost, and that staff might not get used to new processes.
We understand these worries, and that’s why we’ve designed the Arbor implementation process to make sure schools get the right support every step of the way.
Once you sign with Arbor, your Arbor journey follows three key phases. We work with you to make sure every stage of the process happens at the right time, and that everyone in your team is brought in when they need to be.
Generally, primary schools can go “live” with Arbor in as little as eight weeks, and secondary schools in a term!
Phase 1: Technical Migration
We first plan your implementation process around your needs and priorities. We then transfer your school’s data to Arbor and give you lots of opportunities to check everything is accurate. Meanwhile, your staff can take part in introductory training to help them get familiar with how Arbor works on a test site.
Phase 2: Getting Started
Your Arbor site is now ready to go “live”! Your staff can take part in training on how to use the core parts of Arbor, and customise it to your school needs.
Phase 3: Active (long term)
We offer lots of further training, consultancy and services options designed to make Arbor a success at your school and help you drive impact over a longer period of time.
Find out more: Download “How we make Arbor a success at your primary school” brochure here
Download “How we make Arbor a success at your secondary school” brochure here
Download “How we make Arbor a success at your MAT” brochure here
We believe that switching MIS is so much more than moving your data to a new system, it’s the start of a journey to change the way you work for the better.
For primary schools, we’ve designed a simple automated process that gets you set-up on Arbor, with guidance, hints and tips from the team every step of the way. Book expert training for your staff at a time that suits you, and put it into practice on your new Arbor site.
For secondary schools, we partner you with a dedicated Arbor Project Coordinator who gets to know how your school is set-up and what you want to achieve by moving to Arbor. They then shape every training session around your needs, and help you plan how to meet those goals over the long term. They’ll also drive the momentum of the project forward, take care of all admin, and keep you in the loop with regular progress calls.
If you’re thinking of moving to a cloud-based MIS, join one of our free webinars to find out if Arbor MIS is the right fit for your school. We run sessions for primaries, secondaries and MATs, as well as sessions dedicated to implementation. Alternatively, you can arrange a personalised demo here.
At Arbor we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work with intuitive, people-friendly tools that help staff work faster, smarter and collaborate more. With constant new demands on schools right now on reporting, logistics and communications, staff are working longer hours than ever to keep up. We believe this is preventable. When you’re
At Arbor we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work with intuitive, people-friendly tools that help staff work faster, smarter and collaborate more.
With constant new demands on schools right now on reporting, logistics and communications, staff are working longer hours than ever to keep up. We believe this is preventable. When you’re stretched to maximum capacity, you should be able to lean on your MIS to pick up the slack.
Whether you’re part of SLT, or work in the school office, discover below five of the top ways you’ll save you hours of admin each week with Arbor, and accomplish more – put together by Arbor Programme Manager, Joanna.
1. Save time each day by automating your reports 2. Save duplication across your teams by sharing reports 3. Cut down on repetition with bulk actions 4. Manage data retention and keep GDPR compliant in a couple of clicks 5. Make your communications smoother using templates
With Senior Leaders spending around 4.4 hours per week on data analysis, automating their reporting can help give you valuable time back to focus on understanding your data and driving impactful decisions.
In Arbor you can use ready-made reports and schedule them to be sent to your colleagues on a regular basis automatically. For example, you could schedule a weekly attendance report to all SLT showing students with < 90% attendance. This cuts down on the time you would spend manually gathering data and creating the report each week.
Here’s a few geeky details:
Discover more ways Arbor’s automation will help you streamline routine processes, reduce errors and mean you spend less time on repetitive tasks here.
2. Save duplication across your teams by sharing reports
Arbor is designed to make it easier to collaborate with colleagues, and to give everyone a shared view of progress and purpose. Built-in dashboards give staff at all levels quick access to the information they need, but it’s also quick and easy to share custom reports you’ve made with other colleagues at your school or schools within your wider trust.
The ins and outs:
Thanks to Arbor’s link to Microsoft Power BI and other BI tools, you can also export your reports if you want to customise how you look at your data. Read our five steps to creating your own BI dashboard here.
Bulk actions in Arbor allow you to perform actions or add information for multiple students or staff at a time. It’s amazing how much time this can save!
Here are just some of the tasks made much easier using bulk actions:
Keeping on top of GDPR regulations for the data you keep on students and staff can be time-consuming and cause a lot of worry for Admin Staff. In Arbor, we take the hassle out of data retention with an automatic dashboard for both students and staff. Arbor will flag for you which records have passed the recommended retention time. You can then select and delete them safely in bulk.
Do you send out the same communications to parents at regular intervals? Maybe it’s a weekly newsletter or a regular bulletin to parents whose children are missing lessons. With Arbor’s built-in communication templates, you can have SMS, letters or emails saved and ready to go when you need them. We’ve created a bank of typical templates but it’s also easy to make your own!
If you want to be even smarter, you can set up your communications templates to automatically include data from a report you’ve created. For example, you could send an email to the parents of Year 5 EAL boys whose attendance is below 90%. Arbor will automatically send the right attendance figure to the right parent.
We know it can sometimes feel daunting to change the ways you’ve been used to working for a long time. But as Arbor schools tell us, switching your mind set to more efficient processes can save you a lot of time and hassle in the long run.
Hear it from Joanne Hedges, Data Manager at Manshead Academy:
“I’d been working with our old MIS system both in support roles and as the Data Manager here for over 20 years, so I think everyone was really surprised at how I embraced the change to Arbor, but I could see at an early stage of the implementation process that it had some really powerful and easy to use features for creating custom groups and sending out communications for all the curriculum groups as well as the custom groups. I thought I would need to create lots of custom reports, but most places where the information is displayed you can just use the download button instead. I really wouldn’t want to go back to the old system.”
And Julie Smith, PA to Headteacher at Parkroyal Community School:
“The first word that comes to mind [when describing Arbor] is ‘simplicity’. It’s easy to grasp, and new users can quickly work their way around the system’s functions – you don’t feel like you need hours of training, as you do with other systems. Something I love about Arbor is the fact that it’s multi-functional across the school. By that I mean that most areas of the school use Arbor, whereas with our previous MIS provider, we found that it was only really the School Office staff that were using it – classroom teachers were using it to take the register in their classes, but that was about it! Now everyone in school knows how to use it. Arbor is a school-wide tool, not an office-based MIS System”
Great lessons don’t necessarily call for cutting-edge technology. Teachers make great lessons, not apps. What teachers do best is motivating their learners and creating a safe, engaging environment in the classroom. But sadly, time-consuming admin and clunky systems are holding them back from time with their students. We believe great tech can actually help teachers
Great lessons don’t necessarily call for cutting-edge technology. Teachers make great lessons, not apps.
What teachers do best is motivating their learners and creating a safe, engaging environment in the classroom. But sadly, time-consuming admin and clunky systems are holding them back from time with their students.
We believe great tech can actually help teachers in the classroom. The right tools take the hassle out of your daily tasks, freeing you up to get back to what matters: delivering great lessons.
With lots of new challenges this term, we’ve put together a list of three people-friendly classroom management apps that will help simplify how you manage safeguarding, behaviour, attendance, seating plans and blended learning:
Banishing paper logbooks and filing cabinets from over 13,000 schools all over the country, CPOMS is an intuitive app for monitoring child protection, safeguarding and pastoral issues. It cuts down paperwork for staff, while ensuring incidents are properly reported, details are shared securely and students are kept safe.
Arbor MIS integrates seamlessly with CPOMS, so you won’t have to worry about transferring data between the two systems to keep them up-to-date. Your sensitive data will be safe and secure in CPOMS, while Arbor looks after the rest.
Take the hassle out of organising your lessons with My Classroom from Arbor. Our new all-in-one classroom management tool has been designed by teachers, for teachers to help you manage your class seamlessly – giving you your time back to focus on teaching and learning instead.
My Classroom brings seating plans, registers and behaviour management into one place for the first time. Create interactive seating plans using easy drag-and-drop blocks, then add attendance and behaviour points directly onto your plan throughout your lesson on your tablet or desktop. You can share your plans with colleagues too!
The best thing about My Classroom is that it’s powered by Arbor MIS, so you’ll automatically see photos and contextual data about each of your students on your seating plans. Plus, everything you capture in My Classroom shows up on each student’s profile, helping you to tell the full story of each of your pupils lesson-to-lesson.
Many schools in the Arbor Community are planning to continue with a blended learning approach going forward, even when most teaching has returned to the physical classroom. Making lessons available online means students can catch up or reinforce their learning remotely outside of school. Using a virtual learning environment such as G-suite or Office 365 is also a great way to encourage sharing of resources between staff.
The DfE are providing funding for all UK state schools to get G-suite or Office 365 set up and get ongoing support for free. Arbor is working with 14 of the Government’s accredited suppliers on the scheme – for a full list and more information on the scheme, check out our blog!
Of course, technology can only go so far – the real challenge this term is how to support both students to adjust to new routines and rules, and process some of the difficult experiences they might have had during lockdown.
To discuss this in more detail and share some practical advice, we’re bringing together an expert panel for a webinar on “Best Practice: Classroom Management Post-Lockdown” on Thursday 24th September at 11am. For more information and to book your place, click here.
With constant changes to Government guidance, family situations and the wider national picture, schools and trusts certainly learned a great deal last term. Where there were huge challenges that meant working in totally new ways, schools has also taken some positive lessons from the crisis. It gave schools the opportunity to pivot fast to work
With constant changes to Government guidance, family situations and the wider national picture, schools and trusts certainly learned a great deal last term. Where there were huge challenges that meant working in totally new ways, schools has also taken some positive lessons from the crisis.
It gave schools the opportunity to pivot fast to work more efficiently and find new ways to reach out to parents and guardians. It also put the spotlight on student and staff wellbeing issues, bringing them top of the agenda.
We recently caught up with Jon Ward from The Parks Academies Trust who told us about the ways he and his staff adapted their ways of working during the crisis. Moving their secondary schools to Arbor MIS in April – right in the middle of partial school closures – meant they saw right away the new and better ways of working with a cloud-based MIS.
Staff across the trust felt Arbor allowed them to collaborate and align over their work. Plus, it took the hassle out of important Covid-19 related tasks like tracking attendance and following up with hard-to-reach families.
To read more about the measurable differences Jon and his team have measured since moving MIS during Covid-19, download their full case study here along with other feedback we’ve received from schools during Covid-19 crisis.
Arbor helps schools of all sizes work faster, smarter and more collaboratively, with intuitive tools designed to make a difference.
With over 1200 schools and trusts, we’re proud to be the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community. Join in and book a demo today, or join one of our webinars.
Schools in the Arbor Community have been sharing with us some of their questions and thoughts about reopening this term. Some wonder how social distancing is going to work and if there will be more last minute changes to DfE guidance. Others worry about students adjusting back into full time schooling, and how to catch
Schools in the Arbor Community have been sharing with us some of their questions and thoughts about reopening this term. Some wonder how social distancing is going to work and if there will be more last minute changes to DfE guidance. Others worry about students adjusting back into full time schooling, and how to catch them up on lost learning.
However the “new normal” is going to look for your school this term, we’ve put together a list of the most important things you should be thinking about this week:
1. Go through your social distancing checklist
2. Prepare communications your parent and guardian community
3. Evaluate your catch up plan for students
4. Prioritise student and staff wellbeing
Depending on the size and layout of your school, and staff capacity, there’s no one solution to keeping students apart. Here are some top tips to consider:
Staggering
Timetabling
Hygiene
Find out how Wykham Park Academy is planning their timetabling and social distancing this term here. Arbor schools – check out our Help Centre for lots of guidance on setting up flexible timetabling arrangements.
At the start of term, you’ll be sending your parents lots of updates on the new protocols you’re putting in place. But you should also think about how you can start strengthening relationships with your parents and guardians after their children have been at home for so long. Here are some more top tips:
After months of disrupted learning, students’ progress is likely to be set back, with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students hit the hardest. Getting learning back on track will be a big challenge, but here are some suggested first steps:
a) Assess where students are at: You might want to run low-stakes assessments to identify gaps in students’ knowledge this term. The Key has some useful guidance on this and there’s a good school case study here
b) Compare with past performance: Once you have a baseline of performance post-lockdown, comparing this with prior attainment will give you a better sense of how students’ progress has been affected.
To save you time pulling together data, we’re giving schools free access to Arbor Insight reports this term, which will give you a full picture of your students’ progress over the last three years. The reports will be out soon but join the waiting list to be the first to get yours!
c) Identify your most at-risk students: In order to use the Government’s catch-up fund most effectively, it’s important to assess which of your students will benefit from it the most, such as vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. Bear in mind that the “vulnerable” category might include more students now as situations have changed.
Arbor’s built-in reporting will allow you to quickly analyse the attainment of your key student groups across subjects, and instantly spot the biggest gaps. Our free performance reports will also help you understand how these attainment gaps have changed over time and the impact of socio-economic factors on your attainment.
It’s likely that students will be dealing with some difficult emotions when they return this term. Teachers might see some new and challenging behaviour in the classroom, but as Educational psychologist, Dr Rob Long, explains, it’s important to understand the anxiety causing the behaviour so they can best manage it. SecEd Magazine has some great guidance on how to support students’ mental health and wellbeing this term.
Remember not to overlook your staff wellbeing; they’ll need support adjusting to the new term as well. Check in with your staff at the beginning of term and think about ways to allow staff to collaborate with and support each other.
With over 1200 schools and trusts, we’re proud to be the UK’s fastest-growing MIS community. Join in and book a demo today, or contact us on tellmemore@arbor-education.com | 0208 050 1028.
With planning arrangements and timetabling at the top of school leaders’ minds right now, we invited expert timetabler and curriculum planner Jan Hetherington to join our webinar series “Adapting to Change” to share her solutions for September. Jan is Vice Principal and Specialist Leader of Education for Curriculum Leadership at Wykham Park Academy, a secondary
With planning arrangements and timetabling at the top of school leaders’ minds right now, we invited expert timetabler and curriculum planner Jan Hetherington to join our webinar series “Adapting to Change” to share her solutions for September.
Jan is Vice Principal and Specialist Leader of Education for Curriculum Leadership at Wykham Park Academy, a secondary school which is part of the 15-school Aspirations Academies Trust. As well as developing the timetable for her school, she also coaches senior leaders across other trusts on how to create more effective timetables.
Jan shared with us some of the plans Wykham Park Academy is putting in place to keep students socially-distanced and to help maintain teaching and learning standards in September. She explained that above all, she wants to ensure that the new arrangements don’t sacrifice students’ full learning experience.
You can read Jan’s conversation with Arbor’s CEO James Weatherill below.
What I mean by that is students need a variety of rhythms across the school day and week to get the highest quality experience. The right timetable should put together the right groups of students with the right teachers. Every lesson slot has a currency; some are lower value than others, for example nobody wants Friday Period 5, or Monday Period 1. Staff need to appreciate that if they get any of those lower value slots, they’re going to have different pedagogical challenges. The timetable should also be suited to the age of the students. I worked once with a MAT which completely restructured their day based on teenage sleep patterns with a staggered day.
As we went into lockdown, we decided that KS3 would have four lessons a day – English, Maths, Science and Humanities – and Year 10&11’s would have five lessons a day. We didn’t synchronise these in the school timetable, we simply uploaded them onto Google Classroom. Our staff skill set has grown exponentially in terms of using online platforms. We had been using Google Classroom already for about a year for setting homework, but we’ve had to learn rapidly over the last few months how to use it for much more.
At first, when we didn’t know how long school closures would last, we wanted to keep a normal lesson format as far as possible. But after Half-Term, we shifted to project-based work for KS3. Year 10 moved away from new learning into consolidatary learning, and for Year 11 we put on four lessons a day only to support those students who were at risk of achieving a 4 or above.
The quality of pre-recorded teaching and learning was mixed at first, so we started to give live lessons to KS5. We chose not to do this for the rest of the school due in part to union advice, plus we wanted to protect staff given potential safeguarding issues and uncertainty around best practice. Instead teachers uploaded pre-recorded lessons – some with audio, some with video.
A key lesson was wrongly assuming that simply uploading a Powerpoint will do. We quickly realised that students need more support; they need a full learning experience with learning modelled by the teacher. For example, we started to use videos showing the teacher writing or demonstrating. It’s also important in pre-recorded lessons that the teacher still engages with the students personally, for instance calling out student names as though they were live in the classroom.
We’re going to use the same lesson timetable we would have used in the normal course of events. The location of lessons might change but the timings won’t. We’re also going to offer a full curriculum. This is because we want to keep things as normal as possible in terms of what is being taught in order to give students’ the richest experience possible. We worry that if they had only a “partial diet” they might easily disengage. We also don’t want to stagger lesson start and end times too much because this would lead to unsupervised time.
We’re going to split the student body into different physical zones, with their own entrance exit and toilets. On the Banbury Aspirations Campus (which contains an Academy, a Studio School and a Sixth Form), we have the unique advantage of a massive site with lots of different buildings housing lots of different specialist areas, so this makes it easier for us to keep students apart.
We’ve got the potential for three different entrances into the school site. Students will have their own route to their zone, and within the zones, they’ll be able to move around into new spaces in order to maintain a rich and varied school day. KS3 will be kept in a “bubble within a bubble”, having all their lessons in one classroom. They’ll only leave their zone as a class to do specialised activities like Drama. KS4 will be zoned as a Year Group “bubble” so all their lessons will be in that zone unless they move for specialist activities.
We’re going to have a reduced menu and students will place an order, then pick it up and go. We’ve got two dining room spaces and we’ll have staggered slots so two “bubbles” can use the room but be separated by time slots. We’re going to continue the breakfast clubs we run for disadvantaged students by keeping them in a “bubble” with each other.
We’re still waiting for advice from the Government on what “enhanced cleaning” means. In the meantime, Headteachers are looking at what pubs and restaurants are doing right now to inform our plans. IT and Food Tech rooms are tricky because they’re used by every Year group and they’re available to book. The plan is to timetable them so there’s at least one lesson period in-between usage so we can clean down surfaces before the next group of students. We’re also going to limit use of those rooms to practical lessons, keeping theory based lessons elsewhere. Cleaning is of course going to be a big expense. We’re looking to the trust to support with that.
Breaks are easier because students will use the outdoor spaces within their zones. We won’t be serving food at break, but students are welcome to bring their own break time food. We will be offering snacks and keeping an eye on known vulnerable students to make sure they are fed.
I’d recommend staggering lesson times and movement times. Also assess what size of “bubble” you’re comfortable with. Some schools I’ve heard of are doing Key Stage “bubbles” which can include 600 students! Some are using online platforms to teach different lessons to classes that stay in one room.
On his blog recently, James Duran gives a range of options for Teachers to consider to balance “catch-up” content and new material. We’re planning a parallel approach of new learning with some revision along the way. We’ll review the content and progress regularly, and define “threshold” concepts within the curriculum students need to understand to move forward.
We plan to make all lessons digitally accessible if needed, making use of the online platform skills staff have learned. We’ve found pre-recorded videos are not just convenient but have the additional benefit that students can pause and rewind which can actually help to reinforce learning. If there’s another lockdown, we’re going to commit to doing live digital lessons because we don’t want to sacrifice the face-to-face element again going forward.
We’re still working out our quality assurance processes. Some schools have been doing live lesson evaluations but we don’t want to do that. In September, we’ll first of all carry out an audit of the technology students have at home to avoid the situation we’ve had where 600 students had to have paper lesson packs because they couldn’t get online. We’ll also do a RAG rating so we’re taking into consideration student preference and learning style.
We’re going to put a digital learning policy in place so students know what we expect of them. In terms of teaching, we expect the same high quality as in the classroom. We want to maintain the learning structure we use normally, with a balance between guided practice and independent practice.
The structure will look like this:
1. Live guided practice: 15 mins or more (live or recorded) where teachers model what they want from students. We’ll encourage the use of audio for this, rather than video, because we know that audio doesn’t split students’ attention in the same way video can
2. Live Q&A and dialogue, encouraging peer interactivity,
3. Independent offline practice, then students upload the work they’ve achieved
We also want to encourage a variety of different learning experiences (e.g. app-based and flip learning). In terms of assessment, we’re still working this out and looking into a system that allows live online assessment. We’ll definitely be including low stakes testing (e.g. using Kahoot). We’re also looking into functionality which allows students to put their work up on the screen rather than asking the teacher to come over and have a look.
If you look at the research after the 2011 earthquake and lockdown in New Zealand, it showed that students did better than expected when they returned. John Hattie (2020) says rather than focusing on “gaps” and content students have “missed”, you should focus rather on what students actually need.
In this vein, we’re not expecting the new arrangements to have a huge effect on students because they’re going to be in a group that’s good for their learning and they’ll be with the right teacher. The sequence of learning may change over the year but they’ll achieve it all by the end of the year.
If you’re new to Arbor, we’d be happy to give you an online demo. Get in touch or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com. Alternatively, you can call 0208 050 1028.
During Covid-19 and partial school closures, schools have been adjusting their timetables, rules and plans along with rapidly changing DfE guidance. Since there’s now more clarity from the Government about the return to school in September, it’s a little easier to put plans in place for the new Term. There are a lot of things
During Covid-19 and partial school closures, schools have been adjusting their timetables, rules and plans along with rapidly changing DfE guidance. Since there’s now more clarity from the Government about the return to school in September, it’s a little easier to put plans in place for the new Term.
There are a lot of things to consider when planning for September – from how to create a “bubble” timetable, to helping students catch up on lost learning, to drawing up your new school improvement plan.
With the help of some of the schools, trusts and education experts we work with, we’ve put together a list of six key things you should think about to help you get everything in place for Autumn:
1. Have you planned for different scenarios? 2. Can you quickly adapt if new DfE guidance comes out? 3. Can you communicate easily with your school community? 4. How are you going to support your students and staff? 5. Have you got good online learning tools? 6. Have you set up your systems for next Year?
When you’re writing risk assessments, you should consider a few different scenarios that could happen in September, and make sure you’ve got the resources and policies in place to cope. A we’ve all learned from the past few months, the Covid-19 situation can change suddenly, so you should build flexibility into your plans.
Take a look at this useful example of a “Covid-19 Exit Strategy” document that Mark Lacey, CEO of Diocese of Salisbury Academy Trust, has helpfully shared with us. It outlines various risks, such as the rate of infection rising or large numbers of students having to work from home, and how the trust would address each of them.
Once you’ve planned for lots of different scenarios, you should also make sure your systems can adapt and support you if the DfE suddenly introduces new guidelines. For example, could you quickly gather key attendance or demographic information to report to the DfE? Could you quickly adjust your timetable if a local lockdown was introduced in your area? Could your staff access the student information they need from home?
In Arbor, you can log all attendance and absence on your Covid-19 dashboard, and access all the data you need wherever you’re working. You’ll also have key stats to hand, such as everyone who is expected in school that day, and you can directly follow up with any parents/guardians if you need to. Arbor also takes the hassle out of planning staff rotas, creating flexible timetables and arranging classroom layouts for social distancing.
Want more support in creating your September timetable? Join our webinar today (Thurs 9th) at 2pm “Structuring your schools’ timetable: what you need to know as a trust leader for Autumn Term” with Jan Hetherington, Vice-Principal at Wykham Park Academy.
Once you’ve planned your new timetable and daily logistics, it’s a good idea to make sure you’ve got a cost-effective communications system that can cope with all the various updates you’ll need to send out to parents, staff and students. You might also want to think about innovative and uplifting communications you can send out to motivate your community. We found this great example from Hackney Primary using videos to show students what school will look like when they return.
In Arbor MIS, you can send emails, texts and Arbor App messages (which are great to share updates with parents directly on their phone) from wherever you are in the system. You can also share information on the Parent Portal or Student Portal that parents and students can log in and see. Check out our top 3 tips for keeping in touch with your school community.
As students and staff return from six months of partial lockdown, it’s going to be tricky to adjust to the “new school normal”. We’ve seen school and MAT leaders bringing wellbeing to the top of their agendas recently, by introducing things like “Wellbeing Days” and appointing new members of Pastoral staff. You can read here how Dan Morrow, CEO at Woodland Academy Trust, nurtures his staff wellbeing.
When planning how to look out for your most vulnerable families and staff members, bear in mind that the “vulnerable” category may include more people now as situations have changed. In Arbor, you can quickly produce reports on key demographic groups such as children with EHCP, child protection status, FSM, and children of key workers at school and MAT level.
With students coming to school in “bubbles”, you may need to continue a blended approach of face-to-face and remote teaching. During partial school closures, online learning has taken lots of different forms, some using systems like Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams to set assignments and hold video lessons. But depending on the technology students had at home and how prepared schools were, remote education has had varying degrees of success.
Think about what you can learn from this Term and how you can improve your online provision going forward. As The Harris Federation found, it’s a challenge to measure the effectiveness of online learning by just looking at quantitative data, like the number of lessons or assignments. Instead, try gathering feedback from staff and students on how they’ve found remote learning so you can see where to make improvements.
You should also make sure your staff are confident using online teaching tools. Did you know the Government is offering a grant for support with Office 365 and G Suite? Find out more info here.
Before the Summer Holidays, it’s vital to set up your statutory enrollment information, calendar, courses and assessments in your Management Information System (MIS), so your staff can hit the ground running in the new Term. In Arbor, we have a dedicated section in the system which walks you through the steps you need to complete so Arbor can get everything ready for you when you return.
Don’t forget, over summer you can access all our free support resources in the Help Centre if you want a refresher on parts of the system before September. If you’d like to arrange any training for new members of staff, get in touch with your Account Manager at accountmanagers@arbor-education.com.
Schools have had to adapt how they operate at a rapid pace over the last few months, and change isn’t always easy, particularly for a large, complex school or MAT (we’ve written on this subject before). As schools begin to look forward to September, flexibility and adaptability will continue to be part of life. Like
Schools have had to adapt how they operate at a rapid pace over the last few months, and change isn’t always easy, particularly for a large, complex school or MAT (we’ve written on this subject before).
As schools begin to look forward to September, flexibility and adaptability will continue to be part of life. Like many schools, you might be considering switching to cloud-based systems so you can manage your school more flexibly next Term.
Whatever change you’re considering, Arbor’s Partnership Manager, Mark Maitland, has some advice below for how a change in mindset can help you make change a success.
Over the past fifteen years, I’ve been helping individuals, schools and companies work through change. I started out in my career as a Teacher in special needs before moving into psychotherapy and change psychology. When faced with new ways of working, behaviour and new technology, I’ve seen people react in lots of different ways, some finding it more difficult than others.
I was once worked with GP practices to help them change to a new cloud-based system which would free up GP time and improve patient safety. Even when they could see the benefits, staff were reluctant to change their ways of working because it was what they were used to.
This “fear” of change is hardwired in our brain from the past when change was dangerous. Nowadays, when we face a change, our brain’s first reaction is to hesitate! It’s a very emotional reaction to protect ourselves and play it safe. Familiarity is a comfort.
In times of national crises like the pandemic we’re living through right now, two things happen. Society looks to retreat and wait for a return to normal. Then, once we get over the initial shock and accept that “normal” isn’t returning as quickly as we hoped, we begin to reflect and think about what we might do differently in future.
I’ve definitely noticed a shift in mindset from some of the schools I’ve been speaking to since Covid-19 began. Before the pandemic, the demands of normal school life would often get in the way and make staff less open to changing how they’d always done things. They were fearful of yet another burden on their time, and a potential threat to them being able to do their jobs properly.
What we’re seeing more of now is School Leaders stepping back, reflecting on lessons they’ve learned over the last few months, and looking at changes they can make to prepare themselves for the future.
At the top of their minds is asking themselves if the systems they have in place can cope with flexible ways of working going forward.
A crisis can often clarify our minds and allow us to make practical decisions in order to get through. Switching systems like your MIS (Management Information System) during such a busy and challenging time might feel too daunting, but lots of schools have found that by finding something that’s within their control that will help them deal better with the crisis can feel really positive.
At Arbor, we believe you should be able to rely on your tech when you’re pulled in lots of different directions. But if you’re still using a legacy, server-based MIS, you’ll find it difficult to run your school flexibly next term.
Our cloud-based MIS lets you run your school however you need to, giving all your staff the student information they need wherever they are. In Arbor, you can easily plan your rotas, set up flexible timetables, log and manage attendance and keep track of vulnerable students easily with in-built reports.
Read about how both Hoyland Common Academy Trust and LEO Academy Trust moved to Arbor during lockdown, along with more than 225 schools since March!
To find out more about how Arbor’s cloud-based MIS can help you future-proof your school during Covid-19 and beyond, join one of our free webinars or book an online demo. You can also call 0208 050 1028 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
We’ve been working hand in hand with schools and MATs to help them adapt to change and work flexibly during the Covid-19 outbreak. Because Arbor is cloud-based, staff can continue to access all the student information they need to do their daily tasks remotely, without worrying about having a VPN or patches. There’s lots of
We’ve been working hand in hand with schools and MATs to help them adapt to change and work flexibly during the Covid-19 outbreak. Because Arbor is cloud-based, staff can continue to access all the student information they need to do their daily tasks remotely, without worrying about having a VPN or patches.
There’s lots of uncertainty about what school life will look like in September. Schools don’t know how many students will be on-site or what social distancing arrangements will be in place. What they do know is they’ll need to prepare for lots of different outcomes.
Trying to plan flexible arrangements is difficult if you’re still relying on a server-based MIS. That’s why lots of schools are switching to a reliable cloud-based system which will allow them to manage their school flexibly over the next few months.
Over 600 schools have moved to Arbor since March 2020. Here are three reasons why moving to the cloud now will help you manage your school during Covid-19 and beyond:
There’s likely to be more challenges to come next year, so you need a school system that automates your essential daily admin and frees you up to focus on supporting your students and staff.
Whether all students come back, or you have split-populations, Arbor’s cloud-based MIS will allow you to easily plan your rotas and set up flexible timetables. You’ll be able to log and manage attendance from wherever you are, plus track key demographic groups such as children with EHCP, child protection status, FSM, and children of key workers easily with in-built reports.
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. This is because whatever the DfE introduces, Arbor can update within 24 hours, meaning you can keep on top of new requirements from the next day. No more patches or workarounds!
With staff working in different ways, and in different locations, their jobs are much more difficult if they have to come into school to access the information they need. That’s where a cloud-based MIS like Arbor comes in, which gives staff all the student data they need wherever they are.
Having instant access to data about the children in your school also reduces the safety risk. Staff can see immediately if something doesn’t look right and follow up immediately with their Teacher or parent directly from the same page. No more switching systems or downloading contact lists! You’ll find more tips for keeping in touch with your school community here.
Just before half term, lots of schools joined us for a webinar hosted by The ONTO Group all about designing a new school timetable in line with social distancing. It was a great opportunity for schools to discuss the challenges of their settings with timetabling experts and MIS providers. Lots of important practical and technical
Just before half term, lots of schools joined us for a webinar hosted by The ONTO Group all about designing a new school timetable in line with social distancing. It was a great opportunity for schools to discuss the challenges of their settings with timetabling experts and MIS providers. Lots of important practical and technical questions were raised, including “How could I split my school into two populations?” and “How can we keep students separate when they arrive and depart from school?” TimeTabler had some useful advice that you can find on our blog.
Since then, the conversation has continued on Facebook, with school leaders sharing the solutions they’ve found. You’ll find some great example timetables that members have shared in the “files” section on the page.
With schools now starting to open up to more year groups, the questions now are “How are you putting your new timetable into practice?” and “What is working well and what have been the challenges?”
To discuss all this and more, join us for another free panel discussion next Tuesday (9th June) in partnership with The ONTO Group and with contributions from Edval and TimeTabler. Sign up for free here to join fellow Timetablers and School Leaders and share best practice.
The main topic we’ll be discussing is “Should you put your new timetable into your MIS?” The answer to this will look very different depending on your school setting. We’ll dig into this in the webinar, but beforehand we’ve put together some of the things you can think about to help you make the right call for your school:
If you’re using Arbor MIS, you can find all our guidance on how to set up your new groups and classes, and complete your New School Year Setup on our Help Centre. You’ll find everything we’re doing to support schools during Covid-19 here. You can also discuss with fellow Arbor schools on the Arbor Community.
Spring Term has brought a great deal of change for schools and trusts, with staff having to quickly adapt to every new challenge and requirement that came their way. As we move into Summer Term, change is set to be the new normal, and we’ll have to keep adapting in lots of new ways. Since
Spring Term has brought a great deal of change for schools and trusts, with staff having to quickly adapt to every new challenge and requirement that came their way. As we move into Summer Term, change is set to be the new normal, and we’ll have to keep adapting in lots of new ways.
Since partial school closures were announced, we’ve been working hand-in-hand with schools to build out our MIS (Management Information System) to ensure schools can continue to run flexibly. Because we can move schools to Arbor 100% remotely, lots of schools have taken this opportunity to get up and running on our cloud-based MIS to help them access the information they need wherever they are.
As experts in school operations and data, with many former teachers in the Arbor team, we’ve been sharing practical support and guidance over the last few months, designed to help schools adapt. In case you missed anything, we’ve put together a round-up below so you have one handy guide to managing your school flexibly.
1. Using Arbor MIS to manage your school remotely
2. Expert guidance on key topics on our blog
3. Advice from schools and MATs in our webinars
4. Hear from the Arbor Community
Here’s how to find everything …
We’re firm believers that you should be able to lean on tools like your MIS to pick up the slack when you find yourself pulled in lots of different directions. Arbor takes the hassle out of important tasks like following up with vulnerable children, planning staff rotas, and communicating with your students and parents, wherever you’re working from. Plus, we’re making updates every day to make sure you’re covering all the new government requirements.
Here’s a list of some of the features we’ve developed to help you manage your school or MAT during Covid-19:
You can find more detailed guidance and all the support you need from the dedicated Covid-19 page on our Help Centre. Don’t forget, our Support Team is always there for you on the phone, email and web chat.
Find out about the government grant you can apply for to get support with setting up G Suite or Office 365 at your school or trust on our blog.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been blogging about some of the top priorities for school leaders right now – from keeping in touch with students and parents, to nurturing staff wellbeing. We’ve gathered advice from across the Arbor team, guest experts, and schools and MATs in our network, designed to give some practical tips on how to adapt to change – whatever your role.
Check out the topics that interest you below, there’ll be more to come! Look out for links to useful resources in the blogs if you want to learn more.
From the Arbor team:
From guest experts:
From schools and MATs:
We’ve also been learning a lot from listening to our schools and how they’re coping during lockdown, and the strategies leaders have put in place. We’ve been asking questions like “How do you plan for change, support your students, and manage staff wellbeing when you’re working remotely?” and “How do you keep adapting as new guidance comes out?”
We’re running two free webinar series that have been really popular:
If you’d like to listen to the recording of any of our past webinars, get in touch at james@arbor-education.com.
Across our network of schools and MATs, we’ve seen some inspiring responses to an extremely challenging situation, with schools finding new and innovative ways to connect with their students. English Martyrs Catholic Primary School were straight out of the gate with their virtual PE lessons, as were LEO Academy Trust with their distance wellbeing sessions. Hoyland Common Academy Trust have been promoting mental health awareness and Avanti Schools Trust have been offering free yoga sessions!
As staff and students are working in totally new ways, it’s more important than ever to reach out and connect. When we shared some of our work-from-home stations and morning routines on Twitter, we were pleased to discover lots of our schools also wanted to share their creative ways to make the most of lockdown.
In what continues to be a difficult period, the Arbor team is always here to help and support where we can. We wanted to share a few pieces of feedback we’ve got lately from schools and partner organisations that we’re really proud of.
“Arbor’s been pretty essential to the distance learning program here and I’m confident we have a system that is really strong. We log daily checks with our students and have been able to use this to get to the stage where we can say we have contact with 100% of our students every day.” Phil Jones, Head of Academy Services at Pool Academy
As a school we could not have accomplished half of what we have with our previous MIS. Arbor’s cloud based MIS has not only allowed remote working within what is a challenging, time sensitive period; but also given the exact information required without the need for additional query templates to be set up.” Simon Brown, Headteacher at, Blaydon West Primary
“It’s refreshing to know that Arbor listen to what schools need and respond so quickly and also that priorities change depending on the current situation.” Susan Scott, Education ICT, Bradford Metropolitan District Council
“We wouldn’t have known what to do without Arbor this week, it’s been an absolute godsend being able to access school info from the Group and all the other inbuilt reports we can access, as well as accessing remotely!” Vicky Harrison, COO at Hoyland Common Academy Trust
“We just don’t know how we have managed before we had Arbor. We are all in this together and should ensure people know how much we appreciate Arbor helping us get through this difficult time.” Jackie Blaikie, Bursar at Acresfield Primary School
“I’ve found it great to be able to use Arbor while working at home. I’ve sent instructions for parents about how to resolve issues with students logging into Show My Homework and how the students can access their school email accounts from home.” Joanne Hedges, Data Manager at Manshead CE Academy
We’re moving schools to Arbor every day, 100% remotely. If you’d like to find out more about how Arbor MIS could help you manage your school or remotely and flexibly, get in touch at hello@arbor-education.com or call 0208 050 1028.
Over the last few months, schools have had to adapt to constant change, and keep their schools running without really knowing what the weeks ahead would hold. Although we still don’t have all the details, the latest Government plans suggest schools should prepare to partially reopen from 1st June, starting with Reception, Year 1, Year
Over the last few months, schools have had to adapt to constant change, and keep their schools running without really knowing what the weeks ahead would hold. Although we still don’t have all the details, the latest Government plans suggest schools should prepare to partially reopen from 1st June, starting with Reception, Year 1, Year 6, Year 10 and Year 12. A key question on everyone’s minds right now is how to design a school timetable that will adhere to social distancing and keep students and staff safe.
To help, our partners at TimeTabler have put together some practical advice on adapting your timetable for social distancing. Maggie, our Key Account Manager and former Timetable Manager at a secondary school, has summarised their advice below:
You’re also invited to join us in a webinar on Thursday at 3pm where we’ll be discussing timetabling in detail with our partners TimeTabler and The Onto Group. Click here to register!
If you just can’t get enough timetabling tips, you can read the full article on TimeTabler’s website. Otherwise, this blog should give you some food for thought.
1. Set different start and end times
Think about staggering your school start and end times to reduce contact in the school playground before and after school. This may seem straightforward, but bear in mind any implications for the local bus services, who may not be able to change their timetable. Instead of staggering by year group, you could even stagger by transport method, so that pupils who travel by bus arrive a little earlier or later than those whose parents drop them off in the car.
2. Set different break and lunch times
Spacing kids out at lunch might sound like a simple solution, but without careful planning it could mean that some staff end up going without a break. For example, if Mrs Jones teaches a Year 7 class before break and Year 10 class after break, but Year 7 now has a later break time than Year 10, Mrs Jones may have to go straight from one class to the next. (Note, if you’re using TimeTabler, you can use the ‘split-site’ feature to avoid this).
3. Limit group sizes by creating two school populations
As and when all year groups return to school, if social distancing is still a requirement, one option is to set a maximum group size (e.g. 15) so students can be spaced out in the classroom. However, in most schools, this would mean only 50% or less of the school population could be in school at a time, and therefore students would only receive 50% of their ‘normal’ teaching. In this case, schools could try splitting into two student populations and manage teacher coverage using a rota system.
Currently, the DfE is not expecting schools to introduce staggered returns or a rota systems, but without the ability to be flexible, many schools are concerned it will be impossible for them to follow social distancing guidelines.
If splitting your school into two populations is something you want to consider, we’ve put together some more detailed advice on this below.
There are two routes you might consider when splitting your student body:
Route 1: Split each teaching group within each Year in two At Key Stages 1-3, it should be fairly easy to split each class in two as students are generally all taking the same subjects. However, you might want to consider how you split the teaching groups, for example to maintain friendship groups, or to separate antisocial or disruptive pairs. Equally, you might actually decide to break up friendship groups to cut down on social interaction before and after class.
However, at Key Stages 4 and 5, it’s likely to be more difficult to create two populations of equal size by dividing teaching groups. With students attending lots of different combinations of subjects, each with different class sizes, it would be near impossible to coordinate options to have only one population at school at one time (see ‘Staggering populations’ section below).
Route 2: Group Years to make populations There are a number of different ways to do this, for example you might group Years 7, 9 and 11 into Population X and Years 8, 10, and 12/13 into Population Y. Alternatively, you might split by Key Stage – whatever makes the most sense for a balanced demand on specialist rooms, labs, equipment and so on. Note, with this option, individual teaching groups may still need to be split to stay within the size limit.
Staggering populations
Once you’ve split your population in two, you then need to consider how to manage how to timetable them. For schools considering reopening on a rota basis, there are a few different ways you could approach this:
If you go for B or C, you should bear a few things in mind:
Whatever your approach, it’s also important to consider whether there are sufficient transport links to get all populations to school on time, and whether parents’ work schedules are able to adapt.
TimeTabler is a fast, friendly and reliable computer program used by schools & colleges in over 80 countries to schedule their timetables. Designed to reduce the manual work involved in timetabling, TimeTabler leaves you with more time to apply your professional skill and judgement where it’s needed, to produce a timetable of the highest quality.
TimeTabler’s founder Keith Johnson is also the author of the standard ‘bible’ on Timetabling: ‘The Timetabler’s CookBook, which has now helped thousands of beginners to learn the Art of Timetabling, and many experienced timetablers to understand it in even more depth.
The good news is that TimeTabler integrates with Arbor MIS to give you the best timetabling experience. Use TimeTabler to schedule your timetable, then simply import it into Arbor’s MIS, using our inbuilt Wizard that guides you through the steps. Once your timetable is imported, you can make any changes or tweaks you need to in Arbor, so you don’t have to keep going back and forth. What’s more, as a trusted TimeTabler partner, Arbor customers can receive a discount on their TimeTabler licence.
If you’d like to find out more on the topic of timetabling for social distancing, Arbor and TimeTabler are taking part in an online debate hosted by our partners The ONTO Group on Thursday 21st May at 3pm. Click here to register!
Because Arbor MIS is cloud-based, you and your staff can work from wherever you need to. Find out more about the ways Arbor can help you work remotely and flexibly in our free webinar series today – check out the schedule here. You can also get in touch to book a virtual demo with one of our team – simply email hello@arbor-education.com or call 0208 050 1028.
LGfL (London Grid for Learning) is a not for profit organisation that provides secure internet connectivity and digital services to over 90% of London schools and many others nationwide. Special Projects Lead at LGFL, Richard Martin, has put together this blog with advice for schools on delivering remote teaching and learning during lockdown. Richard was
LGfL (London Grid for Learning) is a not for profit organisation that provides secure internet connectivity and digital services to over 90% of London schools and many others nationwide. Special Projects Lead at LGFL, Richard Martin, has put together this blog with advice for schools on delivering remote teaching and learning during lockdown. Richard was previously the CIO for the ARK academy group and Head of IT for the Girls’ Day School Trust. He is also a governor for a small primary school in Surrey.
Learn more about our cloud-based MIS
The challenges presented to schools during the Covid-19 lockdown have been diverse and complex. In my role as the Special Projects Lead for LGfL, I get to speak to many schools directly and have regular contact with organisations who provide on-site technical support for schools through the LGFL Digital Transformation Partner Programme that I run.
This has brought to the fore real challenges for schools that go beyond traditional teaching in the classroom. I am aware of many school heads and school leaders spending their time delivering lunches to vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils and regularly checking in with families to help them through the crisis. Schools also stayed open during the Easter holidays to look after children of key workers.
The challenge to move to new ways of working and delivering remote teaching and learning provisions almost overnight introduces a level of organisational change that would break most large corporate organisations, let alone a small primary school! At LGfL we have been supporting our schools and the wider education community as best we can, and have set up a website – coronavirus.lgfl.net – to provide advice, guidance and useful links.
As someone who has been promoting the use of tech, especially cloud-based tech, in schools for years, I am aware of the vast differences in approach and progress with digital tools across the school community. Some schools have embedded technology in their organisation very positively, whereas others for many reasons have made slower progress. A small but not insignificant minority of school leaders just did not see that tech would add any value. This view has not been helped by a multitude of failed IT initiatives in schools that were poorly thought out, highly expensive with little or no thought given to teacher training and effective, sustainable ongoing support.
Unsurprisingly, what we have seen in the schools we are engaging with during lockdown, is that those who had already started down the road to the cloud were the ones who have had the greatest success in sharing online content, lessons and materials. Schools starting from scratch in the few weeks before lockdown have struggled. One large London academy group who had already invested heavily in setting up and providing training on Microsoft 365 were quickly able to expand operations, including setting up 25,000 MS Teams sites in the days after the announcement of lockdown.
Similar successes were had with Google G-Suite in schools such as Poverest Primary in Bromley who were quickly able to switch to online provision. Paul Haylock, the Deputy Headteacher, explains below what they have achieved during lockdown:
“As a school already set up with Google accounts for both staff and children, we found the transition to online learning very easy to do. Within those last two days of school we managed to be completely set up and ready for the Monday lessons. […]
All our teachers have become so much more confident using Google Classroom and now using many features they weren’t before. Using Google Meet we have had staff meetings and year group planning meetings. Teaching presentations sourced from a whole host of website-based companies are shared in the classroom for pupils and parents to read, tasks are also shared in the same way and blank documents (mainly docs and slides) are given to each pupil for them to share their learning. This is then remotely handed in and reviewed by the teachers. Those who can only access on phones and small devices read the information but complete learning on paper and upload photographs for the teachers to see.
Teachers are preparing work as year group teams and posting on the Google Classroom so that each new learning is posted at 9am each morning. This is done via a time stamp so learning for a whole week can be prepared at any time but only appears to the child at 9am each day.
As school leaders we are using Google Forms with our parents to identify when children are coming into school and what the weekly free school meal arrangements are for each family. This means we can staff the building with the minimum number of staff for the children we have in the building, helping our staff to work from home and isolate as much as possible.”
Paul Haylock was able to achieve this comprehensive provision because he had put in the groundwork previously and worked closely with an engaged and competent support partner. You can see more on how LGFL work with schools here.
Another challenge amplified by remote learning is digital connectivity for disadvantaged children at home and ensuring there’s a solution for pupils who do not have access to a device or whose only internet provision may be via a parent’s mobile phone. Upon request from the DFE, LGfL are looking to procure devices and provide a safe, secure route to the Internet for those that need it.
The Covid-19 outbreak has been a horrible time for everyone and a tragic loss of life both in the UK and around the world. What we once perceived as normal is unlikely to return for a very long time, if ever, but I hope that some positive change will come out of our experiences in the past few months.
This time will teach us the true power of tech – if staff have the right support, tech can free them up and help them to adapt. If implemented in the right way, tech can improve and transform the way schools work so they can weather any storm. For example, the ability to set and mark work digitally should, in the long term, save teachers’ time and effort, and provide analytics on engagement far more easily. Teachers will now be much more confident using tools to teach children who are incapacitated, or for whatever reason cannot get into schools once they are opened. Sadly, for many of us, snow days will now be a lot less fun!
If you want to get up to speed with digital tools to use in your classroom, click the links below to access online learning resources from:
Arbor’s Head of Support, Emily Copsey, shares top tips for communicating with your school network during Covid-19 and partial school closures Our schools have been sharing with us that keeping in touch with parents – particularly the most vulnerable families – is top of their minds right now. School staff are relying more than ever
Arbor’s Head of Support, Emily Copsey, shares top tips for communicating with your school network during Covid-19 and partial school closures
Our schools have been sharing with us that keeping in touch with parents – particularly the most vulnerable families – is top of their minds right now. School staff are relying more than ever on parents and guardians to engage in their children’s education. Ensuring you can help parents to support their children starts with having a strong line of communication in place.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve worked with our schools to make sure they have everything they need in Arbor to keep in touch with their school community. Because Arbor’s MIS is cloud-based, staff have up-to-the-minute data about all their students and guardians at their fingertips, so they can communicate with the right people at the right time, from one place.
We’ve put together three top tips for engaging with parents – particularly during lockdown:
1. Make sure it’s not all doom and gloom
2. Plan your content in advance
3. Get something in the diary
Let’s break that down …
Alongside essential announcements, share some content with parents that might lift their spirits. This could be some fun weekend activities, craft projects or TV recommendations. We’ve seen some really uplifting posts from schools on social media – like this wonderful “We miss you” video from the Knockhall Primary Staff, and free yoga sessions from Avanti Schools Trust. You could even put a short newsletter together with a weekly roundup. We’re also delighted to share this poem sent by English Martyrs Catholic Primary School in their newsletter to their Year 6 students due to start their SATS this week. This is a great example of giving parents a way to talk about this difficult time and all the emotions surrounding it with their children.
Over the last few weeks, you’ve probably been sending parents lots of updates as you react to daily changes. But as we adapt to a new way of working, it’s a good idea to plan a schedule of content you want to share with parents. Whether it’s a weekly round up of the work set for each class, or a regular prompt to parents to send in their details, creating a content calendar can help your team to prioritise their workload, and make sure information reaches parents at the right time.
Many Arbor schools are having success with planning regular communications. Baxter College send weekly key worker surveys in Arbor so they can keep track of who to expect the following week. Find out more about how Baxter College use Arbor to send automated reports here.
Remember, one channel might not work for everyone in your community. In Arbor there are lots of different options you can use to share information with parents:
With less in-person contact with parents, it might be easy for some parents to drop off your radar. It can be useful to get a contact slot in parents’ diaries so they can plan around it. In Arbor, you can use Guardian Consultations to book one-on-one check-ins at a time that suits everyone.
For parents who you know are not online, you’ll have to contact them in a different way. In Arbor, you can keep these parents separate in a custom group so you can plan how to reach them separately – maybe through a phone call or a physical letter. Staff can pull up parents’ phone numbers easily in Arbor, or quickly create a letter template, which will automatically populate with each parents’ details, that they can print and send out.
To find out more about communicating with parents remotely, we’re running a series of practical support webinars on parental engagement, kicking off with a session all about using the Parent Portal on Monday 18th May – sign up for free here. The Arbor Community is another great place to find advice and best practice from fellow Arbor schools – join today for free.
For full guidance on how to use Arbor to manage your school during Covid-19, check out this guide on our blog.
During this time of constant change for schools and trusts, we want to support schools with practical advice for adapting to new ways of working. Becca Watkins, our Operations Executive, has put together her top 3 tips to bear in mind for working remotely As an EdTech company, with almost a quarter of our employees
During this time of constant change for schools and trusts, we want to support schools with practical advice for adapting to new ways of working. Becca Watkins, our Operations Executive, has put together her top 3 tips to bear in mind for working remotely
As an EdTech company, with almost a quarter of our employees already used to working remotely, we’ve adapted quite well over the past few weeks, all things considered. Many things haven’t changed – our schools and trusts can of course still access Arbor’s cloud-based Management Information System (MIS) from anywhere. And our internal systems at Arbor are no different.
As we prepare to strap in for another few months of remote working, we’ve been reflecting on lessons we’ve learned so far and how we can keep up momentum and morale.
Whatever organisation you work for, whether that’s a school, trust, local authority or private company, you’re probably finding yourself working remotely or in a completely different routine now. From our experience at Arbor, we wanted to share some tips and tricks for working together in this new way.
Bear in mind – these are not just tips for working remotely – they’re tips for working remotely during a pandemic. There’s a big difference. Situations change daily, so you should allow your outlook and mood to change too. If you take just one tip from this blog – be kind to yourself.
My top tips for adapting to your new, virtual workplace are:
Something not many companies have faced before is how to keep their employees’ morale high during a time of widespread strain. The key to this is having a strong company culture and great communication. Most importantly, and the easiest thing to introduce, you can’t underestimate the value of having a laugh together. Here are some ideas to bring a little light-hearted relief:
Remote working is a new experience for us all, and being kind and thoughtful will go a long way, whatever your role or company. So take a breath, take a pause, and remember this is temporary. How we adapt to this crisis will serve us not just right now, but in the long term as well.
If you have any tips to add to Becca’s list, share them with us on social media using #ArborCommunity or on our Community Forum if you’re an Arbor school.
We’re running a webinar programme called “Adapting to Change: Managing Your Schools and Staff Remotely” for MAT Leaders to share strategies during lockdown and beyond. You can sign up for free by clicking the link.
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.
With large student bodies, hundreds of subject strands and lots of different staff responsibilities, secondary school data can be a complex web. To tackle it, you need a Management Information System (MIS) that gives your staff access to clear, visual data so they can take action instantly. At Arbor, we have a team with deep
With large student bodies, hundreds of subject strands and lots of different staff responsibilities, secondary school data can be a complex web. To tackle it, you need a Management Information System (MIS) that gives your staff access to clear, visual data so they can take action instantly.
At Arbor, we have a team with deep secondary school knowledge who have designed our MIS hand-in-hand with schools. Arbor MIS not only takes the hassle out of daily admin – it can also transform the way you work. The number of secondary schools joining Arbor is growing daily – three times as many switched to us last year compared to 2018. And they’ve joined a growing community of 1,000 schools and MATs who rely on Arbor MIS every day.
We’ve put together the top four things that secondary schools really love about Arbor MIS. Read more below about our BI analytics, behaviour reporting, exam management and interventions.
3 in 4 of our schools say Arbor has improved their data analysis
At Arbor we care about democratising data – our MIS gives staff visibility of the data they need every day. We have built “out-of-the-box” BI (Business Intelligence) into the fabric of our MIS which means staff can easily go deep into their data without needing to be a data expert. Through clear, detailed dashboards, Teachers, Heads of Department and Admin Staff can access, analyse and action the data that’s relevant to their role. You can also keep using the BI tools you love by pulling your Arbor data into a password-protected Live Feed that you can upload to another application. You can read more about Arbor’s BI tools in our blog.
4 in 5 say Arbor has transformed the way they work
Arbor MIS helps you manage behaviour more efficiently, with smarter evidence, and in a way that’s right for your school. You have the flexibility to define behaviour types and frameworks, and to set up automatic actions in response to specific incidents or behaviour types, helping you cut down on workload.
Thanks to Arbor’s built-in BI, your behaviour data is more powerful. You’ll be able to build up a rounded picture of each student and compare their behaviour with their class, year group or a custom group you’ve created. To find out more about how Arbor can transform behaviour reporting, check out our blog “A day in the life” by our Senior Partnership Manager and former Headteacher, Andrew.
Managing exams in Arbor MIS is hassle-free every step of the way – from preparation to results day. Unlike other exam management systems, in Arbor there’s no need to search for basedata on exam board websites – we pull it in automatically for you.
Here’s a bit more about how we make exams simple in Arbor:
Exams offering
Set up your exams offering with precise awards and unit codes at the start of the year. This stops any mistakes down the line. You can manage your mock or internal exams in Arbor in exactly the same way as GCSEs or A Levels.
Inputting entries is flexible – either the Exams Officer can input directly or Teachers can propose entries. Easily create an EDI Entries file or an EDI Amendments file with any changes. You can also input coursework marks (Centre Assessed Outcomes) and Forecast Grades, and create an EDI Coursework file.
Everything you need to set up your candidates for the year is all in one place – from assigning candidate numbers, UCIs, ULNs and Exam Access Arrangements. You can assign candidates to seating plans, allocate them to one or more exam rooms and create candidate timetables. Students can see their timetable in the student and parent portals.
Have visibility over invigilator duties, see how many invigilators are already allocated to each room and assign more if needed, print timetables and easily arrange cover.
Manage your results centrally – simply import your EDI Results files into Arbor and see a dashboard of the results which you can print. You can set an Embargo Period and Embargo Date to release results to staff. Teachers can see results on the student profiles, and students can through the student and parent portals.
Arbor MIS has built-in analysis of exam results but you can also export your data to an external spreadsheet, or to SISRA and 4Matrix if you want to do your own deeper analysis.
3 in 4 say Arbor saves them time
We know how important pastoral and academic interventions are in secondary schools. That’s why we’ve made interventions flexible and easy to use in Arbor MIS. Whether your interventions are ad hoc and informal, or highly formalised and structured, you can build your interventions your way. Arbor MIS allows you to create, track, monitor and cost the breadth and range of your wider curriculum. You’ll always stay on top of your students’ progress, attainment and wellbeing – plus you’ll be able to track where extra attention is needed.
You can read more about creating interventions in our blog “6 Steps to Create an Effective Interventions Strategy”. To read how Kate Ferris from Baxter College tailored her behaviour interventions in Arbor, check out her case study.
Our secondaries have been sharing with us why Arbor works for them – read how Suzanne Pike, Vice Principal of Sir Robert Woodard Academy, leads a secondary school with Arbor and hear from Kate Ferris, Data Systems Analyst at Baxter College, about how Arbor has led to a culture shift at their school.
To find out why Arbor MIS is perfect for secondary schools like yours, click here to arrange a free demo or call us on 0208 050 1028.
At BETT last week, Tim and Stephen from the Arbor team gave a talk in the Tech In Action theatre about how Arbor MIS can transform the way schools work. We were pleased to see so many new faces in the audience but in case you missed it, you can see their presentation below which
At BETT last week, Tim and Stephen from the Arbor team gave a talk in the Tech In Action theatre about how Arbor MIS can transform the way schools work. We were pleased to see so many new faces in the audience but in case you missed it, you can see their presentation below which includes some handy video demos.
Tim and Stephen talked about how Arbor MIS makes your essential daily admin more powerful and less stressful, so you can get on and focus where it matters most. They went through four key ways Arbor helps teachers in the classroom – these were:
1. Teaching a lesson using My Classroom
My Classroom is an exciting new feature of Arbor MIS that takes the hassle out of preparing for lessons. With this all-in-one classroom management tool, you can organise your lessons and manage your class seamlessly – giving you time back to focus on teaching and learning.
2. Sending letters home to your students’ parents
Communication with parents is quick, easy and automated in Arbor MIS. For example, if an after-school club has been cancelled, you can send a message to all relevant parents instantly. Parents will get the message on the Arbor App on their phone, which will also let them know if there’s another session they can book instead.
3. Preparing for a meeting with a parent
Arbor MIS gives you the whole picture for each student in a few clicks. Simply search for a student and you can see a breakdown of their behaviour history, attainment, important medical and pastoral notes, absence patterns and how they compare with their classmates. From clear, visual dashboards, you’ll instantly see the most important areas to focus on in your next meeting with their parent.
4. Reviewing your class at the end of the day
After lessons, data on your whole form or class group is at your fingertips. From the week’s behaviour incidents, to how many students have done their homework, to their attainment over time – you can use data to intervene where needed, like creating a booster group, or emailing parents.
If you’d like to find out more about how our hassle-free, cloud-based MIS could help you act on everything important fast, so you and your staff can focus on what matters most, contact us. You can also book a demo by calling 0207 043 0470 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
We often get asked by schools and MATs what’s better – choosing several ‘best-of-breed’ software tools, or one tool that promises almost all the functionality you need? Our CEO, James Weatherill, asks, are there any shades of grey in-between? Jack of all trades, master of none When software was in its infancy in the 90’s
We often get asked by schools and MATs what’s better – choosing several ‘best-of-breed’ software tools, or one tool that promises almost all the functionality you need? Our CEO, James Weatherill, asks, are there any shades of grey in-between?
Jack of all trades, master of none
When software was in its infancy in the 90’s and early 00’s, companies and schools tended to choose ‘one-stop-shop’ systems that could do virtually all the tasks a school needed to run itself. The advantage was lower cost, higher central control and simplified management. But this came at a cost of being tied to one supplier, meaning prices often went up with little product improvement, less flexibility and local variation on customisation. There is also the simple adage that whilst big systems have a lot of functionality, they tend to do more things less well than specialist tools.
Businesses and schools are now generally moving to best-of-breed strategies which pick a few core systems and integrate these with a wider suite of specialist apps, reducing implementation time, giving greater flexibility and higher levels of functionality. This has all been made possible by a shift to the cloud, where integration can be online and seamless (at least in theory). However, as we’ll show, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Your culture and strategy should dictate your systems choice
The answer to what type of system to choose in my view depends on what you want to achieve as a school or MAT, as well as the culture you’ve set. As I’ve written about before, MATs should be intentional about the culture they want to create, as this will often drive how they make decisions. This is no different for schools and how they select systems, as the diagram below shows.
A) Low need for control + Low complexity = define data standards If you’re a school or small trust that typically gives high agency to staff, then you might not need to standardise much except for how to use the systems you’ve procured and the data you want to get out. Choosing best-of-breed tools that fit the needs of your individual school (or schools) works well here, with the caveat that you’ll need a plan for how all the systems integrate (don’t forget or underestimate this step or you’ll be swimming in a data soup!).
B) Low need for control + High complexity = collectively agree core systems; staff choose bolt-ons If you’re a large school or trust, you may like to give an element of agency to your staff to choose systems that can be tailored to the local context of the school. Yet, due to your size, a certain amount of system standardisation is important or there would be chaos. For these types of schools or trusts, it works well to clearly define your non-negotiable core systems (often involving many staff in procurement decisions), then delegate non-core systems to staff to allow variation according to need.
C) High need for control + High complexity = several monolithic systems, centrally controlled If you’re a large school or MAT involving multiple phases spread across many sites or geographies, who needs high control of the systems staff use (perhaps due to cost or culture), you may prefer more monolithic systems. This approach involves selecting fewer, larger applications and perhaps even hosting them on-site.
The advantages of larger systems are simplified vendor management, cost savings, support simplicity and data standardisation. However, this is at the expense of flexibility (being tied to one vendor makes ‘rip-and-replace’ harder), functionality gaps (the vendor is likely to have less product depth in specific workflows) and more difficult implementation (more tools have to be replaced).
D) High need for control + Low complexity = standardised core systems; staff choose bolt-ons If you’re a school or MAT of medium size and scale, a hybrid approach of leadership works well with core non-negotiable systems being centrally defined and school staff choosing bolt-ons. This preserves an element of standardisation whilst allowing staff agency over the systems that might be more appropriate to their context. The trick is ensuring the core systems chosen (typically MIS, finance, HR, assessment) work well together so you can retain flexibility.
A bit about how Arbor can help…
Arbor MIS can tick all the boxes above, as we have a wide range of functionality that caters to primary, secondary, special schools and MATs of all shapes, sizes and cultures. However, we know that every school and MAT has their preferred and loved applications and we want to play well within that ecosystem.
We believe choosing best-of-breed software beats monolithic tools that are a ‘jack of all trades’ but master of none, so our focus is being the best MIS that provides all staff with smart information so they can make better decisions, whilst reducing unnecessary admin tasks.
To discover the hundreds of software partners we work with click here. Get in touch and find out how we could help your school or MAT by emailing me at james@arbor-education.com. Look forward to hearing from you!
I read the news today, oh boy. Unfortunately, I’m not going on to talk about the lucky man that made the grade in the famous song by The Beatles; instead I’m talking about the story that appeared on BBC News with the caption: “I had an interest in school – but zero help.” I felt
I read the news today, oh boy.
Unfortunately, I’m not going on to talk about the lucky man that made the grade in the famous song by The Beatles; instead I’m talking about the story that appeared on BBC News with the caption: “I had an interest in school – but zero help.”
I felt profoundly sad for the families and their unmet needs but as a former Headteacher, I also felt for the schools as they seemed to be taking the presenting issues extremely seriously but their “help” wasn’t helping.
Thinking back to situations I had managed in my schools, I remembered the round-robin reports that regularly hit my desk about the progress, behaviour and attendance of pupils causing concern. This was our way of capturing the presenting issues in order to formulate a plan.
The sort of report I’m talking about is the kind that is being generated right now by teachers and pastoral leads across the country (and across the world) to explore concerns, or support meaningful meetings with parents. Every school seems to have their own template and completes in a way that meets their specific circumstances. However good I thought our report templates were, there was always some information that we hadn’t captured to complete the picture of the child. It’s only since I’ve been working with Arbor MIS that I realised just how poorly set up my schools were to surface student-level information quickly due to the limitations of our previous MIS. To compound the problem, my teams could only access the information when on site, which put an added burden on working parents and carers.
Our weekly student focus meetings brought together progress, educational support, welfare and attendance leads to discuss current and emerging issues. A typical action arising from the meeting would be for a key worker (in this instance: me) to make contact with home to request a meeting.
For the purpose of this blog, I am going to walk through a typical “student of concern” scenario but in this instance, the fictional student is Kimberly Adams, a Year 10 student at Pinewood Secondary School. As Head, I’m collating information ahead of a meeting with her parents. The meeting is therefore at our request because, as I shall explain, her name had cropped up in a number of progress and well-being meetings recently and we want to engage with home at the earliest opportunity. I want to get a comprehensive picture of the student using Arbor MIS.
The following picture begins to emerge:
Kimberly appears to like school; her attendance is currently 96%+ and this is an improvement on last year. She has regular planned absences for medical appointments due to a long-standing medical condition: the result of a head injury that causes a lack of focus. She has the highest attendance in her Tutor Group.
(Image 1: Screenshot of Attendance in Arbor broken down into different groups)
Unfortunately, since the start of Year 10 she has begun to arrive at school late. There is no particular pattern to her lateness to school but she is frequently late to Pd3 which follows break. This is an area to investigate.
(Image 2: Screenshot of Attendance in Arbor broken down into time of day)
Her behaviour is generally good but September the 18th was an uncharacteristically bad day. Kimberly didn’t suggest a reason as to why she had such a bad day but perhaps her parents can offer some context that would explain it. This is an area to investigate.
(Image 3: Screenshot of Behaviour in Arbor broken down into time of day)
It seems that Kimberly does not adapt well to temporary teachers and, looking at her behaviour log in more depth, there seems to be a correlation between her incidents of misbehaviour and supply teachers. As a side issue, I can see that she had eight lessons where her regular teacher has been absent which is potentially having a de-stabilising effect. This is an area to investigate.
(Image 4: Screenshot of student cover statistics in Arbor)
Academically, she is performing fairly well. She is a low prior attainer but she has a flair for Maths and English. It would be useful to explore the issues around English and the relative underachievement in Computer Science and Textiles from her perspective.
(Image 5: Screenshot of assessment and progress statistics in Arbor)
Kimberly has not signed up for any trips or visits this academic year but she is a member of the Eco Club. Her form tutor, Ms Kelly runs the Eco Club and this seems to have sparked her interest somewhat. Ms Kelly fears she may be bullied by some of the other girls in the tutor group but Kimberly has always denied this. This is an area to investigate.
Neither parent has logged into the parent portal, so may be missing vital communications from school about events, achievement and progress. I should offer to reset their password or resend the joining instructions if required.
I am confident that I can approach the meeting with some good evidence to back up my concerns and steer the conversation to cover the areas for further investigation.
Meetings like this one will happen everyday in schools for a myriad of reasons. I’m fortunate that, because Arbor is designed to turn insight into action, I have all of my information on students at-risk together in one place – and not all over the place.
School Operations | Vulnerable Students
In May, the DfE published the findings from the much anticipated Timpson Review, which recommends that schools be supported to reduce the number of exclusions they make by focussing in on early intervention and quality Alternative Provision. In this blog, I will explore the implications of this on schools and discuss how Arbor MIS can
In May, the DfE published the findings from the much anticipated Timpson Review, which recommends that schools be supported to reduce the number of exclusions they make by focussing in on early intervention and quality Alternative Provision. In this blog, I will explore the implications of this on schools and discuss how Arbor MIS can help schools to use data to intervene proactively with students and better understand their holistic needs, before they reach the point of being an exclusion risk.
Are current intervention strategies timely enough?
Prior to working with Arbor, my 13 years as a teacher and senior leader were spent both in Mainstream Secondary and in Specialist Education for Behaviourally Challenging students, so I have seen both the before and after stories of mainstream exclusions.
When a child comes into a full time AP or SEMH school, it’s often the case that they have been excluded, not just once but many times, and are trapped in an ongoing, negative spiral of:
Image 1: A diagram showing a child’s negative behaviour cycle
Trying to re-instill a sense of self-worth and value for learning into individuals who seem almost broken by this experience is very difficult at the post-exclusion stage. We succeeded with many, but not with all.
For those with whom we didn’t, I often wonder… Could it have been a different story if during their more formative stages in education, greater focus had been placed on developing their necessary dispositions for learning, rather than hammering home a nearly entirely academic curriculum? For students who are more resilient and better at regulating their emotions , this is ok; but for those who aren’t, early subjection to repeat experiences of failure will trigger innate safety behaviours such as escape and avoidance, which in the classroom context will display as refusal to work and disruption to lessons.
This opens up a broader debate about the appropriateness of the curriculum we deliver and whether we are assessing the right things for these individuals – something I discussed in my previous blog which focussed on SEN Assessment. Whilst there will never be a silver bullet answer to the “what to do?” question for all children (this will differ depending on context), my overriding feeling regarding “when to do it?” is that, in nearly all cases, it could have been earlier in the story and not at the point where behaviour had already become unmanageable. But how do we know when is best to take a different approach? That’s where the effective use of data comes in!
Data driven intervention
During my time in schools, I have seen and implemented a fair share of behavioural initiatives and policies, some of which were successful and others less so, but in every instance their success was dependent on the quality of information that fed into them. Data-wise, the two most important questions to ask are:
Unfortunately, the answer to these questions isn’t always “yes”. In many schools, it’s hard to act on data in a timely way, as there’s usually a heavy reliance on the manual collation and analysis of it in order to find meaning. Therefore, intervention is often carried out at the point where behaviour is so severe or prevalent that you don’t even need data to tell you there’s something to do. So, you become a reactive culture.
Negative behaviour doesn’t occur in isolation; it’s often linked to other factors, such as home-life, literacy, attendance and pastoral issues. But due to the siloed nature of data in schools (as illustrated in the systems diagram below) it is also difficult to combine different measures into simple, quick analysis, or to easily know what’s been going on with a child.
Image 2: A diagram showing the siloed nature of data in schools
Arbor MIS makes it easy to input and analyse all your core data in one system. With all student data brought together on simple profile pages, it’s easy for staff to get the holistic overview of a student that’s needed in order to plan more specifically for their needs. This is something that’s crucial to Liam Dowling, and the staff of Hinderton School, an Outstanding Cheshire SEN school who specialise in supporting students with Autistic Spectrum Conditions (ASC) and social communication difficulties from a young age.
Image 3: A diagram showing the way school data can be brought together
Hinderton’s short inspection letter from June 2017 praised the school on the interconnectedness of it’s systems, meaning that all stakeholders have easy access to the data they need:
“Your online systems, which work seamlessly together, make sure that senior leaders, staff and parents all have the information they need at their fingertips. As a result, you have streamlined and improved all aspects of information relating to pupils.”
Hinderton’s short inspection letter – OFSTED June 2017
Hinderton are one of nearly 800 schools who benefit from Arbor MIS’ ability to:
Give staff easy access to the full story of a child to enable better understanding of needs
Image 4: A demonstration of how Arbor MIS gives you the full story of a child
With appropriate permissions, all information ranging from communications with parents, attendance, behaviour and SEN history is visible in one place. Understanding what has gone on with a disaffected child is crucial to knowing how best to work with them and Arbor makes finding this information as easy as possible.
Automate behaviour action and analysis
Image 5: A demonstration of how you can automate behaviour action in Arbor MIS
Arbor’s automatic workflows within the behaviour module ensure that students who exhibit persistent low level behaviour across multiple lessons are always identified and action is taken without an administrative burden to staff. This helps schools to ensure that negative behaviour is appropriately challenged in all instances and isn’t allowed to snowball to the point of being unmanageable.
Link Interventions to Data
Image 6: A demonstration of how you can plan interventions with Arbor MIS
Arbor allows you to create interventions with Participant and Outcome criteria that pull data in from anywhere in the MIS. Therefore, students could be recommended for a Behaviour for Learning intervention following a slight change in behavioural patterns at an earlier point in time than when it becomes prevalent and significantly disruptive to others.
Customise Assessment frameworks to target specific needs
Image 7: An example of how to customise assessment frameworks in Arbor MIS
The Springwell Special Academy are an Outstanding SEMH school who make full use of Arbor’s flexible Assessment system to host specific frameworks that fit their students’ needs. This enables them to focus on social and emotional development, resilience and student wellbeing as well as tracking academic progress. The image above shows the input page of a framework they have developed called the SEMH tracker.
In conclusion, the Timpson review has brought about a greater emphasis on schools to develop strategies to help students whom they may otherwise exclude. The four tools above are just a few examples of how Arbor could help schools in collecting more specifically focussed data to use in a more timely and targeted way in order to help improve the holistic outcomes of these vulnerable students. We recognise that the challenge isn’t easy and the “what to do” expertise lies with the people who know the students best – a piece of software isn’t going to be the solution but could play a significant part in the data strategy that drives the change!
If you’d like to find out more about how our simple, smart cloud-based MIS could help you transform the way your school uses interventions, contact us. You can also book a demo by calling 0207 043 0470 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
Last year, over 1,000 schools moved their MIS to the cloud – the highest number of schools ever to have moved in the space of a year! That means 1 in 4 schools have now left SIMS in favour of easier-to-use cloud-based systems like Arbor. We’re really excited that more and more schools are realising
Last year, over 1,000 schools moved their MIS to the cloud – the highest number of schools ever to have moved in the space of a year! That means 1 in 4 schools have now left SIMS in favour of easier-to-use cloud-based systems like Arbor. We’re really excited that more and more schools are realising the benefits of the cloud; after all, we’ve been talking about it since we were first founded!
We’ve spoken to lots of Headteachers and SLT recently who want to move MIS, but who are nervous about the pain of switching out-weighing the gain of a new system. With that in mind, we’ve to put together a helpful guide on moving your MIS to the cloud (scroll to the bottom of this page to read), which we’ve written based on our experience of helping over 800 schools make the switch.
We’ve answered some of the most common questions we get asked, including how secure the cloud really is, how much it costs, and how cloud-based systems differ to SIMS. You’ll also find some first-hand switching stories from schools & MATs who use Arbor – we hope it helps make switching MIS seem a little less stressful than it might feel right now.
Moving their MIS to the cloud hasn’t just helped the 600 primary schools, 77 secondary schools and 101 special schools using Arbor save time and money – it’s also helped them transform the way they run their school. Arbor MIS acts as the central system at your school to help you get work done, replacing any clunky, third-party apps that don’t speak to each other. Teachers and SLT can now follow up with absent students, write report cards and prepare for census in just a few clicks – meaning they no longer have to switch between paper, spreadsheets and different systems to get the information they need about their students!
If you’re planning your own move to the cloud, have a read of our guide on Moving to the Cloud by clicking on the link below:
Why have 5,000+ schools moved to a cloud-based MIS? ~ powered by Arbor
Hope you find it helpful!
If you’d like to learn more about how Arbor could help you transform the way your school operates, get in touch at tellmemore@arbor-education, or give us a quick call on 020 8 050 1028
Being born in the early 90’s and receiving my first computer as a gift in December of 1999 turned out to be not only a brilliant idea (thanks mum & dad!), but for many reasons, also quite profound in the way that this beige PC tower ended up shaping not just my life, but also
Being born in the early 90’s and receiving my first computer as a gift in December of 1999 turned out to be not only a brilliant idea (thanks mum & dad!), but for many reasons, also quite profound in the way that this beige PC tower ended up shaping not just my life, but also the lives of an entire generation.
It’s almost impossible to imagine today’s world without the advent of the technology that has shaped our lives so dramatically. Even as a young boy, while I would spend countless hours playing around with this marvellous box of tricks (Windows 98 seems so archaic by today’s standards), I was amazed by what it could do and saw no limit to what was possible.
Suddenly, I could (willingly) do my homework on-screen and at the press of a button it would be spat out by the enormous printer to the left of the big-back monitor. I’m sure you can imagine my utter delight when I figured out how to access the internet through dial-up (and my hopeless despair when I’d spent 10 minutes trying to download an image, only for the phone to ring half way through and kill my connection).
Picture 1: A comparison of a computer from 1984 and a computer from 2019
Fast forward 20 years and I still find myself astounded with all the technological advancements of the modern world. My smartphone can do everything and more that my first computer could and all the time we’re finding new and clever ways to apply all of this technology to a variety of different situations, problems and sectors to make our lives easier.
However, this isn’t always the case. When I think about how we use technology to supplement educational outcomes and improve the effectiveness of our schools in general, I have mixed feelings. In some cases schools are embracing tech with great results (putting iPads in the classroom being an example) but in other areas, schools are being left behind.
The (not so) looming crisis
In 2019, schools are under scrutiny and pressure like never before. The education system is ever evolving and adapting to address its own challenges whilst trying to find new ways to teach the next generation so they’re set up for life in an ever more competitive and challenging world. Despite this, it’s failing to adequately address an ever progressing crisis: teachers leaving the profession at an unprecedented rate.
Among others, one of the most commonly cited reasons for the staffing crisis in the UK is the increasing demand and workload placed upon school staff as a whole, not just teachers. When I meet with school leaders in the North of England this is a question which is raised almost every single time – ‘how can I improve the efficiency and outcomes of my school whilst also reducing my staff’s workload?’ and my answer is always the same: try to see technology as an assistant and a driver for positive change and not a means to an end. It should help, not hinder you.
In most elements of our lives we embrace the latest and greatest in tech and no longer do we settle for the sub-standard; take mobile phones as an example. On average, most people change their smartphone every 2-3 years and sometimes even more frequently. If the device doesn’t do what we want or expect it to, or even if we just find it a bit difficult to use, what do we do? We replace it without hesitation and try another brand entirely.
I really like this attitude to tech; it serves to ensure that vendors are always striving to find new and innovative ways to make our lives easier, always one step ahead of us and improving on things that we never even thought were a problem, until we’re handed the solution. Of course, we know what happens when they don’t move with the times. More so, it stops vendors becoming complacent.
Having seen the internals of education and technology for myself, I firmly believe schools should think of their systems like most of us do a mobile phone; a really useful tool to help us out on a day to day basis, but something we can easily swap and move away from if it no longer serves its purpose. It’s for this reason that we encourage schools we meet with to do a systems audit, which helps determine if the technology they’re paying for has become outdated or no longer fits with the day-to-day running of the school.
Picture 2: An example of mobile phones from the 1980s and a mobile phone in 2019
In a school, the MIS is one of the key pieces of tech which has the capacity to vastly reduce staff workload, increase the efficiency of the school and improve pupil outcomes at large. Despite this, many schools across the country are still using clunky, out-of-date systems that are time consuming and difficult to use, yet some appear to accept this because they’re perhaps unaware just how much of a difference a modern MIS could make to their work, and their school as a whole.
If I could give one piece of advice to anyone who’s not happy with the technology that’s supposed to assist them and make their life easier, it would be to explore alternatives and try and find a system that fits the ethos of your school, and that enhances the livelihoods of its staff and the outcomes of its pupils.
Sometimes, we’re unaware that there are better ways to do things until we’re presented with a new idea. Try to look for a solution to your problems in a proactive manner – technology is there to help you and when it no longer does, it effectively becomes surplus to requirements.
If you’re unhappy with your MIS and school systems in general, it could be that they’re no longer fit for purpose and you should start exploring alternatives. It’s your duty to ensure your school has the best outcomes and your staff are as happy as they can be.
Remember, a change of attitude is all that’s necessary.
School payments happen every day: parents pay for school lunches, clubs and trips all the time. Studies have shown that the number of cashless transactions is constantly increasing, with more and more of these parents choosing to use online payments to purchase goods and services from schools. It’s not a secret that online payments are
School payments happen every day: parents pay for school lunches, clubs and trips all the time. Studies have shown that the number of cashless transactions is constantly increasing, with more and more of these parents choosing to use online payments to purchase goods and services from schools.
It’s not a secret that online payments are susceptible to fraud (we’ve all heard stories about stolen credit cards and phishing sites that steal your details), so making online payments as safe as possible is a challenge for organisations all around the globe. As they became more aware of these risks, governments and financial authorities decided to take action by making payments more secure and protecting consumers when they pay online. They introduced the Payment Services Directive (PSD) in 2007 to regulate online payments in the EU and EEA, and in 2015 the updated directive – second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) – was released. This introduced even more regulations, including Strong Customer Authentication.
It was initially put forward that on 14th September 2019, new requirements for authenticating online payments will be introduced in Europe as part of PSD2. When you make an online payment, SCA requires you to use at least two of the following 3 elements:
Update: UK Finance are now recommending an 18-month delay to the introduction of Secure Customer Authentication rules in the UK to give companies more time to prepare. While this might mean that SCA regulations are postponed, there is no guarantee, which is why we have made sure we are compliant. Arbor is set up for all eventualities so that your school won’t face any problems now, or in the future. Our updates to your system also means that school payments will be protected from fraudulent transactions, which is an added bonus!
From when SCA comes into action, banks will decline payments that require SCA and that don’t meet this authentication criteria (if you would like to read the original SCA requirements, they’re set out in this Regulatory Technical Standards document). These regulations will apply to British banks as well, as they are not dependant on any Brexit decisions.
Authentication is typically added in as an extra step after checkout, where the cardholder is prompted by their bank to provide additional information to complete a payment (this could be a code sent to their phone or fingerprint authentication through their mobile banking app).
Under this new regulation, specific types of low-risk payments may be exempt from Strong Customer Authentication. Payment providers will be able to request these exemptions when processing a payment. The cardholder’s bank will then receive the request, assess the risk level of the transaction, and ultimately decide whether to approve the exemption or whether authentication is still necessary. Usually, transactions lower that £30 will be considered as low-risk and, in most cases, will not require any authentication.
SCA regulations will introduce small changes to the way people make card payments to school:
Image 1: A screenshot showing you how to enter your card details into Arbor
Image e: A screenshot showing a successful payment in Arbor
At Arbor, we’ve introduced changes to the way we process card payments to become 100% compliant with the new regulations, which means your school won’t face any problems when Strong Customer Authentication comes into practice. You also won’t need to make any changes if you use the card payment functionality in Arbor – we’ve taken care of all that for you already!
If you’d like to find out more about how our simple, smart cloud-based MIS could help you transform the way your school handles payments, contact us. You can also book a demo by calling 0207 043 0470 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
Assessment | School Operations
A-Level and GCSE results days are amongst the busiest days in any school’s calendar. We’ve compiled this guide and checklist to help the day go as smoothly as possible. 1. Import results files Results files can either be downloaded from the awarding organisation’s online portal or automatically received using the A2C transport application. Once you
A-Level and GCSE results days are amongst the busiest days in any school’s calendar. We’ve compiled this guide and checklist to help the day go as smoothly as possible.
1. Import results files
Results files can either be downloaded from the awarding organisation’s online portal or automatically received using the A2C transport application. Once you have received your results files, it’s then a case of importing them into your MIS.
Arbor’s MIS makes this process very easy by automatically identifying any problems when you upload your results files. Don’t worry about importing QN (Qualification Number) files, creating grade sets, or entering discount codes; because Arbor MIS is in the cloud, this is all done for you.
Image 1: A screenshot showing how results files are imported onto Arbor MIS
2. Set embargo date/times
The JCQ stipulates that only the school’s Exams Officer, Senior Leadership and other selected members of staff can have access to results before the official publication date. To ensure that this happens, it is essential that an “embargo date” is set in your MIS. The embargo date ensures that results can only be viewed by other members of staff, students and parents the day after results are published.
Setting an embargo is straightforward in Arbor. When you upload results files, you’ll be asked to enter an embargo date. Arbor automatically assumes that the Examinations Officer and Head Teacher will have access to results files before the embargo date, but it’s really simple to add more staff members as “pre-embargo” viewers if you’d like.
Image 2: A screenshot showing how to set an embargo date in Arbor MIS
3. Manually enter the results for any non-EDI qualifications
In the case of qualifications that don’t support EDI results files, results need to be manually added into your MIS. Non-EDI results can be viewed and downloaded from the awarding organisation’s secure portal.
Arbor’s Exams module supports all Ofqual recognised qualifications. Non-EDI qualifications can be easily added to your centre’s qualification offering. Arbor manges all the information for non-EDI qualifications centrally, so there’s no need to manually add information such as award and/or learning unit names and combinations.
Image 3: A screenshot showing where to enter non-EDI qualifications in Arbor MIS
4. Export results to a data analysis application
There are a number of excellent and intuitive third party data analysis tools available to schools (some schools have their own Excel templates, or prefer to use an analysis tool such as SISRA, 4Matrix or ALPS Connect for this purpose). After all the candidates’ results have been loaded into your MIS, the next step is to export them for analysis. To get the most out of your exams day data analysis, you should have exported assessment data at selected periods (“data drops”) throughout the year; this will allow your school’s Data Manager and Heads of Department to analyse student’s progress throughout the year.
Importing data into a third party data analysis tool can either be done from within the application itself, or by creating a marksheet with the relevant student and exam result that can be re-imported into the application.
We know that creating marksheets to export exam data is incredibly time-consuming – that’s why Arbor’s Exams module has multiple, powerful out-of-the-box reporting tools that allow you to export candidates’ results in a few clicks. If you want more flexibility to create your own reports, you can also use Arbor’s Custom Report Writer which lets you quickly and easily compile custom marksheets that contain any data point from your MIS.
Image 4: A screenshot showing how export candidate results from Arbor MIS
5. Print candidate’s Statement of Results
After you have completed your results analysis, it’s advisable to print out paper copies of candidates’ Statement of Results. Remember, only the relevant members of staff should be able to see these results before the release date. This means that all printed content should only be handled by theses members of staff. When the Statement of Results have been printed, they must be stored in a safe and secure place until the following day.
Image 5: A screenshot of how candidates’ Statement of Results appear in Arbor
6. Electronically share results with parents and guardians
The nervous thrill of opening your exam result is something that none of us ever forget. Opening the envelope is usually followed by a phone call home to tell loved ones. Students will be making plans for college, university and the rest of their lives; teachers will be on hand to offer congratulations, advice and support.
It’s not always possible for parents, guardians and students to be in school on results day, and amidst all the excitement, it’s not uncommon for Statements of Results to get spoilt or lost! With this in mind, it’s wise to share students’ exam results with their parents and guardians electronically too. Your MIS provider should give you the option to do this.
If your school is using the Arbor App, parents will be able to see their child’s exam results by selecting ‘Examinations’ in the menu. Parents can view a list of their child’s exam results or download a printable PDF. If you don’t want to share students’ exam results with parents via the Arbor App, or you would like to wait until after results day, all of this can be managed in Arbor MIS.
Image 6: A screenshot of how examination results appear in the Arbor App
Using Arbor MIS? Need help on Results Day?
We have a comprehensive online help guide that addresses all the questions that you may have. Still stuck? Our customer team will be on hand to help you!
If you’d like to find out more about how our simple, smart cloud-based MIS could help you transform the way your secondary school works, contact us. You can also book a demo by calling 0207 043 0470 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
Thousands of schools have now joined the cashless and paperless revolution, from the cosiest rural primary to the biggest inner-city sixth form college. This has led to an explosion in the Edtech sector, with hundreds of useful apps and dashboards now available to manage your school or MAT more efficiently. This is great news for
Thousands of schools have now joined the cashless and paperless revolution, from the cosiest rural primary to the biggest inner-city sixth form college. This has led to an explosion in the Edtech sector, with hundreds of useful apps and dashboards now available to manage your school or MAT more efficiently. This is great news for schools, but the choice can be bewildering.
To combat the flow of paper slips, cash and cheques that once flooded the office, many schools have now armed themselves with an array of new technologies. This can lead to soaring IT budgets and “login fatigue” (a feeling of exhaustion caused by typing in multiple usernames and passwords to complete one simple task!).
That’s why we thought we’d help you narrow down the field, by compiling our top 10 cloud systems to help schools work more efficiently. These systems are all best-of-breed in their own right, and what’s more, they integrate smoothly with Arbor’s smart, simple, cloud based MIS!
| CPOMS
Banishing paper logbooks and filing cabinets from schools all over the country, CPOMS is an intuitive app for monitoring child protection, safeguarding and pastoral issues. It cuts down paperwork for staff, while ensuring incidents are properly reported, details are shared securely and students are kept safe.
Basic student and staff data already syncs from Arbor to CPOMS, allowing our customers to operate seamlessly between the two systems. We’re now working together on a deeper integration, which we hope will allow teachers to get a single clear picture of their student’s pastoral and education data.
| G Suite for Education
Google offers its much-loved set of apps (including Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Hangouts) to schools for free, including extra features to make for smooth collaboration between students and staff. You can link Arbor MIS to Google so that you only have to set up accounts for your staff and students once, and your timetables in Arbor will automatically show in your Google Calendar, keeping your MIS as the single source of truth.
| InVentry
InVentry’s popular Sign In tools help schools securely monitor staff, students and visitors, while speeding up the sign in process. They also provide a user-friendly Audit & Compliance app, to simplify the management of assets. InVentry has set up read/write integrations with Arbor and other leading MIS providers, so you can relax knowing your crucial attendance and security data is accurate to the minute.
| SISRA and 4Matrix |
Although SISRA have recently branched out into lesson observations and CPD with their new product, SISRA Observe, they’re probably best known for their outstanding secondary data analysis tool, SISRA Analytics. Highlights include bespoke grading so you can use your own scales and language, and out-of-the-box performance reports to save you time on exam results day.
Similarly, 4Matrix is well loved by secondary schools for its management of school performance data. The app produces quick, in-depth reports on exam results day, meaning you won’t need to sift through spreadsheets to show progress for different student groups. 4Matrix also supports the design and assessment of a curriculum “without levels” for KS3.
Both systems help you create neat, visual representations of your key performance data. You can easily sync achievement and contextual data from Arbor marksheets to either 4Matrix or SISRA, meaning there’s no need for dual entry, and your MIS remains the single source of truth.
| RS Assessments
RS Assessment’s standardised tests PIRA and PUMA are a key component of many primary school improvement strategies, helping Senior Leaders track in-year pupil progress and benchmark against age-related expectations. What’s more, you can use the tests in conjunction with MARK (My Assessment and Reporting Kit) online, to get time-saving analysis of test results.
Arbor has partnered with RS Assessments to feed test results from PIRA and PUMA into our smart, simple MIS, so there’s no need for dual data entry. For MAT Leaders, the same data will aggregate up to your MAT MIS to give you a single overview of your schools. Read more about this integration here!
| ParentPay
ParentPay is an easy-to-use online payments service used by over 9,000 schools in the UK. It allows cashless income collection and financial reporting for everything from clubs and trips, to dinners and uniforms. ParentPay comes with in-built email and SMS functionality too, so you can manage payments and communicate with parents in the same place. Arbor MIS includes a built-in payment and communications service, but we also integrate directly with ParentPay, giving schools the flexibility to choose the best solution for them.
| Assembly
Assembly offers school data integration and Multi Academy Trust analytics. You can use their innovative dashboards to connect your MIS to a wide range of third-party applications, and also to populate Assembly Analytics (Assembly’s MAT Analytics tool) with a live feed of you school’s data. Arbor is one of six leading MIS providers to integrate with Assembly, so it’s a great option for MATs who aren’t ready to move all their schools onto the same MIS.
For MATs looking to find economies of scale by centralising MIS across their schools, Arbor’s MIS for Groups and MATs allows you to transform the way you work, by reporting and taking action centrally.
| Wonde and Groupcall |
Wonde and Groupcall are two of the UK’s most popular “data providers” for Education, which means they can connect your MIS with hundreds more apps and make it easy to control data sharing. You can share data from your MIS with 3rd party apps through their platform, with user friendly dashboards to help you see what data is shared with whom. Arbor MIS (along with many other cloud based providers) integrates with both Wonde and Groupcall, meaning any of the apps on their platforms are open to Arbor schools.
So there you have it: our pick of the top 10 apps for schools and MATs looking to go cashless and paperless. Powerful on their own, they all integrate with Arbor’s cloud-based MIS to help you save even more time and get deeper insight into your data. We’re not stopping there though – our API team is constantly expanding the range of integrations available to our customers. We’re currently working on a deeper sync with the market-leading Cunninghams Catering app, so watch this space!
I used to marvel at the mystery and complexity that always seemed to surround the world of the Curriculum Deputy. When I eventually became one, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormous privilege but enormous responsibility I had to create the perfect curriculum model – taking into account the latest thinking on curriculum design and
I used to marvel at the mystery and complexity that always seemed to surround the world of the Curriculum Deputy. When I eventually became one, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormous privilege but enormous responsibility I had to create the perfect curriculum model – taking into account the latest thinking on curriculum design and implementation. As I became more experienced, I began to make increasingly bold moves to build the curriculum around the needs of learners and not just the constraints of the budget.
My first mentor was a retired (and fabulously wise) Curriculum Deputy who stressed that planning the curriculum was a whole-year job. When I became a Headteacher, I continued working and planning in this way and valued the support of some really creative thinkers on my leadership teams. It was a special day indeed when Ofsted visited one such school and judged leadership, management and the curriculum as outstanding.Sadly, that framework and financial climate are a thing of the past now!
In more recent times, the Leadership Team started to consider in depth the outcomes for pupils after each set of summer results and would use this to interrogate the merits of our curriculum plan. Once or twice we did withdraw a course in September if student numbers didn’t justify it, or a staffing crisis necessitated it, but generally, once a commitment had been made to students that a course would run, we honoured it for the full two years.
Whatever our staff/student profile looked like, our first priority was to ensure that students had access to a broad, balanced, relevant curriculum. Our most recent challenges included:
Working to a timetable of 30 periods a week meant an inevitable squeeze on option choices, reducing the number of subjects students could choose from four to three in one case, and removing PSHCE/RE as subjects and mapping the provision across the curriculum. None of these decisions were easy to make or sat particularly well with me, but as the saying goes; something’s got to give.
My mentor, Bob, helped me plan my staffing requirements and showed me how many staff periods I needed to cover my commitments. Not only did this give me the opportunity to examine my current staffing needs, I could also begin to plan ahead – particularly if it meant recruiting a double specialist like a French/Spanish teacher or an RM/Textiles teacher. This was hugely helpful in feeding into the budget planning cycle and supporting my requests for additional funding for staffing.
We rarely carried any slack in our curriculum model. This inevitably meant that SLT members would also have to pick up subjects outside of their discipline and teachers that didn’t have a full timetable of classes were used as additional support with key groups and interventions. In reality, our staffing model would have to change incrementally throughout the year if the staffing profile suddenly changed, or if it was clear from our in-year tracking that students were not making sufficient progress.
One strength of our curriculum was that we could plan our interventions so well that we could provide extra lessons and tailor the curriculum for individuals and groups. We would do this by taking them out of some lessons where they were performing well to give them additional support in subjects where they were performing less well. We were blessed with a dedicated team of teachers and TA’s, some of whom would run sessions before and after school, others during registration and others during gained time or non-contact time.
If, like we did, you believe the curriculum is the dominant driver for boosting student outcomes and life chances, you will face constant budgetary pressures with very few variables to play with. We explored:
As a direct consequence, we found ourselves increasingly offering shorter contracts, reducing the size of the SLT and going without certain associate staff roles like a PA – just to balance the books. After all, it’s about delivering the most effective curriculum possible with your current staff and budget!
We used an approach we called “active vacancy management” that ensured that each time a post became vacant we didn’t simply fill it. First of all, we decided if we needed to replace the post, assessed whether it would be a like-for-like replacement or in some reduced capacity and analysed current staff deployments in detail, before considering placing an advert.
Increasingly, we looked beyond our own staff and worked closely with neighbouring schools to share teachers and other support roles. This is not without its complications, but it makes the process of appointing one full-time English teacher that works on two sites marginally easier than appointing two.
I am heartened by news of courageous schools and Trusts that break the mould and shape their curricula around the needs of their students by considering the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to be happy, resilient and independent learners.
Maintaining the intent and moral purpose of the curriculum is challenging, but the rewards for young people make it worth every minute.
“When we’re talking about intent, we’re talking about how ambitious, coherently planned and sequenced, how broad and balanced and inclusive the curriculum is.”
Heather Fearn – Ofsted
Data entry is a daunting prospect for most teachers. With the amount of data they are expected to record, it can often take up a large portion of their daily workload, and workload is listed as one of the most common reasons for leaving the profession. The good news is it doesn’t have to be
Data entry is a daunting prospect for most teachers. With the amount of data they are expected to record, it can often take up a large portion of their daily workload, and workload is listed as one of the most common reasons for leaving the profession. The good news is it doesn’t have to be this way – keep reading to see how you can transform the way your school deals with data entry.
Making data work
In November 2018, the Teacher Workload Advisory Group released a report called “Making Data Work”. The report reveals that teachers consider unnecessary tasks around recording, monitoring and analysing data to be notably time-consuming, with data entry highlighted as the biggest problem. The Teacher Workload Advisory Group set out a number of suggestions for the DfE to consider. These included:
So what’s the best way to reduce data entry at your school? Try following these simple steps:
Part 1: Streamline your systems
Before you do anything else, you need to ask yourself if all the third-party systems you’re currently using still work for your school. Are they up to date? Do you need all of them? Do staff engage with them regularly?
Find out by running a systems audit. It’s easy to do – just follow the instructions in our blog on how to audit your school or MAT’s IT systems. By running a systems audit, you can reduce the number of places you have to enter data. Goodbye, multiple logins! Your staff will have fewer systems and apps to keep track of, which will considerably reduce their administrative workload.
Image 1: How we encourage schools to approach an IT systems audit
Part 2: Make sure any extra systems you’re using are integrated with your MIS
Over the years, your school has probably invested in lots of different systems that were useful at the time, but which don’t integrate with your current MIS. This can make everyday tasks like following up with detentions and creating meal plans much more complicated and time-consuming than they need to be, as you have to visit external apps in order to properly record all of the data. Using systems that integrate with your MIS can make admin a lot simpler. For example, Arbor’s integrations with apps like CPOMS and Inventry means that you only have to enter student data once and it will update automatically in these apps.
The “Making Data Work” report also advises that schools should “minimise or eliminate the number of pieces of information teachers are expected to compile.” Ensuring your systems integrate with your MIS will mean that you can access all your data in one place, which means you won’t have to spend time transferring it from one system to another.
Image 2: How parents can view all payments and invoices from Arbor’s Parent Portal
Part 3: Set up a system to suit your school
It’s important to think about how your MIS can best serve your school. For example, the report advises that schools should have simple systems that allow behaviour incidents to be logged during lesson time, rather than at break or lunch. In Arbor, you can set up incident workflows that track negative and positive behaviour (e.g. a Level 2 incident could automatically create a lunchtime detention). Automating workflows in this way means that teachers don’t have to add this information manually, which will save them a significant amount of time.
Your MIS can also help to reduce data with quick group selection. For example, in Arbor you can select absentees from your register and instantly send emails to their primary guardians with the help of our mail merge tool. You can even use a pre-made message template so you won’t have to type a single word!
Image 3: How you can follow up on students registered absent in Arbor
Not only will reducing data entry help to improve workloads, it will make your staff happier too. So – streamline your systems, make sure they integrate with your MIS, and set it all up to suit your school. If you’d like to hear more about how Arbor could help you reduce data entry at your school, why not drop us a message here?
Over the past few months we’ve been giving our Assignments a fresh lick of paint, so that what used to be a minor feature on the lesson dashboard is now a full blown module schools can use as an electronic homework solution. Teachers have always been able to set students work directly from the lesson
Over the past few months we’ve been giving our Assignments a fresh lick of paint, so that what used to be a minor feature on the lesson dashboard is now a full blown module schools can use as an electronic homework solution. Teachers have always been able to set students work directly from the lesson dashboard, which will appear in their Student Portal so they can submit their work online, but we’ve made some big improvements to what you can then do with the data this generates. School leaders can now analyse how much work is being set in each subject, which teachers are setting the most work, and more!
We asked Carly McCulloch, Arbor Product Manager, to go over some of these features for you in a bit more detail:
We’ve made some improvements to the workflows for creating assignments, and tracking the submissions of assignments within Arbor for you and your teaching staff. These new additions to the assignment module have been developed based on feedback from school senior leadership, who wanted a way to see the submission statistics for assignments in their school, and check the quantity and quality of homework set by teaching staff. We take suggestions from schools very seriously, so please keep them coming!
Improvements to homework tracking include:
Fig. 1 – The Overview by Courses page showing automatically calculated stats for the number of assignments set and their submission rates
We’ve also not forgotten about our company mission to save teachers time. A lot of the new features should help teachers set and mark Assignments more easily, incentivising use of the system and streamlining workflows in your school:
Fig. 2 – A Student Marks Chart automatically generated for a marked assignment in Arbor MIS – the colour splits the marks down the median, the blue line shows the mean, and hovering over each bar shows further student level information
Fig. 3 – A teacher marking a grade-based English assignment, submitted by students online
We hope this module can help you to track assignment submissions, make them easier for students and teachers to manage, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of assignments in your school.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how Arbor’s simple, smart, cloud-based MIS system could transform the way your school or MAT works, save your staff time and improve student outcomes, get in touch via the contact form on our website
More and more software on the market offers ways of moving beyond the classic time saving tools of mail merges and reporting templates, into the realm of fully automated workflows. As with all new technologies, this offers opportunities to improve the way we work, as well as potential pitfalls, depending on how you use them.
An automated workflow is essentially one in which a single input from a user can trigger several resulting actions. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be entered and screens that need to be clicked through to achieve a desired result.
Every step in the process achieving the outputs above is one that would have to be performed manually by a staff member if they did not have automated workflows, and which can be performed in moments by automated computer software with access to accurate school records.
Some common examples of automated workflows in school software include:
The most obvious concern when setting up these workflows is human error. If a serious behaviour incident were to be incorrectly logged against the wrong student, that could result in a confused or upset parent on the phone to the school office that afternoon (not to mention the unearned earful the unsuspecting student could be in for when they got home). If you’re interested in automated workflows but your staff are not yet very technologically literate, it might be better to set up semi-automated systems with stopgaps for admins to approve comms before they’re sent out, before trialling full automation.
The root of this concern is the level of training required for all the individuals using the system. If inappropriately knowledgeable about the level of information that a parent portal shares, for example, a staff member may end up disseminating more of their personal opinions to parents than they would like. Similarly, if a workflow is inexpertly set up, the administrator may cause far too much or too little information to be transferred, to the extent that notifications become either irritating or simply not useful. This is why it’s absolutely vital to have excellent support and training resources from your software provider when setting up automated workflows, and why you should choose software which clearly outlines to administrators which workflows they have set up and how they can be edited. If there’s no way to work out what your outputs will be, don’t use that automated process – regroup, reconfigure, and retrain.
Even if you only implement semi-automation, and only for your most repetitive admin tasks, this can pay big dividends for staff time. This should give them more time to spend working with students. The best version of an automated workflow is one which removes the burden of data collection and processing from your staff, and lets you prioritise actually dealing with what the data tells you.
Automation also lends a degree of consistency to your policies, as the same results will always be generated from the same input, and staff don’t have to remember exact data processes perfectly every time themselves. While human error can lead to incorrect outputs, there’s far more chance for human error to creep in throughout systems which are entirely manual and paper based. We’ve seen firsthand how setting up consistent and reliable automated communications can have a big impact on parental engagement and school processes, particularly within behaviour workflows where consistency of both rules and rewards is really vital.
Castle Hill had a couple of issues with parent comms before they moved to Arbor MIS, because almost everything was based on paper. When children showed good or bad behaviour, teachers would write a note in the student’s planner, which the child would then take home for parents to check. However, children couldn’t always be relied upon to take their planners home with them – especially if they’d been given a negative behaviour note from their teacher! Now they’ve switched to Arbor, the staff at Castle Hill log behaviour points in the system, which automatically sends an email to the relevant guardians. Parents can also log into their Parent Portal for a live update on how their children are doing. Children are now better behaved because they know that their parents know what they’ve been up to, and the school has less paperwork to get through.
Overall, like any tool in education, the effectiveness of automation depends entirely on how you can use it. If you are going to set up automation, it needs to be in such a way that it demonstrably responds to your specific challenges, and can provide the maximum possible impact to the time constraints currently affecting your staff and the outcomes of your students.
If you’re a current Arbor MIS or Group MIS customer interested in setting up more of your automated features, get in touch with your Account Manager or email myteam@arbor-education.com. If you don’t use Arbor yet and would like to find out more about how we can automate repetitive tasks to save teacher time, get in touch on 0207 043 0470, hello@arbor-education.com, or via our contact form.
During the winter, we had some lovely crisp mornings and could enjoy the heating coming on in the classrooms. We’re also inevitably faced with colds, flu, sickness bugs and travel delays! For the person responsible for arranging cover, this can be an incredibly stressful time of year (trust me, as cover co-ordinator and examinations manager
During the winter, we had some lovely crisp mornings and could enjoy the heating coming on in the classrooms. We’re also inevitably faced with colds, flu, sickness bugs and travel delays!
For the person responsible for arranging cover, this can be an incredibly stressful time of year (trust me, as cover co-ordinator and examinations manager for 18 months in a 15 year teaching career, I’ve been there!). For me, arranging cover was never just about getting a body into the room for supervision – I always wanted to allocate the most appropriate person for that particular lesson. In a secondary school, I needed to know the teachers that normally taught each subject, in order to avoid things like a French teacher covering a Maths lesson whilst a Maths teacher covered a Language lesson. I wanted the best people in front of the kids to reduce the impact on learning and minimise the workload stress on the staff. As the timetabler, this knowledge was ingrained in my mind, but for anyone stepping in to make cover arrangements in my absence, the task became almost impossible.
To mitigate against situations like this, in Arbor, we show not just available staff, but who is also a teacher of the same subject to actively support you in minimising the impact staff absence has on learning.
Image 1: Arranging cover in Arbor
Not only can you see which teacher is available that teaches the same subject, you can also request their agreement if you want to (this is always a useful feature when senior staff may have meetings booked!). You can, of course, still bulk select all of the lessons from a staff member to allocate as in house cover supervisor or supply in one go – meaning no more clicking into each lesson instance to add the same arrangements.
The first task of the day for any timetabler is to take a deep breath and open the schools’ emails whilst listening to the answer machine messages for staff absence. Within Arbor, you can mark multiple staff as absent either one at a time or all in one go, and you can also differentiate between a full day of sickness absence, or a 1 hour off-site meeting.
Image 2: Entering the details of a staff absence
Arbor’s ability to add attachments to staff absences (e.g. medical documents or a screenshot of a sick note) without separately logging into the HR module would have saved some of my finance colleagues from premature greyness!
Whilst teachers love the sight of a supply teacher (as they are then less likely to be needed for cover), this was one of my biggest nightmares. I could happily allocate them to the classes and print off cover slips, but then came the dreaded registers (I’ve sat at my desk for hours clicking into each individual class in order to print a register!). There was also the issue of wanting two copies: one to return to the office and one for the supply teacher to keep in class for reference. This either required a trip to the photocopier, or the time-consuming task of having to press print twice because no matter what settings I’d select, the MIS just would not let me have two copies.
In between this joyous process of printing and copying, another person would inevitably call in sick or have an emergency to tend to. I would then have to go back to my computer and close the screen I was using in order to start the process again for the newly absent person. Because Arbor is a cloud-based system, it can be open in more than one window (just like when you’re browsing the internet looking for information and open another ‘tab’ to look for something else), which saves you from repeating the same process time and time again.
In Arbor, it takes just a few seconds to download all of the registers you’ve selected, and then all you need to do is to hit the print button, choosing as many copies as you require. For a wet Wednesday during flu season and a full moon (we’ve all had those days!), I’d have saved hours if I’d been using Arbor instead of the other MIS I was using.
Image 3: An overview of staff absence, which lessons are being covered that day and by which teacher
With all the information you need in one place, Arbor gives you an overview of what’s going on in school that day, helping you to stay on top of what who’s covering what lesson and when. The green ‘cover slips’ button in the screenshot above allows you to print you a concise summary of cover staff for the staffroom notice board, as well as personalised slips for each teacher (with page breaks, so you haven’t got to get to the guillotine or scissors!).
So, if you were rushing around arranging cover for hours on end this winter, maybe it’s time to investigate a smarter, time-saving option. Get in touch with us via the contact form on our website to find out more about how Arbor’s simple, smart, cloud-based MIS could transform the way you operate your school!
Why run a systems audit in the first place? Over the years, many schools accumulate a variety of IT systems or software. These systems were initially installed to help make things run more smoothly across the school but, over time, they’ve inevitably become outdated and no longer fit with the day-to-day running of the school.
Over the years, many schools accumulate a variety of IT systems or software. These systems were initially installed to help make things run more smoothly across the school but, over time, they’ve inevitably become outdated and no longer fit with the day-to-day running of the school. In many cases, school leaders can forget to question whether a piece of software is continuing to help improve the school, or whether it’s there simply because it worked in the past.
When a school or trust tells us about all the third party products they use, we always like to ask why they chose that particular system:
For example, a school may have been using a behaviour tracking software outside of their MIS for many years and are happy with how it charts points over time, but they don’t use any of the other features that the software offers. In cases like this, and with many other systems that are an added cost, it’s worth questioning if there are alternative ways of working within one system to consolidate both time and funds.
We encourage schools to create a side-by-side price comparison of the cost of each third party product to prompt an internal conversation about the practicalities and usefulness of each system, and whether it can be replaced by a new system altogether. This practice promotes the importance of an audit in deciding if there are added benefits to keeping a specific system, or if it’s time to part ways.
This is how we would recommend running an IT systems audit:
1. Ask members of staff from all areas of the school when running your audit – don’t assume that one person will know everything that everyone is using!
2. Start by listing out all the systems people use for the core functions in your school, like attendance, assessment, behaviour and communications, and how much you pay for them annually
3. Move on to listing the rest of your systems and costs – if you don’t have to pay for something annually and you already have it, you can mark the cost as £0
4. Make sure to list separate software products from the same company as being separate – one might be more useful than the other
5. Then go back down your list and note each software’s functionality – not just what you’re currently using it for, but what it could do if you used every module and feature in it
6. You’ll probably have come across several overlaps by now. This is the tricky part: for everything that overlaps, consider which really has the greater value, and which you can think about cutting down
This value judgement can’t entirely be based on price, although that is important – you also have to question why you had several systems in the first place. Is one of them more user friendly? Is it quick to train new staff on? Does it save your teachers a lot of time? Will you really get the best deal just by picking between these two programs, or if you’re switching anyway should you choose an entirely new system altogether?
It’s quite possible that with a change in mindset, cutting down your third party systems may open more doors than it closes, and create opportunities to improve how you work.
We understand that this takes time, but we’ve also seen first hand how many schools love the fact that Arbor can bring all of their data and systems into one central system, meaning that the number of logins (and passwords!) for staff can be cut down. This results in increased productivity as it ultimately saves staff hours of time manually transferring data between systems – because everything you need is all in one place!
If you’re not yet an Arbor MIS customer, you can request a free demo and a chat with your local Partnership Manager anytime through the contact form on our website, or by emailing tellmemore@arbor-education.com or calling 0208 050 1028.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, School Pupil Tracker Online (SPTO) will be closing down at the end of this year. If you currently use SPTO, you’ll be looking for something to replace it with the same (if not better!) level of functionality and analysis, so this is a great opportunity to look at how you’re
As I’m sure you’ve heard, School Pupil Tracker Online (SPTO) will be closing down at the end of this year. If you currently use SPTO, you’ll be looking for something to replace it with the same (if not better!) level of functionality and analysis, so this is a great opportunity to look at how you’re using your current MIS system as a whole. To help you, we’ve written this a short blog explaining how schools & MATs use the integrated assessments module of Arbor’s simple, smart, cloud-based MIS to track, analyse and report on pupil progress.
Let’s start with the basics. Like SPTO, Arbor’s assessments module covers the following:
1. Formative Tracking: In Arbor, teachers can enter marks against curriculum statements and view formative analysis. This helps inform lesson planning and differentiate learning based on students’ understanding of the curriculum. You can either use preset or imported curriculum frameworks, or create your own custom curriculum framework in the system:
Image 1: A teacher marking a formative reading assessment
2. Summative Tracking: You can also access marksheets, enter marks for summative & ad hoc assessments, and view and export analysis for summative, ad hoc and 3rd party standardised assessments (such as PiRA and PUMA tests from RS Assessments by Hodder Education)
Image 2: Grade distribution dashboard analysing a summative assessment
Arbor also has some more in-depth, out-of-the-box analysis tools to help you dig deeper into your assessment data:
3a. Attainment over Time allows you to see how many students are achieving each grade during different assessment periods. The date chosen provides a breakdown of the available grades at that given point in time:
Image 3: Measuring Attainment Over Time
You can also choose to group students by demographic, in order to compare grades. For example, you can compare girls to boys and identify that girls currently require more support in this subject:
Image 4: Comparing students by demographic
3b. Below, At or Above: The Below, At or Above page allows schools to see the percentage of children who are below/at/above their targets for each assessment period:
Image 5: Tracking pupil progress using Below, At or Above, and clicking on a record to retrieve a slideover of students
3c. Analysis at MAT level: Some assessments, like PiRA & PUMA, even push up to Arbor’s Group MIS for dashboard analysis across schools:
Image 6: A screenshot of aggregated data in Arbor’s Group MIS
Image 7: A plain-text callout explaining your data
4. Most importantly though, the biggest benefit of using assessments in Arbor MIS is that it’s a fully-integrated module that syncs up with all the other data in your MIS system. This means:
Interested in finding out more about how Arbor’s simple, smart, cloud-based MIS could transform the way your school works? Get in touch with us via the contact form on our website or give us a call on 0208 050 1028
With the new Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy now published, we’ve boiled down its many new ideas and policies into 3 of the core goals the DfE want to accomplish. Improve early career support Attracting people to the profession in the first place is a big part of increasing teacher numbers, and to this end
With the new Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy now published, we’ve boiled down its many new ideas and policies into 3 of the core goals the DfE want to accomplish.
Attracting people to the profession in the first place is a big part of increasing teacher numbers, and to this end a ‘one stop system’ for teacher training is being piloted to make the process simpler. For increased recruitment to benefit student outcomes on a long term basis, these new teachers also need better career support to make sure they have time to develop, instead of becoming overwhelmed and dropping out of the sector.
The ‘Early Career Framework’, a two year training package for new teachers, will support this aim, as will additional bursaries and financial incentives for performance. The Early Career Framework has £130 million already earmarked for its funding, in addition to £42 million from the Teacher Development Premium. The biggest change schools should initially experience is that new teachers in this framework will have a reduced teaching timetable. The idea is that their extra time will be spent in their ECF teacher training, meaning their career has a more gradual buildup of workload in line with the buildup of their expertise.
This aim could fundamentally change how a lot of teachers progress in their career and how a lot of schools think about staffing. A ‘job-share’ service is set to be launched to both help schools share staff with specific skills between them, and to help people remain in their professions while working part-time. To make sure this new level of flexibility doesn’t just move workloads from teachers to school administrators, free timetabling tools will be released by the DfE to help schools manage the new process.
It’s likely that this will benefit a lot of smaller schools who no longer have the budget for a dedicated staff member in every area, as well as MATs who are already starting to centralise job roles so specialist staff can work across several schools. Specialist NQTs will encourage teachers to focus in on their areas of interest and provide new avenues of career progression beyond the traditional steps up into school management.
Flexible working should also benefit the teachers themselves. The concept includes not only part time schedules, but also ideas like working from home when not needed in the school, that a lot of employees now expect in other sectors. Using cloud-based software could become key to offering these options, as it allows your staff to work securely from anywhere.
This is an issue very near and dear to our hearts, as saving teachers time has been a core tenet of Arbor’s social mission since the beginning. As our culture has become more data-driven, the time teachers spend on non-teaching tasks has increased. We’ve known this since 2010 – the results of the DfE’s last teacher workload survey are below.
Source: Teacher Workload Diary Survey 2010 (DfE)
That’s why Arbor focuses a lot of our product development on simplifying and automating administrative tasks for teachers, so they have more time to spend interacting with students to improve their outcomes. A key concept in the reduction of teacher workload includes making sure they have only one point of data entry (i.e. if you have more than one application doing essentially the same job twice, or you don’t have any integration between your MIS and your other providers, you may need to rethink your systems).
The strategy will apparently involve “working with Ofsted to ensure staff workload is considered as part of a school’s inspection judgement”, so this aim will be key for schools to consider alongside the new Ofsted framework, to make sure their improvement plan doesn’t rely on unrealistic expectations for teachers.
There are plenty of other specific plans and policies, from simplifying school accountability to developing housing near schools, that you can read about in the full strategy here. Overall, the strategy aims to make the day to day lives of teachers, as well as their overarching career progression, more manageable and more fulfilling – so talented teachers stay in the profession longer and perform better while they’re there.
You can find out more about how Arbor MIS saves teachers time to help them improve student outcomes by getting in touch here.
In light of the new Ofsted framework placing weight on personal development through extra-curricular activities, we spoke to Alistair Endersby, a former national debating coach who’s twice brought teams to the World Schools Debating Championships and currently organises the Sixth Form enrichment programme at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. 1. Make it clear activities are
In light of the new Ofsted framework placing weight on personal development through extra-curricular activities, we spoke to Alistair Endersby, a former national debating coach who’s twice brought teams to the World Schools Debating Championships and currently organises the Sixth Form enrichment programme at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury.
Whilst some endeavours such as the school play or a Duke of Edinburgh award will require students to be committed from start to finish, most clubs benefit from an open door policy. If you set up a regular, publicised schedule, then students can drop in whenever they’re free. A successful club such as the politics and debating societies Alistair runs should, in his words, “be open to all comers each time, even if some keen students also take part in extra coaching to prepare them for competitions. The club’s committee are the fixed point of organisation, but the membership should be fluid.”
“If you can also open up your activity to a wider range of year groups then you should.” This allows younger students to develop a sense of responsibility organically by seeing the example of older students, rather than developing didactically under a set of stringent membership rules. “It’s good for the younger kids to see the older years engaging with interesting and serious things outside of the classroom, and you can form vertical links throughout your school by getting the older students in the club to coach the younger students. […] It has to be voluntary, too, to change the way it’s seen and add value to the experience.”
This open, inter-year culture is particularly helpful in secondary schools, allowing younger students to think about where they want to be in their activity and their learning by the time they reach their peers’ age; do they need to start taking music theory to progress in their orchestra? Should they do a sports leadership award if they want to be captain of the football team? Should they arrange work experience in their chosen area?
“It almost allows ‘gifted and talented’ to be self-selecting rather than a set program – what you’re rewarding is interest.”
“An atmosphere of mentorship has practical benefits as well, of course, in that it can free up staff time.” Once you’ve established a committee and a regular activity schedule across a range of disciplines, staff focus should be placed on developing their student committees and leading their activity to self-sustainability.
The everyday logistics of a club can be taken on by trustworthy student committee members, not only developing their general organisational skills but also their professionalism and confidence when speaking to adults. This can mean everything from asking the head of PE whether they can use the gym for practice to asking universities and speakers to visit the school. “Students asking can be more persuasive than teachers asking – especially if the university thinks of you as a target school”.
In the case of Bishop Wordsworth’s; “At the end of assembly when the head asks for notices, there’s no distinction made between student and staff announcements. The committee members have to put their hand up, stand up, and talk, or their club won’t get publicised. Trusting students to make announcements is potentially quite daunting, but very valuable”. It’s all about building up value, until your students are invested enough in the activity to reduce the burden on their teachers.
“Gaining confidence in their abilities is beneficial academically and beyond the curriculum, in terms of their wider confidence and what they can bring to university and the world. Teamwork, leadership, logistics, organisation, persuading people to help you, and negotiating with adults will all leave them more prepared for the future. It’s the kind of thing employers say schools don’t do.”
Having enabled the students themselves to coordinate internal activities, staff will have more time to organise higher level plans for their clubs and societies, that give your students goals to work towards.
“Although inter-school competition sounds like a luxury, it makes the activity bigger and higher status than just your school, and invests time in a few students who are then likely to take on roles running the activity within the school, and passing it on to others.”
“At Bishops the Year 12s who are now entering national contests run the internal Year 10 debating contest, which will make them better equipped to run the whole society once they hit Year 13, because they’ve improved by judging other people’s work. In turn, the Year 10s run a smaller scale public speaking contest for Year 8s.”
Competitions shouldn’t only be thought of as something for the students to put in their CV or Personal Statement, but as something that will actively challenge students, improving confidence, teamwork, and outcomes. If you usually only run casual internal competitions, these can justify the cost of entering regional or national contests by acting as a basis for who is entered. In turn, the prize of being taken to a more prestigious event can increase the popularity of internal activities to both enter and spectate.
“For instance, just a debate workshop would have a pretty low turnout, but showcasing your contest entrants and trialling them openly appeals to the spectating students’ competitive spirits, and trains the viewers at the same time by letting them watch the best the school has to offer”.
If your committee has been able to take on internal responsibilities, the inter-school competition can then be the focus of staff time put into the club. “You can give your contest entrants a bit of elite experience, stretch them beyond the training they would just have within the school, and add status to the activity to in turn inspire younger students”.
The last thing we asked Alistair was what he would say to a teacher or school leader who doesn’t believe they have the time to fully develop their extra-curricular program.
“One of my core beliefs and values in teaching lies in what you do outside the classroom. It’s worth the school committing to and investing in, for both their students and their teachers. It’s possible to build in a way that it becomes self-sustaining. That’s not necessarily a job to give a brand new teacher, but if one in their second or third year, gaining in professional confidence, can be given the time to properly set up over the course of a year, then the students that get involved in that activity will feel invested in by their school.”
If you want to read more about the new Ofsted judgements and ideas for how you can prepare for them, click here.
— I recently spoke at our Manchester MAT Conference on how culture beats strategy when MATs start thinking about centralising data, operations and people. At Arbor we talk about 4 (broad) types of MAT cultures, and how the degree of MAT alignment vs school autonomy dictates how you approach scaling systems, processes and people. What
I recently spoke at our Manchester MAT Conference on how culture beats strategy when MATs start thinking about centralising data, operations and people.
At Arbor we talk about 4 (broad) types of MAT cultures, and how the degree of MAT alignment vs school autonomy dictates how you approach scaling systems, processes and people. What we see more and more from the 57 MATs who we provide MIS systems to, and the 100s more we are speaking to is that centralisation of school back office functions such as data, HR, finance and operations is the general direction of travel for all MATs. The debate is centred around the degree, style and pace at which this happens.
We’ve gathered feedback about the 4 different ways MATs go about scaling decision making, curriculum & assessment, systems & processes and their central team in the presentation below. See what you think and whether you fit into 1 or more of the categories I describe.
We’ve written before about the fact that more schools than ever are choosing to switch to a cloud-based MIS – in fact, we predict that over 1,000 schools will move in 2019 alone! It’s not just potential cost savings which are compelling schools to move (primary schools save £3,000 on average by switching, and secondary
We’ve written before about the fact that more schools than ever are choosing to switch to a cloud-based MIS – in fact, we predict that over 1,000 schools will move in 2019 alone!
It’s not just potential cost savings which are compelling schools to move (primary schools save £3,000 on average by switching, and secondary schools could save around £6,000) – increasingly schools are realising that moving to the cloud offers a real opportunity to transform the way they work. We explore the 4 key ways your MIS could do this below.
1. Your school can go paperless
Put an end to paper registers, incident forms, and classroom context sheets! A cloud-based MIS will let you record all this information quickly & easily via a browser so you never have to worry about printing or losing a sheet of paper again. Not only is this better for data protection, compliance & safeguarding (contrary to popular belief, the cloud is a lot more secure than using a server-based system or arch lever files), it also means you’ll eliminate unnecessary data duplication (never again will you have to transfer information from paper to screen!).
2. Let your MIS do non-teaching tasks for you
The second benefit to putting key information about attendance and behaviour in a cloud-based MIS is that you can start to set up smart workflows which mean your MIS ends up doing a lot of admin for you. For example, you could tell your MIS that everytime a “Level 3” incident is recorded, the Head of Year should be automatically informed by email and the student should automatically be registered for the next detention. This helps to cut out a lot of manual chasing & scheduling – and also helps your school to maintain a consistent behaviour policy.
3. Stop your staff being tied to their desks
When you use a server-based system, staff can only access your school MIS from specific stations (normally the desktop in their classroom). This limits the usefulness of the information inside it, since it can’t be viewed, discussed or put to use outside of that one room. With a cloud MIS, your staff automatically have the flexibility to work on the move around school and bring up important information quickly & easily in key meetings.
4. Reduce your “data workload”
Far too often, schools end up using a patchwork of different systems for different school areas (such as attendance, behaviour, parent communication, interventions, and so on). This normally means that in order to look at patterns between different areas, add demographic data into assessment results, or follow up with parents about absence, staff have to manually download and compare different spreadsheets, find contact details in one place to use in another, and juggle multiple logins. All of this means leads to lots of manual work to make data any use. By contrast, most cloud-based MIS systems replace your patchwork of systems with just one – making your data instantly accessible, comparable and useful.
With so many schools moving to the cloud, we’ve found the question has become when and not if the decision is right for your school. We’d be more than happy to discuss how you currently use your MIS and explain how our simple, smart cloud-based system could help you transform the way you work. Just get in touch here, call 0208 050 1028 or email tellmemore@arbor-education.com.
As I’m sure you’ve seen, Ofsted recently announced plans to change the way it inspects schools, colleges, further education institutions and early years settings from September 2019. To help you understand how the new framework will impact the way you operate your school, we’ve rounded up the most important changes you need to know about.
“Quality of education” to replace current judgements
Firstly, Ofsted will introduce a new judgement for ‘quality of education’, which will replace the current ‘outcomes for pupils’ and ‘teaching, learning and assessment’ judgements with a single, broader judgement.
This new judgement will mean that Ofsted can recognise primary schools that, for example, prioritise phonics and the transition into early reading, and which encourage older pupils to read widely and deeply. It will also make it easier for secondary schools to offer children a broad range of subjects and encourage the take up of core EBacc subjects at GCSE, like humanities subjects and languages, alongside the arts and creative subjects. This is a move away from Ofsted’s previous focus on exam results.
Image 1: Arbor’s Assignments module
In many cases, your MIS system can help provide evidence to inspectors that you’ve incorporated these new guidelines into the way you run your school. Arbor’s Assignments module allows school leadership to check in on the quality of homework set by teachers and returned by students, and teachers can upload lesson resources to assignments and lesson dashboards, which can be reviewed by leadership or inspectors.
Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, also announced the 3 other inspection judgements that Ofsted will consult on. These are:
These changes recognise the difference between behaviour & discipline in schools, pupils’ wider personal development, and their opportunities to grow as “active, healthy and engaged citizens.” ‘Extra-curricular activities’ should be incorporated into the curriculum, and schools will be required to prove that they offer a range of these activities.
Image 2: Arbor’s Clubs & Trips module
Ofsted inspectors will want to know that each student has the opportunity to engage in extracurricular activities (especially Pupil Premium students). In Arbor, the Clubs & Trips modules can be used to report on which students are accessing extra-curricular activities, and, perhaps more importantly, allows teachers to identify students that have never taken part in an extracurricular activity and invite them or their parents to sign up, so that you can proudly say: “all our students have taken part in extracurricular activities this year.”
Schools need to be clear answering the following 3 key questions:
What can schools do?
Overview
The new framework places less emphasis on schools’ headline data, with inspectors focusing instead on how schools are achieving their results, and if they’re offering their students a curriculum that is broad, rich and deep. The changes will look in more detail at the substance of education, and actively discourage unnecessary data collection (a key contributor to increased workload in many schools). Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, said that the changes would move inspection more towards being “a conversation about what actually happens in schools”.
If you’re interested in hearing about how Arbor’s simple, smart, cloud-based MIS can help transform the way your school or Trust operates, you can get in touch via the contact form on our website, or give us a call any time on 0208 050 1028
As a former Secondary school middle leader, I know how effective a well planned, and well executed intervention can be. That said, I also understand what a detrimental effect a poorly planned, badly-executed one can have! Interventions are incredibly expensive in terms of material cost, staff and student time, and it’s often very hard to
As a former Secondary school middle leader, I know how effective a well planned, and well executed intervention can be. That said, I also understand what a detrimental effect a poorly planned, badly-executed one can have! Interventions are incredibly expensive in terms of material cost, staff and student time, and it’s often very hard to find out what works and what doesn’t, particularly when you’re dealing with larger groups of students. In this blog, I’ll share a strategy that I developed during my time as a teacher, and talk about how Arbor can help alleviate the administrative burden of planning, managing, and monitoring interventions.
Step 1: Define the outcome
The first thing you need to do when planning an intervention is to think about its outcome, or, in other words, what you want your students to achieve by the end of the intervention. The outcome of an intervention should be SMART:
For example, students may reach their Phonics targets by the end of that term, or a student could have 100% attendance over the 4 week intervention period.
Step 2: Carefully plan your intervention
For an intervention to succeed, planning is essential! Your intervention will need to be planned differently depending on the scale, scope and target students. Once you’ve successfully devised an effective, well-planned intervention, it can be used time and time again.
Ask yourself the following questions when planning your intervention:
Image 1: Our MIS helps you plan the dates, participant criteria and outcomes of your interventions, and schedule intervention reviews
Step 3: Start small
I’ve always found that starting small, or using a ‘control group’ of students is a great way to test out your intervention and to learn what does & doesn’t work. It’s much easier to plan your next steps and measure progress when you’re dealing with a small, manageable group of young people, and it’s also a much better way to get feedback from the students themselves. Share the intervention’s outcomes with them and ask them if they think they’re making progress; after all, they are the key stakeholders!
I’ve spoken to schools that have conducted blanket after-school interventions across large sections of the student body, especially during key points of the year like SATs, or GCSEs. This approach is incredibly costly in terms of staff time and financial resource, and often doesn’t yield good results. Start your test groups at the start of the year, learn from them first, then build up to whole school initiatives.
Step 4: Scale up your intervention
Once you’ve got something that works, you’ll need to scale it up. When doing so, it’s always wise to keep the following in mind:
Image 2: How to measure & track intervention costs in Arbor’s MIS
You should have an answer for all these questions before you begin scaling up your intervention, otherwise you might find yourself in a difficult situation.
Step 5: Make sure you’re monitoring progress
It’s easy to start an intervention initiative and expect it to “just work”. I made this mistake early on in my career: if students are leaving my lesson to work with a Teaching Assistant on their literacy, surely that will help them to improve? Ultimately, every child is unique; what works for one student may not work for another. Continually monitoring each student’s progress towards the intervention’s desired outcome is essential. Remember, the outcome must be measurable.
With all of the above, you should be able to lean on your MIS system to do some of this work for you. Arbor’s built-in Interventions module makes planning, monitoring and reporting on interventions easy, and saves you hours a week on repetitive data entry & admin tasks. You can quickly target students and measure the success of an intervention by defining your desired outcome based on student data points in the MIS, and track student’s progress in real time as they progress through the intervention. You can also easily manage intervention costs, timetable interventions and provision maps.
Image 3: Easily monitor how students are getting on via Arbor’s Student Profile as they progress through an intervention
Step 6: Share best practice!
Finally, running effective interventions is a brilliant learning process, not only for your students, but also for you and the other teachers at your school. Sharing best practice with colleagues not only helps others to learn from your successes and failures, but also provides you with valuable feedback from other professionals.
If you’d like to find out more about how Arbor’s simple, smart cloud-based MIS could help you manage interventions at your school, send us a message or call us on 0208 050 1028.
When you’re picking IT systems for your school or MAT, the options can be overwhelming. As every provider has a USP or ‘unique selling point’ to help them stand out, it’s easy to find different parts of competing systems more appealing. Maybe your business manager likes the features in one payment system, but your catering
When you’re picking IT systems for your school or MAT, the options can be overwhelming. As every provider has a USP or ‘unique selling point’ to help them stand out, it’s easy to find different parts of competing systems more appealing. Maybe your business manager likes the features in one payment system, but your catering team prefers the interface of another. Trying to combine them, and get the best of both worlds, is rarely a solution.
1. It saves money
This is the obvious problem with running systems in parallel. Schools who try to get their money’s worth and use every feature they’re paying for will not only become expert users in their chosen system, but will be able to cut down their unnecessary costs. For the two big software packages used to run your school, a Management Information System (MIS) and a Financial Management System (FMS), you also need to consider the cost of training. You only need one of each, and you should only pay for one of each.
2. It gives your staff back their time
In a recent survey of 11,000 NEU members, 82% of Secondary teachers reported that data collection was not streamlined in their school, and required them to enter data twice. Around 65% of both Primary and Secondary teachers described the amount of data they had to collect as unmanageable. This is indicative of the biggest problem with running disconnected or competing IT systems – they contribute heavily to staff workloads.
Your school systems should interface seamlessly to minimise data entry, using a feature like our secure, open API. This is a great way to reduce data entry between different types of system, and there are some systems which very rarely need to share data anyway, such as your MIS and FMS.
On the other hand, for systems which are designed to do the same thing, data can never be streamlined, as competing businesses preserving their intellectual property will rarely spend resources building integrations for one another. Some level of double entry will always be required.
3. Your data will be safer
Under GDPR, schools are obligated both to protect students and guardians from data breaches, and to keep their information up to date. Choosing secure systems in the first place is important for protecting sensitive information, so you should always check for an internationally recognised certification like ISO 27001 when you buy. However, data breaches don’t only come from attacks and system faults, but from human error. The more times you need to enter data, the more chances human error has to slip in.
Multiple systems, especially systems which aren’t connected through a secure API, are more likely to be inaccurate. Inaccuracy can seem annoying but harmless when it’s a small change, but when you look after hundreds or even thousands of children, little problems quickly get bigger. A wrongly recorded meal choice can mean grumbles from one student, or a severe allergic reaction from another!
By getting the most out of each of your systems, and simplifying your data collection processes, you can save both budgets and workloads from undue burden.
We’re on a mission to transform the way schools operate, and part of that involves reducing unsustainable workloads by bringing as many systems as possible into one place. If you are an Arbor MIS customer, check that your school is using every feature properly to reduce the time you spend plugging data into other systems.
Our schools love the fact that Arbor brings all of their data into one central system, reducing the number of systems they use and saving staff hours of time manually copying and pasting data from one system to another. If you’re not yet an Arbor MIS customer, you can request a free demo and a chat with your local Partnership Manager anytime through the contact form on our website, or by emailing tellmemore@arbor-education.com or calling 0208 050 1028.
Reducing time spent on data and assessment is the key to reducing additional teacher workload Much has been written recently by the government and in the press about reducing teachers’ workloads, with polls suggesting that 1 in 5 teachers intend to leave their job because they feel overworked. One of Arbor’s impact goals (which we analyse each year
Reducing time spent on data and assessment is the key to reducing additional teacher workload
Much has been written recently by the government and in the press about reducing teachers’ workloads, with polls suggesting that 1 in 5 teachers intend to leave their job because they feel overworked.
One of Arbor’s impact goals (which we analyse each year for all the schools we work with) is to reduce the time teachers spend on inputting & analysing data so that they can focus on improving student outcomes! So we decided to take a look at the data to see where teachers were spending their time.
By looking at teacher diary surveys, we found that in just three years the workload of teachers has increased by an average of 12%. Put another way, this is a huge 5 days extra work per year for a primary teacher and 4 days extra work for a secondary teacher!
Digging down into the data further, we found that three-quarters of this increase in workload can be explained by an increase in the amount of time teachers are spending on planning, preparation and assessment. Given that it’s doubtful that teachers have been ramping up the time spent on planning or preparation, as this has always been a core requirement, the change most likely comes from an increase in assessment-related work driven by government, Ofsted and school policies on data and reporting.
Following this analysis, if your school can reduce the amount of time teachers spend on assessment and data, you’ll go a long way towards solving the workload problem! To do so requires reviewing how and why you collect, analyse and report on data.
6 steps to reduce teachers’ data workload
Arbor has built a simple 6 step checklist to help senior leaders reduce workload in your school:
Implementing a data workload checklist
We’ve broken down the 6 steps above into a helpful checklist for senior leaders to help implement within your school, complementing the advice given by the Teacher Workload Review Group with an actionable list of key tasks. If it seems too much to take on all at once, just start with one item at a time, and remember that every step you take could help to reduce the workload burden on staff.
Click here to download this checklist as a handy PDF.
With the launch of the completely new, cloud-based SIMS8, it’s now an inevitability that all schools will be switching MIS, it’s just a question of whether they’ll be retraining on the new SIMS or an alternative provider. This is a good opportunity to select the system that best suits your school, LA or MAT and
With the launch of the completely new, cloud-based SIMS8, it’s now an inevitability that all schools will be switching MIS, it’s just a question of whether they’ll be retraining on the new SIMS or an alternative provider. This is a good opportunity to select the system that best suits your school, LA or MAT and provides value for money.
Ahead of your school or group switching, we thought it would be helpful to help answer some questions you might have about the cloud. After all, we’ve been doing it for years!
1 in 5 primary schools and 1 in 20 secondary schools have already switched their MIS to the cloud. This number is increasing at around 18% – we expect over 1,000 schools to switch this year alone! The vast majority of primary school MIS switchers are moving away from SIMS, whilst secondary schools are typically switching from SIMS and CMIS/Progresso.
Most schools have switched for a combination of the following factors:
Typically you can save ~30% on your total systems costs, meaning the cost of support and license fees together. Be careful to compare like-for-like with functionality to calculate this accurately. Oh, and you can get rid of your server, which is an additional cost!
Much more secure than your school server! MIS systems like Arbor’s simple, smart cloud-based MIS have passed security standards such as ISO27001, have been accredited by the DfE to hold sensitive information from ASP, are penetration tested each year and are GDPR compliant. You can read more about our security standards here. We take care of ever-changing security requirements so you can rest at peace knowing your school is compliant.
SIMS has embraced the cloud and launched SIMS8, their completely new cloud-based MIS, so it’s now a question of when not if your school will move! Here is what we know about SIMS8 at this point (accurate as of 6th March 2018) – if you use SIMS we’d urge you to ask your contact for their version as we’re biased ;). Better yet, ask to hear from the schools who use it to see what they think!
It’s now a question of when, not if, you’ll be moving to the cloud. The question is simply which provider you go with – whoever it is, you should ensure they provide value for money and fit your ethos as a school. If you’re with SIMS or CMIS, compare them to 2 or 3 other providers to see who you like the best and make a choice by inviting them to pop in. You’ll be with them for a few years at least, so it’s worth making a considered choice, and it’s as much about the people/service as the product. Oh, and if you’re a MAT, LA or group of schools then you will likely have to conduct a slightly more formal process via a tender as a cloud product is a brand new product and service, so can’t be grandfathered in under the same terms.
Good question! If you decide to stick with SIMS across your trust, you won’t be able to get the full benefits of a cloud-based MIS for your central team & schools until 2019 (at the earliest) as SIMS Secondary isn’t ready yet. It’s worth thinking about whether you’re willing to wait this long, particularly as it means you’ll need to maintain multiple different systems across your trust until then (which is costly, time-consuming, and less efficient than having standardised systems). It’s also whether checking whether the MIS provider you go with lets you manage data, workflows and reporting for all the schools across your MAT from just one system – take a look at our MAT MIS as an example of this.
Questions you should ask your MIS about GDPR As you’ve no-doubt seen from the relentless marketing by third-parties – GDPR came into force in schools in May 2018! The below is our take on the questions you should ask your suppliers, including your MIS to ensure you’re GDPR ready. Just copy and paste! Why should
Questions you should ask your MIS about GDPR
As you’ve no-doubt seen from the relentless marketing by third-parties – GDPR came into force in schools in May 2018! The below is our take on the questions you should ask your suppliers, including your MIS to ensure you’re GDPR ready. Just copy and paste!
Why should schools & MATs care about GDPR?
GDPR introduced significant new compliance obligations for schools and new requirements for the processing of children’s data, notably increased governance requirements and much higher fines if schools & MATs fail to comply (upto the greater of €20m or 4% turnover). Ensuring compliance is unfortunately a good deal of work, but you can lean on your systems providers to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
Questions to ask your MIS
Your MIS is the key source of student and staff information you have in your school, including most of what GDPR would constitute ‘personal data.’ It’s important when preparing for GDPR that you ensure that your MIS is compliant, then you can switch attention to other suppliers and systems that feed off the data in your MIS.
Does your MIS have any current data protection and cyber qualifications (e.g. ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus)
Increased risk, especially for MATs who are data controllers for multiple schools
Is your MIS liable for any act or omission by these sub-vendors?
If you as a MAT pool your data centrally in a dashboard or central schoolview, does that meet GDPR requirements around permissioning and data pooling?
Does your MAT central data meet GDPR requirements ensuring that data is permissioned and each school’s sensitive data is kept separate?
What should your schools be doing now?
There’s a lot of scaremongering by third parties, but Iain Bradley (Head of Data Modernisation) at the DfE has written what I think is a very useful blog that discusses the steps schools should be taking now.
The above steps are often best captured in a data mapping exercise which we’ve done at Arbor, and which Iain from the DfE has done at the primary school where he’s a governor. A copy of the picture is below.
How Arbor can help
Arbor exceeds current data security recommendations. We’re ISO 27001 compliant (the standard in data protection certification), on the government’s G-Cloud framework and accredited to hold sensitive data. We also stress test our processes and procedures by getting tested by third parties and holding cyber qualifications.
We’ve put a presentation together that sums up these points which you can read by clicking here. All in all, GDPR is something that schools should consider seriously, but you should lean on your providers to help alleviate the burden.
Data and Insight | MAT Operations | School Operations
Why bother centralising your data? Schools, Trusts and LAs increasingly ask us how they can centralise their data, but they sometimes don’t know where to start and what their broad options are. Most share the common need of wanting to bring their data together to gain deeper, faster insight into their staff and students, save
Schools, Trusts and LAs increasingly ask us how they can centralise their data, but they sometimes don’t know where to start and what their broad options are. Most share the common need of wanting to bring their data together to gain deeper, faster insight into their staff and students, save teachers time endlessly copying and pasting data from multiple systems (and reduce mistakes whilst doing so), whilst saving money by reducing the number of systems they have in the school.
From our work with schools, MATs, LAs and governments we’ve seen a lot of different ways of centralising data, but they generally fall into 3 categories.
When small, it’s best to keep things simple. Whilst not ideal, excel is the quickest, cheapest and easiest tool to get to do your heavy lifting. Most schools will organise data drops at set times in the year, using permissioned worksheets and data validation to minimise errors, and producing graphs and reports that can act as simple dashboards. New versions of excel can even link live to your systems (we do this in Arbor) so that can be pulled automatically from your MIS, meaning no more data drops and data errors! That said, excel comes with hidden costs, it can involve staff double entering data, takes time to fill in, is prone to errors, and doesn’t scale as your school or MAT grows (in fact it gets harder to administer as you grow).
Once a Trust grows to about 5 schools (depending on the complexity of the Trust) the person in charge of collecting and analysing all of the data can often become overwhelmed by the manual process, and as we’ve written about before, this is the time most Trusts look at standardising some core systems to start to automate the process of data collection. It’s worth noting that this step is typically beneficial for all school types; the key is not to leave it too late, as you then end up unpicking all of the manual process within each school.
Once the core systems have been standardised and rationalised into as few systems as practical (e.g. finance, assessment, MIS), then the school, Trust or LA can integrate these systems, ensuring data is only entered once, and use the tools’ internal ability to aggregate their core data and reports. The disadvantage of this approach is the upfront setup time and cost, however if chosen sensibly, these system should be able to payback this in time/money savings within a year or two, lowering overhead, improving reporting capability, allowing the Trust to centralise workflows and communication and ultimately enabling the group to scale.
Without a degree of standardisation in your core systems and data, as described above, achieving an analytics layer can take a lot of time and patience. Custom field names, non-standardisation across schools of assessment, and people simply choosing to record things in different ways at different times lead to increasing complexity. Many systems (like Arbor) integrate with analytics layers such as Microsoft’s PowerBI (which many Trusts are using) out of the box, so once you’ve standardised your MIS, you can spin up an analytics layer in little to no time. This allows you to create custom graphs and charts with the reassurance that the underlying data is accurate – else bad data can lead to bad decisions!
1. Integrate live with Excel/Google: Every table and report in Arbor can be live linked to Excel or Google sheets [slide 18], meaning no more data drops. Schools and Trusts can collect data instantly from several schools, and generate their own simple dashboards, combining MIS, national, HR and external data to create a holistic view of performance
2. Standardising systems: we’ve talked about what systems to standardise and when before. Once standardised, Arbor’s Group dashboards and reports instantly aggregate student and staff data across schools, allowing MATs and LAs the ability to centralise data and take action by logging into systems remotely and performing workflows (e.g. attendance follow-ups)
3. Analytics layer: Arbor integrates with PowerBI out of the box via the excel integration, allowing groups to build their own simple Analytics layers. Our free and open API can also be used for deeper integration with Business Intelligence tools.
The pace of change is increasing The pace of change in education is increasing fast, with new structures, policies, funding formulae and technologies announced seemingly every month. This is particularly hard to cope with in schools who often have highly embedded, overlapping and complex processes which have been in place for years and never questioned.
The pace of change is increasing
The pace of change in education is increasing fast, with new structures, policies, funding formulae and technologies announced seemingly every month. This is particularly hard to cope with in schools who often have highly embedded, overlapping and complex processes which have been in place for years and never questioned. Top that off with a highly time-pressured environment and it makes change hard. “If you want to make enemies, try to change something,” as the saying goes.
Change is tough but if done right can be transformational
However change is a reality that has to be faced if you want to improve, and rather than ignore it and try to batten down the hatches, Senior Leaders should take the time to learn about how to manage it. If change is well managed, and staggered so as not to overwhelm staff, it can improve outcomes for all stakeholders.
We thought we’d publish our guide for how to manage change (which we use for MIS implementation) so that Senior and Middle Leaders can borrow and adapt it for use inside your school or institution. It’s not meant to be a proscriptive series of steps to be followed, but rather a general guide to help you think through the process and tailor to your own school.
1. Establish a need for change (your “burning platform”) Identify a compelling need for change with a sense of urgency to maintain momentum throughout the project. If you don’t make the need for change compelling or urgent enough, people won’t see the point.
2. Build up champions to drive through change Identify champions who have the capability, capacity and positive attitude to help drive through change. It may start with you (it often does!), but it always helps to roll out within a school, department or team you know will have the best chance of success. Remember you can’t do everything alone!
3. Create a compelling vision outlining benefits for all To get buy in you’ll need a compelling vision. Articulate what success looks like and the benefits this will have for each stakeholder (how much time they’ll get back, how their job will be easier etc). Ideally identify some metrics of measuring success (e.g. number of users logged in, amount of time/money saved, staff satisfaction).
4. Communicate the vision to stakeholders to get buy-in Communicate the vision publicly to get buy in from your staff for the change and to help support the champions you identified. You’ll never win everyone over, that’s fine, but you’ve at least called out the issue and given it support. Change comes from the top, so you need to be seen to champion it.
5. Empower others to act on the vision All too often we see projects fail in schools as change is not staggered so it combines with the pressures of daily school life to overwhelm staff. Instead try to phase in change, identify the right time of year for it, and try to get others to be seen to be successful. Staff will then feel empowered, not threatened or overwhelmed.
6. Create and celebrate short-term wins Try to create quick, meaningful wins to demonstrate success and encourage buy-in. These should be publicised as success stories to galvanise support and overcome inertia. Keep a steady drip of success stories coming to maintain momentum and isolate the naysayers.
7. Measure success and embed change Demonstrate success further by quantifying it against the success criteria you identified earlier, and publicising results. Use this credibility to change other more entrenched systems and processes.
8. Don’t let up! Most change initiatives fail by assuming the job is done before change has taken root. Culture is a strong force that takes time to realign. To create and sustain change will require continued demonstration of success and ongoing dialogue with staff.
Evidence for Change Management Working Arbor has gone through our Change Management process with our Group and Multi-Academy Trust clients. Our Impact Metrics and Net Promoter Scores show consistently high scores given by schools over time, showing that the Change Management Approach and system has helped to create a consistently positive impact, as shown below. That’s one way we measure success, but I’d be keen to hear how you measure yours!
Sample size for each survey >=300
*positively indicates users respond “sometimes, often or frequently”
We’ve been gathering feedback from the dozens of different MATs we work with on what core measures they’ve been tracking to monitor success. Measuring staffing is clearly vital, as it typically accounts for 70%-80% of a school’s budget, but we find that the measures MATs and schools are currently using vary wildly. Some opt for financial measures that
We’ve been gathering feedback from the dozens of different MATs we work with on what core measures they’ve been tracking to monitor success. Measuring staffing is clearly vital, as it typically accounts for 70%-80% of a school’s budget, but we find that the measures MATs and schools are currently using vary wildly. Some opt for financial measures that focus on efficiency and cost, others look at Net Promoter Scores that focus on satisfaction, all depending on the culture of the MAT or school, which we’ve analysed in previous posts. Below are some that we’ve seen with their benefits and drawbacks:
1) Staff cost per pupil: split by % child facing vs. % non child-facing, % SLT vs % teachers (supply vs. FTE) vs. % back-office A basic indicator but one that can reveal a lot if benchmarked and analysed correctly. Looking at the splits of % child-facing vs. non-child facing can reveal heavy management layers or inefficient back office process taking resource away from front-line teaching. The split between SLT, teachers (supply & FTE) and back office can help to drill down and identify where schools might be over or underspending.
2) Cost per subject Used by MATs such as Outwood Grange in their dashboard, this can help schools rationalise subjects to make efficiency gains (such as a vocational subject taken by 6 students year on year). The exact calculations can be tough to produce without the right systems able to combine academic and financial data.
3) % staff receiving performance-related pay increase A contentious measure, as there is no right or wrong answer, but worth correlating to pupil attainment and progress measures. This can also be further broken down by Key Stage and subject.
4) Net Promoter Score (NPS)/satisfaction + staff comments Most schools agree staff satisfaction is a key measure of long term health, and even though satisfaction may not always be high it’s worth knowing when it takes a dip so you can intervene to reduce turnover. Some schools and MATs such as Elliot Foundation are starting to use Net Promoter Score to measure this. Arbor uses a tool called Ask.nicely to monitor the health of all our schools, which automatically sends out 100 emails a day to different school stakeholders, allowing us to segment responses by role (email us to find out more). Note that the comments provided as feedback are perhaps more useful than the data in helping management understand school strengths and areas to improve.
5) Complaints Number of complaints by role or school, as well as the verbatim complaint itself combine with Net Promotor Score as a useful indicator. Again the comments in the complaints themselves are often the most useful.
6) Retention/Vacancies Staff turnover is often 20%-30% in some schools and MATs, far higher than the 15% national average. Retention is a vital measure to at least know, even if it’s not monitored as frequently as satisfaction or NPS. Vacancies by number and type of role is also useful to understand retention and where issues lie, and it can be obtained relatively easily through the census submission, although it’s a lagging indicator (by the time a vacancy arises it’s too late to intervene).
7) CPD cost as % staff pay Not investing in staff can lead to high turnover, but many schools and MATs are guilty of underinvesting in staff who then stay and don’t progress. Monitoring overall CPD as a % staff pay allows benchmarking between different schools and MATs to see if you’re developing your staff. Clearly just monitoring the cost won’t tell you if the CPD has been effective. This should be assessed in appraisals.
Ultimately the measures you choose depend on the culture your MAT or school wants to foster. Purely financial measures with no balance will focus on efficiency, whilst focusing entirely on staff satisfaction can lead to lax financial management. Having the systems to automatically report on staffing measures is key to reduce excel sheets flying around. Arbor’s MAT and School MIS can centrally report on all staff and student measures, giving SLT the reports and dashboards they need in one click to monitor performance. Get in touch to find out more.
School automation is a bit like having an automated robot which takes all the tediousness and drudgery out of manual data entry and repetitive tasks. All you need to do is set the criteria for what you want the robot to do and, once the action is triggered, the robot will take care of the
School automation is a bit like having an automated robot which takes all the tediousness and drudgery out of manual data entry and repetitive tasks. All you need to do is set the criteria for what you want the robot to do and, once the action is triggered, the robot will take care of the task for you without any extra clicks or work. For example, you might want your Headteacher to get a text message whenever there is an exclusion, or a pupil’s guardian to be notified when their child has 100% attendance, or any incident involving bullying to be automatically escalated and the child assigned a detention.
Just as sales and marketing automation have transformed the private sector, so too we think that school automation will transform the education sector over the next 5 years by saving staff time on repetitive administrative tasks, allowing them to concentrate on teaching and learning activities. The timing for this is as much driven by technology as it is by cost savings and time pressure, with the IFS stating that school budgets will decline by 7% in real-terms over the next 5 years, meaning schools will have to look for smart ways to start making savings without increasing staff workload.
There are 3 immediate ways we see school automation helping to save staff time, all of which can be implemented immediately:
1. Automate reporting With senior leaders spending around 4.4 hours per week on data analysis, automation can help save time by having reports built, scheduled and sent to those who need them automatically. It also cuts out time spent on manually gathering data. The example below shows a school report on 100% weekly attendance being built and automatically scheduled to send to all pastoral leaders at 8am every Monday morning ready for registration. You could of course build more complex reports for governors, heads of department or headteachers using any reporting template you like too!
2. Automate escalation Staff spend 8.0 hours per week on administration, much of which is taken up by behaviour management and escalation. This escalation can be automated – allowing, for example, detentions to be assigned automatically for certain behaviours, senior staff to be instantly emailed for trigger behaviours such as bullying, and parents to be notified of repeated good behaviour – all without any additional data entry. At the MAT level, this allows groups to monitor and report on a school’s behaviour policy, ensuring that it’s consistently delivered.
3. Automate chasing Staff spend 3.8 hours per week on parent and guardian interaction, and although much of this is essential, some of the communication is repetitive and can be automated. For example, communication around late payments, attendance year-to-date below 95%, and good behaviour on a particular day could be automatically scheduled in your MIS. Chasing staff for late marksheets or incomplete registers can also be automated, saving administrators valuable time.
How do I try this in my school or MAT? Workflow and data automation is now commonplace in businesses, but old-fashioned school MIS systems have held schools back. All of of the above is now possible in Arbor, and some other integrated, cloud-based MIS systems, so ask your provider for more information or get in touch with us for a demo to see how Arbor can help automate your repetitive admin and data tasks and give your staff their time back!
This is the time in pre-opening when the EFA cheque book is out for IT which can be a hugely daunting task for the uninitiated. I’ve spoken extensively about the following topics and am surprised they’re still up for debate. This is only the case in Education (which is what we’re all trying to change!).
1. Use the Cloud
2. Put staff efficiency and training first
3. Obsess about integrations
Just having a brilliant team and a great idea isn’t enough if people don’t know about you and can’t talk to you about it. You won’t have the resources of an open school (lots of teachers, a printer, a kettle…) to market your offer, so you have to do lots and lots of events, flyering,
Just having a brilliant team and a great idea isn’t enough if people don’t know about you and can’t talk to you about it. You won’t have the resources of an open school (lots of teachers, a printer, a kettle…) to market your offer, so you have to do lots and lots of events, flyering, talking to people in person, going to find them as well as getting them to come to you and using technology to reduce the effort and increase the quality of communications.
Be present We spoke to hundreds of parents in person to get our school full for opening, via our own events, the feeder schools, park and playground trips and small gatherings in coffee shops or local community centres organised by keen parents. We met families on Good Friday to reassure them we’d be open on time and would provide the kind of education they wanted. If the only tangible thing your school has is your team and a prospectus, then your team have to be out talking to people. This includes your Principal Designate, who may not be used to such a street-facing role.
Be available We had a Skype phone that could always be answered by someone knowledgeable from any location (and you can keep the number when you move to full land phone) so parents got the same response they would get from calling an open school. I cannot believe how many free schools don’t have a phone number, considering how many calls parents make to us. Parents need to talk to you, for reassurance as well as practical details.
Advertise Advertise effectively. Bus rear-end ads have given us the best return, they’ll be seen in the right geographical area by all people and you can normally get a good deal if you haggle. Use Mailchimp, Eventbrite and other free and effective tools for making you stay better engaged with your parents, as any growing business would.
The brilliant team This is a bit motherhood and apple pie but in pre-opening there are three crucial roles in addition to the founding team (which you should keep as lean and capable as possible):
Don’t expect all the ICT to work perfectly on day one unless you have some good on your side managing it. Make sure you have back up plans e.g. access to a 3/4G connection for when your broadband is not installed on time (this can take 6 months at least).
Collecting and Protecting your data: The Data Roadmap
Good housekeeping, safety and security of student data starts as soon as you receive applications. If you’re using collaboration tools like Google Apps for School, make sure you have signed the right model funding agreements for data processing outside the EU. Make a single person responsible for Data Security and Quality and put in place good practices before school opens. This will make the preparation for your pre-registration checks, opening day and first census all the more easy.
Make sure things you want to communicate electronically can be viewed on phones as well as computers to reach the widest possible audience. Arbor is free for Free Schools in pre-opening so you can use Arbor to send SMS to parents and begin building up profile data.
You can save yourself lots of time and errors with things like Google Forms or Survey Monkey, that can help you collect information from parents and new staff electronically, and leave you time to focus on the harder-to-reach parents, who might not have internet access or English as a first language.
In the next blog, I’ll focus on ICT in free schools.
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