How to run a 'Fake Arbor day' before your secondary school's Go Live

This article is designed for Secondary Schools who are Onboarding to Arbor. We recommend during your Onboarding you set time aside to perform a 'Fake Arbor Day'. This serves three purposes:

• Drives engagement and generates excitement on your new MIS
• Cements foundation training
• Acceptance that data has migrated correctly and you'll be able to perform your statutory, day to day operations on Go Live. 

Note: It is important that you have finished your data checking on your dummy data and reviewed your user permissions before your 'Fake Arbor Day' 

The Fake Arbor Day will be when your wider school team (including teachers) use Arbor alongside your current MIS. This will allow you to explore lesson dashboards, take registers and generate attendance data for example. These tasks will provide you with further information on where extra training or support may need to be directed internally.  

We have listed some suggested activities for your staff to undertake. Note that some of these tasks may require some initial setup in your dummy site to be actioned appropriately.

If you would like to discuss this activity further, do not hesitate to raise this with your Customer Onboarding manager. 

Note - Be aware of sending test communications from your dummy site. These will send to real and confused parents! You can view how to turn off communication sending here. 

Suggested activities

• Take a class register
  • This may include recording absences or notes in line with school policy.
  • Note: Registers will be active up to an hour before their scheduled start time.
  • Print a blank register.
• Attendance Team - Chase incomplete or unopened registers. 
  • You may want to look at creating reports based on your attendance data and explore the process of following up with absentees (without sending the communication)
• Explore Lesson Dashboard
  • Explore previous Attendance and Behaviour records for the class.
• Record a behaviour incident or point award
  • Ensure example setup does not include a workflow that will notify parents, as this will send a communication out to real parents.
• If using My Classroom, create a seating plan for your lesson
  • Use this seating plan to amend attendance or log behaviour.
• Download a ‘Class List’ from the Lesson dashboard with at least 4 columns of information. 
  • Consider the information that a teacher will need to access quickly about their class.
• Set an Assignment (Perform Schools)
  • Set basic details for an assignment for a class.
• Navigate to a student profile from your class. 
  • Explore information stored against the pupil, including their calendar and pastoral notes.
• Add a pastoral note to a student in your class
  • Consider adding an attachment and flag to this.
• Explore your own ‘My Items’ section. 
  • Check that the information stored is accurate.
• Test an Emergency Alert
  • Make sure this has been set up with key staff who are aware beforehand.
• Review Getting Started Guides
  • https://support.arbor-education.com/hc/en-us/categories/360003282318-Getting-started
• Cover
  • Set certain staff to 'phone in sick' and encourage office staff to set cover appropriately.