Take a look at our introductory article on Shared Teaching here: What is Shared Teaching?
Once you're ready to start setting up and managing your Shared Teaching courses, use the instructions below.
Permissions
- School: Shared Teaching: Setup - Set up shared teaching courses. This permission isn't assigned to any business role by default, so must be manually given to users. You can only assign this business role if your MIS site is the Shared Teaching Admin site.
- Academic Structure: Administer - Add/edit/remove students and staff assigned to courses.
- Enrolment: Administer All Students - Manage students' enrolments into the school, and into their year groups, registration forms and houses.
If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions on a school site or these instructions on a MAT site.
Before setting up Shared Teaching
- Speak to all of the schools that will be sharing teaching, and decide which site (school or your MAT site) will be the Shared Teaching Admin site. Decide on a staff member who will manage the setup - they either need to be able to log into schools from the MAT MIS, or have a profile set up on the Shared Teaching Admin site.
- Make sure any students who will be attending Shared Teaching courses have been added to their home school site. When they are enrolled in a Shared Teaching course on their home school site, they'll automatically also be added as Guest students on the teaching school sites.
- Make sure that all your schools teach on the same days. If one school teaches on a Saturday for example this can affect your setup - please contact us for further guidance.
- We recommend you make sure that the Academic Calendar on each school's site is as similar as possible regarding year dates, term dates and holidays - you can see how to edit the academic calendar here. Students only see lessons on their timetables when it isn't a holiday day, so if there's a miss-match they may not see that they have a lesson scheduled.
- Contact your support provider with details of which schools will be sharing teaching, and which site is the Shared Teaching Admin site. You will then be emailed again once you can set up Shared Teaching on the Shared Teaching Admin site.
How to set up Shared Teaching
In the guidance below, we refer to your sites in different ways:
- Shared Teaching Admin site - this is the site that the Shared Teaching courses are set up and pushed out from. This can be a school site that shares teaching, or your MAT site.
- Home school - the school students are registered at, for example the centre for their examinations.
- Teaching school - the school or schools that are sharing the teaching
Setting up a Shared Teaching course for the first time
Step 1 - Set up the course
On the Shared Teaching Admin site, go to System > Shared Teaching Admin. Make sure you select the right year in the drop-down menu. Click +Add to set up a new course.
Add a course name, subject (if required) and curriculum grade (if it isn't a mixed-year-group course). Tick the boxes next to the schools that will be teaching this course, then click Add course.
You'll then be taken to the course overview page.
Step 2 - Adding timetabled lessons and registers
Click +Add in the Classes & Lessons section to schedule when the classes will take place. Select which school these lessons will be taught at.
In the slide over, select when the lessons at the school you've selected will take place. You can specify a start and end date, or set this automatically based on the school's calendar.
You'll then have a list of the different lessons, and the schools they are taught at.
You can also do this in bulk from the overview for multiple courses.
Step 3 - Push the setup to your schools
Once you've added all the lessons, click Push to participating institutions.
You'll then receive a notification.
Staff (or you if you have a login to the school site) will then be able to see the new course set up on the participating institutions' MIS sites in School > Programmes > Courses.
Step 4 - Enrol students in lesson registers
An Admin (or you if you have a login to the school site) will need to enrol students into their Shared Teaching classes on their home school site.
You can do this by clicking +Add on the course page, or by using the same pages you would use to enrol students in classes - we recommend the Bulk enrolment page as the easiest method. You can see how to do this here: Bulk enrol students into lesson registers
Managing staff and rooms
Staff are not automatically added to Shared Teaching courses, so must be assigned on school sites.
You'll need to repeat the actions below for each Shared Teaching course, on each school site it has been set up on:
- To give staff access to the attendance registers, you need to add them to the timetable slots.
- If you also want teaching staff to be able to mark assessments and take other actions such as setting assignments, you will also need to add them as the Academic Lead.
If your schools do not use Edval or TimeTabler
Staff and rooms will need to be manually assigned to courses that have been pushed out to schools. Schools can make any further adjustments to timetable slot staff and rooms on their schools sites using the Shared Teaching tab on the School > Timetable > Timetable Administration > Timetable Slots page following these instructions.
If your schools use Edval or TimeTabler
When importing the timetable, schools will have matched your courses from the timetabling software to Arbor courses. The imported timetable slots need to have the same academic year, day of cycle, start time and end time as the timetable slots in the Shared Teaching Admin area.
Schools can then go to School > Timetable > Timetable Administration > Timetable Slots page and click on the Shared Teaching - Cannot be scheduled tab. Tick the boxes next to the courses to match staff and locations for and click the Bulk action button to select Assign Staff and Room to Shared Teaching timetable slots.
Top Tip: This will overwrite any staff and rooms already assigned.
If you need to change the room a class is in, an Admin (or you if you have a login to the school site) can use the bulk actions in the Shared Teaching tab on the TimeTable Slots page. You can also click on the timetable slot from School > Programmes > Courses and click Edit.
Please note: You can only do this on the school site the timetable slot is set to take place at.
Editing or deleting the setup
Editing a Shared Teaching course
If you want to make changes to the timetabled dates, do this on the Shared Teaching Admin site, in the Shared Teaching area. Once you've made the changes, click the green button to push the changes to the teaching schools.
Deleting a Shared Teaching course or timetable slots
Please see our guidance on this here: Delete Shared Teaching courses or timetable slots
Using Shared Teaching
Managing the classes and attendance
Student details and attendance is synced between the schools instantly.
- You can see more details on how attendance works here: Attendance for Shared Teaching
- You can see what data is synced for students here: What student data is transferred between Shared Teaching sites?
Assessment
Assessment data and marks are synced between the schools instantly. Take a look at our guidance here on how to set up and manage assessments: Assessments for Shared Teaching
Reporting
Take a look at our guidance here for how to report on this on the School and MAT MIS: Reporting on Shared Teaching students
FAQ
Do we need to add students to all school sites?
No, you only need to make sure they have been added to their home school site. Once you enrol these students in a Shared Teaching course on their home school site, they'll automatically also be added as Guest students on the teaching school sites.
Can we change which site is the Shared Teaching Admin site?
Yes - please contact your support provider with details of which site you'd like to make the Shared Teaching Admin site.
Can we add an Abbreviation for Shared Teaching courses?
This is not currently possible.
Can we change the course hierarchy on school sites?
You can change the structure of Shared Teaching courses on school sites following these instructions.
However, we recommend ensuring the same structure across your sites, to prevent issues with linked assessments. You can see our recommended structure here: Arbor's Recommended Course Structure
Can we change the Subject or Year Group?
We recommend adding this information in the Shared Teaching area on your Shared Teaching Admin site before pushing the Shared Teaching Course to your teaching schools.
If you do need to change this, you can't edit this from the class overview, but you can use the bulk actions on the Students > Enrolment > Classes > Table View page.
How do we set up Shared Teaching when moving to Arbor?
If you are currently moving to Arbor, you may wish to complete the End of Year Process in SIMs before we migrate your data, rather than having to learn a new system right away. If you do, once your data is migrated into Arbor, you'll need to delete the courses that will be run as Shared Teaching courses, then add them manually using the setup instructions above.
Can I copy over Shared Teaching in the New School Year Setup?
Please follow our instructions here: Set up Shared Teaching courses for the next academic year
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