This article provides guidance on managing separated parents or split families when setting up Guardian consultations within the Arbor system. For guidance on managing split families in other areas of Arbor, please refer to our general Managing separated parents or split families guidance.
Permissions
- Guardian Consultations: Administer permission to modify your guardian consultation setup.
- Guardians: Log in as guardian to sign in as a guardian to the Parent Portal if you wish to check and test what a guardian sees.
If you don't have these permissions, you can ask your school admin to assign them to you using these instructions.
Choosing whether you want to allow separate meetings for each parent
If you want parents to be able to book separate meetings for their child with the same teacher(s), ensure that you decide this when planning your meetings initially (see Adding Meetings guidance).
Important: This choice cannot be changed after meetings are set up. If you change your mind, you must delete the meetings and recreate them, or schedule an additional custom meeting.
To allow separate meetings with each of a child's guardians, ensure that you keep the 'Allow separate meetings' box ticked when planning meetings with Form Tutors, Non-Form Tutors, or Course Leads.
For Custom Meetings, please use the Independent bookings tickbox to allow separate meetings for each guardian.
Please note: The 'Separate student meetings' tickbox when adding Custom Meetings does not determine whether each parent can have their own meeting. Instead, it allows you to:
- Create one meeting for all students in your Student(s) drop-down if left unticked.
- Create different meetings for each student when ticked.
For more information, refer to our guidance on Creating custom meetings and longer time slots for Guardian Consultations.
Setting up split family meetings when meetings are already planned
If you have already added your meetings but did not tick 'Allow Separate Meetings' (or 'Independent Bookings' for custom meetings), you'll find that one meeting can be booked per student, rather than one per guardian. To get around this, you can either delete and re-add the meetings or schedule an extra custom meeting for the student in question.
Removing and re-adding meetings
The first of these solutions is best used for meetings that have not been scheduled yet (i.e. meetings that do not have a booked timeslot). Take these steps:
- Head to your Colustation Overview page (Students > Parents & Guardians > Guardian Consultations > All Guardian Consultations > [click on your consulation])
- Click on "All Meetings" on the left, or navigate to the relevant form or teacher's meetings in the "Meetings" section.
- Ensure the meetings you wish to re-add are marked as Not Booked (you can click on any scheduled ones to unschedule them on the slide over, though we recommend not using this method and using the custom meeting method below instead)
- Tick the boxes next to the meetings you want to cancel
- Click the green Bulk action and select Cancel Unbooked Meetings
- Confirm the cancellation on the slide over with the red Cancel Unbooked Meetings button
- Head back to your Colustation Overview page
- In the Meetings section, click +Add to re-add the meetings
Depending on how you initially added your meetings, you have two options for re-adding the meetings.
If your meetings were set up with Registration Form Tutors initially
After you click +Add:
- Select Plan meetings with registration form tutors
- On the slide-over, use the Forms dropdown to select the form you just deleted meetings for
- Ensure you tick Allow Separate meetings
- Click Setup registration form meetings
Do not worry about adding duplicate meetings; this will only create meetings for students in the form group who do not already have a meeting (i.e., for the students you just cancelled). Additionally, it will not allow separate meetings for those who still have meetings planned. More on this here: Choosing your settings.
Top Tip: You can determine if a meeting was initially set up as a meeting with a Registration Form Tutor by changing the grey dropdown in the Meetings section of your Consultation Overview to 'Registration Forms'. If you then click on the relevant form group, and the meeting is listed, this was scheduled as a meeting with a form tutor.
If your meetings were not initially set up with Registration Form Tutors
After you click +Add:
- Select Plan custom meetings
- On the slide-over, use the Students dropdown to select the students you just deleted meetings for
- Select the person the guardians will meet with using the Staff Member(s) dropdown.
- Ensure you tick Separate Student meetings if you entered multiple children into the dropdown. This will create one meeting per selected student, as opposed to one meeting that contains all selected students.
- Ensure you tick Allow Separate meetings. If the student has more than 1 guardian registered, this option allows them to schedule meetings independently.
- Click Plan Meetings
Scheduling extra custom meetings
If your guardians have already started booking timeslots, you might not want to unschedule and delete their existing bookings. In this case, you can add an extra meeting for the student in question to allow their other guardians to book their own meetings. To do this:
- Head to your Colustation Overview page (Students > Parents & Guardians > Guardian Consultations > All Guardian Consultations > [click on your consulation])
- In the Meetings section, click the green +Add button
- On the pop-up, select Plan custom meetings
- Select the Student(s) you want to add an extra meeting for in the dropdown
- Select the Staff Member(s) you want to include
- Tick Separate student meetings
-
Untick Independent booking
Please note: if you do not untick this, parents will each be able to book an additional meeting, rather than making one meeting available in addition to the original one.
- Click Plan Meetings
You now have an additional meeting planned for the student's guardians. Any of the guardians will be able to book this meeting, so we recommend manually booking it and assigning it to the right parent (the one who has not already booked) or informing parents that they should only book one meeting.
Booking meetings for separated parents
As an admin
If you have chosen to allow independent bookings for each guardian, you see an option to Schedule separate meetings for unchecked guardians when assigning a timeslot to a meeting manually.
Selecting this box will create a new bookable meeting for unticked guardians. The ticked guardian will not be automatically added to this second meeting.
If you have chosen not to allow separate bookings, you will not see the 'Schedule separate meetings for unchecked guardians' tickbox. However, you can unselect guardians you do not want to attend, allowing you to book the meeting only with the desired guardian.
If you need to set up a separate meeting but do not see the tickbox:
- Delete the meeting and then add the meeting back in with the Allow separate meeting option ticked.
- Add an additional custom meeting for the removed parent.
Please take a look at the Setting up split family meetings when meetings are already planned section for more details on this.
As a guardian
When guardians book a consultation meeting on the Parent Portal or App, they select which guardians will attend.
Unticked guardians will not be added to the selected timeslot.
If a guardian is not in a meeting booked by another guardian, they will see that a meeting is booked for their child in the Parent Portal or App, including the teachers involved.
They will not see which guardian booked the meeting, nor will the time and location be disclosed, which will appear as Undisclosed. Only participants can view this information, even if guardians reside at the same address.
If Separate Meetings are allowed, a guardian excluded from an already booked meeting can select the undisclosed meeting and click Book Separate Meeting to book an additional meeting.
If Separate Meetings are not allowed, the parent will be prompted to contact the school to request an amendment or additional meeting.
Interested in seeing what this looks like on the Portal? You can log in as a guardian to see what parents can see and edit using these instructions: Log in as a guardian to Parent Portal
FAQs
How do I change guardian attendees for an already booked meeting
To amend attendees for an already booked consultation meeting, use these instructions: Change the guardians in a Guardian Consultation meeting.
This allows you to add or remove parents from meetings and control who has access to consultation details.
Unbooked meetings are available to all guardians until a timeslot is assigned or the meeting is split into multiple meetings.
Guardians who are participants can view who else is attending and update attendee information. Read more: Booking Guardian Consultations (Parent's Evenings) on the Parent Portal or Parent App.
Please note: Guardians who are not participants cannot amend attendees on the Parent Portal.
How can I tell if I have set up meetings to allow guardians to book separately?
If you ticked 'Allow Separate Meetings' or 'Independent Booking' when scheduling meetings, two things will reflect this.
The first is that if a student has multiple primary guardians, when you go to manually book their meeting, you see a Schedule separate meetings for unchecked guardians? tickbox if the meeting has not yet been scheduled.
The second is that, if a meeting has already been assigned a timeslot and the Schedule separate meetings for unchecked guardians? tickbox was ticked when the meeting was scheduled, you should see a second meeting for the same student, but with their other guardian.
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