Applicants and admissions - Adding, enrolling and sending communications

You can use Arbor to track your admissions, including who your applicants are, numbers, admissions appeals and finally enrolling them into their year groups, registration forms, and houses for next year.

This article will talk you through each step, and when this should be done. Just click the + to expand each step!

Applicants starting mid-way through the year

See our guidance here: Applicants starting mid-way through the year

Applicants starting in September

Top Tip: The statuses for Offer Made and Rejected are usually only used for mid-year applications managed by the school rather than the LA: Applicants starting mid-way through the year

When should we add our applicants?

You should not add applicants in Arbor until National Offer Day. For LA maintained schools and academies, your LA responsible for allocating offers and must communicate these offers to all parents on National Offer Day (or the next working day). Until this date, only Admissions Officers should have access to Offer information.

If you add applicants to your Arbor site prior to this:

  • parents will see the student's potential new school as an option on the generic login page (even if the Parent Portal is off for parents of applicants, or completely off for all parents).
  • School staff other than the Admissions Officer will be able to see applicant students using Global Search, Browse Students, Custom Report Writer etc.
  • Depending on their settings on their side, applicant information may be pulled into API integrations.

If you have added applicants too early, you will need to delete the guardian profiles completely: Deleting an applicant who has never been enrolled

The applicant process in Arbor

Step 1 - Set up your intake season

Before you can add applicants, you'll need to do two things:

  • Add the next academic year to your site, to allow students to be enrolled starting in September
  • Create an intake season to add your applicants into. You need to set up a new intake season for each new cohort of students that apply to your school - this groups your applicants together and allows you to check everyone has been accepted and enrolled, rejected or withdrawn.

Take a look at this article to see how to add the next year and intake season. 

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Step 2 - Add your Applicants

Once guardians apply for a place at your school, you'll be able to use one of our three methods (shown in this article) to add these students as Applicants to your site. You should only complete one process for each student.

  • Uploading an ATF
  • Manually adding Applicants (you'll also need to use this process to add applications for students moving to the next phase, such as year 11s applying for your Post-16)
  • Using our Applicant Spreadsheet 

Registration Forms and Year Groups in the Applicant Spreadsheet

Please note that you will not be able to put an expected year group and registration form for each applicant into the Applicant Spreadsheet. This is because the year groups and registration forms have not yet been set up as part of the new school year setup process. This part of Arbor will become available on May 1st, along with the supporting guidance.

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Step 3 - Send out communications

You can generate letters or send SMSs, emails or in-app messages to applicants or their guardians following the instructions in this article: Sending communications to applicants or their guardians

Step 4 - Log accepted or withdrawn offers

To mark offers as accepted from the same Applicants page, select the students to update, then click the Bulk action button to Accept Offers or Withdraw students who have not accepted the offer.

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Applicants that have withdrawn will have this as their status.

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Step 5 - Record any Admissions Appeals

From May, you’ll be able to record any admissions appeals from students that have had their application rejected.

From the Applicants page, just click on the student’s name, click the More information button, then click the Lodge Appeal button to get started. Take a look at this article for full instructions.

The numbers of Admissions Appeals are collected in the Spring Census, so if you log them now you won’t need to manually add in these numbers to your Census next Spring!

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Step 6 - Enrolling the students ready for September

You won’t be able to add your new students to year groups, registration forms or houses and officially enrol them until you’ve begun the New School Year Setup process. This part of Arbor opens on May 1st.

You'll need to complete parts 1, 2 and 3 of Step 3 (shown in the screenshot below), plus Step 5 if you also use Houses, to copy over your year groups and registration forms for next year.

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You'll then be able to give your applicants a year group and reg form, and then enrol them in bulk from Students > All Students > Applicants. This is part 4 of Step 3.

If you haven't already done so, tick all the students you want to enrol and click the Bulk action button to select Accept offers

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  • Tick all the students you want to add to the same year group and click the Bulk action button to select Assign applicants to year group
  • Then repeat this and select Assign applicants to registration form. These three steps do not officially enrol them in your school.
  • If you use houses, repeat this and select Assign applicants to house.

These three steps do not officially enrol them in your school.

The final step is to add the future enrolment for the students starting in September. Tick all the students you want to enrol and click the Bulk action button to select Enrol students

You'll then need to enrol them into any additional classes, or if they are nursery students set up regular or irregular attendance patterns so they appear on the right registers.

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What's next?

You won’t be able to add your new students to year groups, registration forms or houses and officially enrol them until you’ve begun the New School Year Setup process. This part of Arbor opens on May 1st.

In the meantime, start planning how you’ll be collecting data for your applicants. You can check out how to use data collection sheets or the Parent Portal and App here: Collecting data and consents for applicants starting in September

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