Your school is responsible for defining and managing appropriate data retention policies for student and staff records. All data in Arbor is ultimately controlled by the school.

Data Retention - Students 

Background

This area in Arbor allows you to bulk manage the deletion of student data in Arbor, according to rules you set for student groups and for individual data areas, or entire student records.   

To use this page, you can set draft rules for how long you want to retain your data, then enable those rules.  Once you’ve enabled your rules, no data will be deleted automatically. The rules will affect which data shows as deletable on the students tab, and which data you’ll be able to delete in bulk.  

For example, if you set a rule to say “delete attendance data for all FSM students 6 years after they’ve left” then you’ll see a column on the students tab called “Attendance”, and you’ll see a tick in that column for FSM students who have left more than 6 years ago.  You’ll also be able to successfully delete those students' attendance data via the bulk actions. Any students who don’t fall into these categories won’t show with a tick and won’t be eligible for you to delete their attendance data, unless you have another rule they fall into.  

Navigation and permissions

To use this area, you’ll set rules for how long you want to retain your data, which will then affect what data you can delete in bulk.

Menu Route 

School > Users & Security > Data Retention > Student Records New

On the page

There are three tabs on the data retention page:

• Draft Rules
• Rules
• Student records

Permissions 

• Permission for the Draft Rules and Rules tab: School - Data Retention - Setup Rules
• Permission for the Student Records tab: School - Data Retention - Delete Data
• Both permissions are assigned to the new Business Role: Data Protection Officer

The “Data Retention - Delete Data” permission is part of the School Administrator and Head Teacher business roles, if the roles are managed by Arbor.  No data can be deleted with these roles from this page unless data retention rules are set up on your Arbor site.

To give someone access to the data retention rules and draft rules tab, either assign them the Data Protection Officer Business Role or manually add one or both permissions to their profile.  

We’ve set it up with separate permissions for rule creation and data deletion, so these activities can be carried out by different people.  The data that is deletable from this page is governed by the rules that are set on the rules tab, so you may want to limit the people who can set these rules.

Important note: The rules you set on the rules tabs only affect what data can be deleted in bulk on this page.  Data can still be deleted manually from other areas in the system by users with appropriate permissions.

Using the new Student Data Retention page

Start on the Draft Rules tab 

On the Draft Rules tab, you can set rules in one of 4 ways:

• Manually
• Using a template
• Importing rules from another school
• Using AI to help you create the rules

Set a rule manually

• Go to the draft rules tab

• Click on the Add button on the table

• Select Add rules manually

• On the slideover, you can add a description for the rule you want to create, pick the group of students you want the rule to apply to, and the data area you’d like to create the rule for.

  • Top tip: If you have different rules for different groups of students, for the same data area, you can create multiple rules. For any student, we’ll always look for the rule with the longest data retention period. This means if you want to delete the entire student record for most students after 6 years, but for students with an EHCP, you want to hold onto their record unt

• In the lower half of the slideover, you can set how long you want to retain the data you’ve selected above for the group of students you’ve selected above.

• You can choose either:

  • Time after the student has left your school (in months)

  • Age (in months)

• Once you have filled in all the fields, click Create Draft Rule and you’ll see the rule in the Draft Rules tab. Once you’ve created your rule in the draft rules tab, it won’t affect what data can be deleted until you have activated it.

Create a draft data retention rule using a template

On the Draft Rules tab:

• Click Add

• Select “Add rules from a template”

• Pick from the pre-defined rules and click “Add rules”

• You can use these as many times as you want to get an idea of how rules might work, add them and then tweak them, or add them and delete them using the bulk actions. If you want to use them after reviewing, then use the bulk actions to activate them. 

Create a draft data retention rule using natural language

On the Draft Rules tab:

• Click Add

• Select “Add rules using natural language”

• Type in as many or as few rules as you want, including the student groups you want the rules for, the data you want to retain and how long you want to retain it for in age or time after leaving (you can use any time frame for this)

• Click “Create rules”

• Arbor will create the rules for you - make sure to check them

• Note - this feature uses AI - the only thing this feature can do is create draft rules. It cannot affect what data is deletable until you choose to activate any rules it creates. It also cannot delete any data.

Share and create a draft data retention rule using a file

You can use this functionality to share your rules with other schools or to copy rules from another school.

Export your own rules to share with another school

• Go to the draft rules or rules tab

• Tick the rules that you want to share

• Use the bulk actions to pick “Export rules”

• When the slideover loads, click the “Export rules” button and a file will download

• You can share this file with other schools

  • It does not contain sensitive data, only the rules you have created

Import a set of rules that another school has shared with you

On the Draft Rules tab:

• Click Add

• Select ”Import rules from a file”

• Add the file that another school has shared with you

• Click “Import rules”

• Your new rules will show in the Draft rules tab

• From here you can:

  • Review your rules and edit if you wish by clicking into each one

  • Delete any rules you don’t want to use

Activating rules

• To delete, activate or export your rules, click on the draft rules you want to change, and use the bulk actions in the Draft Rules tab

• Once you’ve activated a rule, it will show in the Rules tab.

• If at any point, you decide you don’t want a rule to apply any more, or you want to edit it, you can use the bulk actions on this page to move the rule back to draft, or edit it directly from this page.

Students tab

Permissions for this tab: School - Data Retention - Delete Data

Once you’ve activated the rules, they will affect what you can see on the Students tab.

If you created a rule with a specific data area, you’ll see that as an additional column on the Students tab with ticks and crosses to show whether that data area can be deleted.

Any student whose entire profile can be deleted will show with a tick in the “All data (entire profile)” tab.

To use this area, use the filters to view the student records you’re interested in, then use the tick boxes to select the students whose data you want to delete. Using the bulk actions, pick the data area you want to delete.

Once you’ve actioned a deletion, this will run in the background. Whilst this is happening, you’ll see a timer icon. Once the data is deleted for that student, you’ll see a bin icon. When the entire student record is deleted, you won’t see them on the grid anymore.

If you select a student whose data is not yet deletable, Arbor will still skip that record when you use the bulk actions.

Student Data Retention - Old

Arbor will flag student and staff records red in your retention dashboard when they have surpassed the time period suggested by the Limitation Act 1980. Your school may have reason to hold records for different periods of time. The Department for Education has released a data protection toolkit that includes retention guidance.

Arbor will automatically flag records that have passed the automatically calculated system-set data retention period. It is not possible to change this period in Arbor.

To prevent accidental deletions, this dashboard can only be used to delete records highlighted red. If your school’s policy requires any records to be deleted sooner, this dashboard cannot be used - please see below for what to do in this scenario.

Data that can be deleted using the dashboard

Student data

Go to School > Users & Security > Data Retention > Student records.

Records will be highlighted red and can be deleted using this dashboard when whichever the greatest of these is true:

• it is 6 years after the student’s leaving date from the school
• it is on or after the 24th birthday of the child
• if relating to more than one child, it is on or after the 24th birthday of the youngest child

By the Limitation Act 1980, once a child reaches 18, they have a further 6 years in which they may make a legal claim.

Any students who are possible to delete in bulk are flagged in red.

Tick the students to delete, and use the Bulk action button to select Permanently Delete Selected Students.

Students who will be deleted will be marked with a red cross.

Students that won't be deleted will be marked with a yellow flag - this is because the data retention period has not yet been reached. You'd need to use the alternate method outlined below to delete them.

Click the Delete students button to permanently delete all records of the person on Arbor.

Please note, guardians will be deleted if all the students linked to a guardian are deleted. To delete guardians not linked to a student, take a look at this article.

As the deletion of a student may take a little while, they might still show in the grid after you click the delete button.  In this case, you'll see they're being deleted in the Deletion in Progress column.

Staff data

Go to School > Users & Security > Data Retention > Staff records.

Records will be highlighted red and can be deleted using this dashboard:

• 6 years after the employee’s contract end date if they have a contract added to their staff profile
• 1 year after their profile was created if they don't have a contract

Tick the staff to delete, and use the Bulk action button to select Permanently Delete Selected Staff.

Staff who will be deleted will be marked with a red cross.

Staff that won't be deleted will be marked with a yellow flag - this is because the data retention period has not yet been reached. You'd need to use the alternate method outlined below to delete them.

Click the Delete staff button to permanently delete all records of the person on Arbor.

Important note on Supply and Dummy profiles

• Check for Lessons: Ensure the account is not assigned to any future or ongoing lessons.
• The Consequence: If supply staff are assigned to lessons, removing the staff member from a lesson timetable slot without a replacement will hide the lesson from student timetables. The slot itself will remain in Arbor, but it will appear blank on student timetables.

• The Fix: If this happens, you will need to recreate the dummy account and re-assign it to the slot to restore the timetable view.

   

Deleting data outside of the retention period

You may wish to delete profiles before the retention period has been reached. You can't do this in bulk using the retention dashboard.

Guardian data

You can see how to do this here: Deleting a single guardian

Staff data

You can see how to do this here: Deleting a single staff member

Student data

You can see how to do this here: Deleting a student who is not a duplicate