Managing Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations) for split families or separated parents

This article provides guidance on managing separated parents or split families when setting up Guardian consultations within the Arbor system. For guidance around managing split families in other areas or Arbor, please refer to our general Managing separated parents or split families guidance.

Permissions

• Guardian Consultations: Administer permission to make changes to 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), you will need to ensure you decide this when first planning your meetings (Step 2 of our setting up Guardian Consultations (Parents' Evenings) 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 additional custom meetings.

To allow separate meetings with each of a child's guardians, ensure 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 manage 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.

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 booking, you will not see the Schedule separate meetings for unchecked guardians tickbox. However, you can untick guardians you do not want to attend to book the meeting only with the desired guardian.

If you need to set up a separate meeting but do not see the tickbox:

1. Delete the meeting and then add the meeting back in with the Allow separate meeting option ticked.

2. Add an additional custom meeting for the removed parent.

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 or the time and location, which will appear as Undisclosed. Only participants see this information, even if guardians live 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 amend or add a 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

Changing 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 sees consultation details.

Unbooked meetings are available to all guardians until a timeslot is assigned or the meeting is separated into multiple meetings.

Guardians who are participants can see who else is attending and amend attendees. 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.