How to prepare and migrate your primary schools future academic year

This article is designed for primary schools who are migrating from SIMs to Arbor via the SIMs API using Groupcall Xporter on Demand over the summer holidays. This guide details the steps needed to ensure your future academic year is migrated and set up correctly on Arbor. 

Arbor migrates your current academic year from SIMs however schools need to complete additional steps in both SIMs and Arbor for their future academic year to migrate successfully. 

Pre migration steps

Academic year and term dates

Your future academic year and term dates migrate from SIMs. You should ensure these are set up before your migration to Arbor. 

• Enter your new academic year name and dates: Ensure there are no gaps between academic years. Academic years in Arbor must be continuous with no gaps. The new year starts the day after the previous one ends. E.g. if the previous year ends on 31/08/2025, the new year should start on 01/09/2025 and end on 31/08/2026.
• Enter your term dates for the new academic year: You can set terms for any dates, either as full terms of split into half terms. Your term dates can include or exclude holidays. For example, the autumn term could run from 01/09/2025 to 19/12/2025, and then the Christmas holiday would run from 20/12/2025 to 04/01/2026, excluding the Christmas holiday from the term dates. Or the Autumn term could end on 04/01/2026, including the Christmas holiday dates in the term dates.

Note: Holidays (Christmas, Easter, Summer, half term, INSET days, bank holidays etc) are recorded separately and do not migrate. These can be set up in Arbor post migration. 

Future academic year groups

Your future academic year groups migrate from SIMs. You should ensure these are set up before your migration to Arbor. 

• Create your future academic year groups (Year Groups, Registration Forms/tutors, and Houses) and enrol students and assign staff and rooms (if applicable). 

Note: Applicant group memberships will not migrate and must be added post-migration.

Future academic year applicants

Your future academic year applicants set as 'accepted' migrate from SIMs. You should ensure these are set up before your migration to Arbor.

• Ensure all future academic year Applicants have an application status of "Accepted". Only accepted applicants will migrate to Arbor.

Post migration steps

Academic year

• The name and dates for a future academic year will migrate to Arbor - This can be viewed in School > School Structure > Academic Years > 2025/2026 > Overview.
• Adjustments to these dates can be made when completing the "School Year Setup", accessed by navigating to School > School Structure > School Year Setup and selecting the academic year that needs to be amended.

Academic terms

• The terms and their dates for a future academic year will migrate to Arbor. This can be viewed in School > School Structure > Academic Years > 2025/2026 > Overview.
• Adjustments to these dates can be made when completing the "School Year Setup", accessed by navigating to School > School Structure > School Year Setup and selecting the academic year that needs to be amended.

Academic holidays

• Academic Holidays do not currently migrate for the future academic year. We are working to resolve this for future GroupCall migrations. At present, the school will need to add these post-migration.
• Once the school has migrated, the school will have visibility of the "Days unaccounted for" in Arbor, which can be used as a guide for the date they will need to assign holiday to.
• This can be viewed in School > School Structure > Academic Years > 2025/2026 > Overview.
• Adjustments to these dates can be made when completing the ‘School Year Setup’, accessed by navigating to School > School Structure > School Year Setup and selecting the academic year that needs to be amended.

Registration/Tutor groups

• Year groups that have been set up in SIMS for a future academic year will migrate. This includes the year group name, curriculum grade, head of year and the registration forms associated with that year group, if applicable.
• This can be viewed in Students > Enrolment > Pastoral > Registration Forms.
• Adjustments to these registration groups can be made when completing the "School Year Setup", accessed by navigating to School > School Structure > School Year Setup and selecting the academic year that needs to be amended.

Houses

• Year groups that have been set up in SIMS for a future academic year will migrate. This includes the year group name, curriculum grade, head of year and the registration forms associated with that year group, if applicable.
• This can be viewed in Students > Enrolment > Pastoral > Houses.
• Adjustments to these houses can be made when completing the "School Year Setup", accessed by navigating to School > School Structure > School Year Setup and selecting the academic year that needs to be amended.

Year Groups

• Year groups that have been set up in SIMS for a future academic year will migrate. This includes the year group name, curriculum grade, head of year and the registration forms associated with that year group, if applicable.
• This can be viewed in Students > Enrolment > Pastoral > Year Groups.
• Adjustments to these year groups can be made when completing the "School Year Setup", accessed by navigating to School > School Structure > School Year Setup and selecting the academic year that needs to be amended.

Group memberships/Enrolments - Pupils

• Pupil memberships/enrolments will migrate for current pupils only. The pupil must be pre-enrolled into the relevant year group, house or registration form for the following academic year, prior to the school’s migration to Arbor.
• Applicants will migrate if they have an application status of "Accepted", however any pre-enrolments made in SIMS will not migrate. These pupils will need to be enrolled into the relevant groups post-migration, as part of the new academic year setup.

Group memberships/Enrolments - Staff 

• Memberships for current staff will migrate if the staff member has been assigned to the relevant year group, house or registration form for the following academic year, prior to the school’s migration to Arbor.
• Staff members with a start date in the future will migrate, however any assignments made to groups will not be migrated. New staff will need to be manually added to the relevant groups post-migration as part of the new academic year setup. 

Applicants

• Applicants for future academic years will be migrated as applicants, providing they have an application status of "Accepted" in SIMS. 

Note: We are currently working on a bug fix to rectify the migration of applicants into the enrolled student list. The fix will ensure that the applicants' records migrate into the ‘Applicants’ section of Arbor, found by following: the path Students > All Students > Applicants > Intake Season > Overview.