What are Priority Operations?
Priority Operations are modules within Arbor that are customisable and therefore require some planning and set-up to make sure your school gets the most out of them. Priority Operations include areas such as Assessments, Behaviour and the Parent Portal.
Why should we plan for these?
Once you have got the basics like attendance and timetable set up in Arbor you will be able to start using other areas of the system. You may have internal deadlines for using specific areas of the system, for example, a planned assessment data drop, so it's important to plan enough time to attend relevant training and set up the modules in the way that you want before launching them.
How to use this guide
This guide will explain how to prepare to go-live with your priority operations to make sure everything is ready when you need it.
We have included all the modules that you might choose to go live with in this guide. Some of these modules might not be in the package you have purchased or may not be areas that you plan to use straight away. For now, only focus on the modules you have access to and will need within your 12-week onboarding journey.
We have split each module into sections: Plan, Training, Setup and Go-live. Once you have read through the modules that you want to go-live with you are ready to start planning!
Behaviour
Assign an Arbor Champion to take ownership of getting behaviour up and running in Arbor. This might be your Project Lead or someone else at your school who looks after behaviour. The Arbor Champion for Behaviour will need to register and attend any training if you have purchased this and make sure that behaviour is set up in Arbor ready for your chosen start date.
Step 2 - Decide your go-live date
Decide when you would like to go live with Behaviour in Arbor. Things to consider:
- Will you need to record behaviour on your first day taking attendance
- Do you have a current system for tracking behaviour? If so, do you want to replace it with Arbor straight away or continue using it initially
- Do you need update parents about behaviour straight away
Once you have chosen date that you would like to go live with Arbor and work backwards. If you are wanting to go-live with behaviour on your first day taking attendance you will want to have completed any training and set-up before this date.
With paid-for training
Step 1 - Log into the Arbor Training Hub
If you have purchased Behaviour Needs and Requirements Training this will be available for your Project Lead to book via the Arbor Training Hub.
Step 2 - Book training
The consultative course will show you how to set up and manage Behaviour in Arbor based on your requirements. By the end of the course you will be able to:
- Setup the behaviour module based on your requirements
- Setup Automatic Workflows
- Manage and log Behaviour on Arbor
- Report on Behaviour using in-built reports and the Custom Report Writer.
Plan your sessions around your go-live date. We recommend completing your Consultation and Setup training before your go-live date and your User Training once you have started recording behaviour in Arbor.
Without paid-for training
If you haven’t purchased any Behaviour training you should follow these three steps before setting up your Behaviour in Arbor:
- Read this guide which goes through the Behaviour module in Arbor
- Decide on the behaviour policies you want to use in Arbor, for example, will you use Positive and Negative points, or do you want to set up automatic escalations and workflows?
- Once you’ve decided on your policies you can start looking at how to set up Behaviour in Arbor by using this guide which walks you through the process of setting up Behaviour Types, Points, Workflows and Detentions.
If you are unsure whether you have purchased any training for behaviour please check your Arbor contract, you will be able to see this in your list of services.
- Complete your behaviour setup e.g. behaviour types, point awards, severities etc.
- Test your set up to make sure it is working the way you intended
- Show staff how to record behaviour in Arbor
Parent Portal
Take a look at this guide to familiarise yourself with the Parental Engagment Features in Arbor.
Decide when you want to go-live with the Parent Portal. If you are are not a new school and already communicate with Parents, consider launching the Parent Portal after a holiday as it can act as a natural transition break.With paid for training
If you have purchased Parental Engagement Training this will be available for your Project Lead to book via the Arbor Training Hub.
Make sure you plan your sessions around your go-live date so that you have attended all the sessions you need to prepare for setup and go-live.
The Parental Engagement Course will show you how to:
- Check and manage your data from the Data Quality Dashboard
- Manage your Parent Portal settings
- Release the Parent Portal and manage Portal usage
- Set up and use In-app Messaging
- Manage Parental Consent via the App
- Manage Clubs and Trips
You don’t have to have completed the Consents Manage Parental Consent via the App and Manage Clubs and Trips modules before releasing your Parent Portal if you are not using those elements straight away.
Without paid-for training
If you haven’t purchased any Parental Engagement Training you have plenty of resources on the Help Centre that will help guide you through the process.
Once you release the parent portal you may have some parents contacting you to ask questions or if they are having any trouble logging in so it’s important that the staff who will be speaking to parents have also had training so that they can troubleshoot any issues.Download this Parent Portal checklist and work through the steps to make sure you are ready to launch.
Choose your Parent Portal settings to enable or prevent guardians from accessing certain data.
To help you with this we have some template emails and a poster you can use to launch the Parent Portal to guardians.
You can now monitor your parental engagement by using the Parent Portal usage page. We recommend setting a target of usage and weekly logins from guardians to help you measure the success of the Parent Portal rollout.
My Classroom
Decide when you would like to go-live with MyClassroom in Arbor. You will need to allow a short amount of time for staff to set up their room layout and seating plans but it’s very quick to do.
Read the following user guides to learn how to use My Classroom for behaviour, assessments and attainment:
Once you have switched on My Classroom staff will be able to start setting up room layouts and seating plans.
Interventions
This guide explains how interventions can be used in Arbor.
Examples of Interventions:
- Academic e.g. a regular, scheduled after-school Maths booster, or a reading catch-up session
- Statistic-based e.g escalated attendance interventions for students with high rates of absence
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Behavioural e.g. a six-week anger-management course, or a behaviour support plan
After completing the interventions training course, you will be able to:
- Create Interventions and Intervention Groups
- Schedule Intervention Sessions
- Add and manage Intervention Participants
- Define Outcomes
- Set Intervention Costs and Categories
- Access Provision Maps
We have lots of guides to help you. Click here for a guide on setting up Interventions, editing them and enrolling students which is a good starting place.
Here's how long each step should take to help you plan when to do this:
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Set up the intervention and lead - 5 minutes
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Schedule sessions - 5 minutes
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Add criteria and outcomes - 10 minutes
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Enrolling students manually - varies by number of students
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Add strategies - 10 minutes
Once you have set up your interventions and enrolled students you are ready to go-live with interventions. Make sure staff know how to manage these interventions going forward to transfer students in and out of them if necessary.
To really get the most out of Interventions in Arbor you can make sure students are achieving their outcomes by reviewing an Intervention, you can also track provision mapping and intervention costs.
Student Portal
- See what events they have coming up
- See which classes they're taking
- View their attendance and behaviour stats
- See which homework assignments they've been given
- Submit completed assignments
- View their assignment marks and feedback
When you start planning to launch the Student Portal consider the following things:
- When would you like to launch the Student Portal? Some schools do this at the same time as they launch the Parent Portal or you may choose to launch them separately.
- What do you want students to be able to see/do on the student portal? To help with you decide, check this article which shows you what the student looks like for students.
Your Arbor Champion should familiarise themselves with how to set up and use the student portal by reading the following guides:
- Can we change what shows on the Student Portal? This guide explains how to adjust what students can see on the Student Portal via the Parent Portal settings.
- The Student Portal - Quick tips for students- this guide shows you what a student can see when they log into the Student Portal
- Sending and resending login details to students. Shows you how to send your students login details and reset passwords.
Top tip:
Use the test site provided to log into the student portal as a student to test out the functionality and help you to decide what settings you want to switch on/off.
Step 1 - Switch on the Student portal
To switch on the Student Portal contact the Arbor Support Team if supported by Arbor, or your Support Partner if not supported by Arbor. Please CC in your school's data controller so they can give authorisation for us to turn Student Portal on.
Step 2 - Get students to log in
Once the Student Portal is switched on you can share login details with students and get them to start logging in.
Share this quick tips guide with students to help them navigate the Student Portal.
Assessments
Assign an Arbor Champion to take ownership of getting assessments up and running in Arbor. The Arbor Champion for Assessments will need to register and attend any training if you have purchased this and make sure that your assessments are set up in Arbor ready for your chosen start date.
Step 2 - Decide your go-live date
Decide when you would like to go live with Assessments in Arbor. Things to consider:
- When is your first data drop? You should work backwards from this date and make sure all relevant training and set up has been completed before this date so that staff are ready to enter assessment data
- Do you want to use formative assessments as well as summative assessments?
- How do you want to report to parents?
- Consider planning in a session for teachers to show them how to use assessments in Arbor. If you have an inset day before you launch assessments this can be a useful time for staff training.
Step 1 - Log into the Arbor Training Hub
If you have purchased Assessment training this will be available for your Project Lead to book via the Arbor Training Hub.
Step 2 - Book training
The first session you need to book is your Assessment Consultation:
- During your Assessment Consultation, your trainer will demonstrate some of the key features of Arbor Assessments (especially areas which may differ most from your current assessment system).
- They will then work with you through a questionnaire developed to identify your needs as a School/Trust in order to create a clear training and setup plan for you.
We recommend booking this session as soon as possible so that you can start thinking about how you will set up assessments in Arbor.
Once you have completed your Assessment Consulation the trainer will recommend further training for you based on your specific needs and requirements. A typical Assessment Training plan would be an Assessment consultation followed by a session on Setup and a further session on user training.
When planning when you will do these sessions take a look at the agendas and make sure you book in the sessions you need ahead of your go-live date to make sure you have left enough time to get everything set up in time.
We have materials on the help centre to guide you through the set up:
You will also have access to your training recordings which you can always revisit to remind you of any of the areas that were covered.
We recommend running an internal session for your staff so that they know how and when to enter data in Arbor.
Payments
Step 2 - Decide your go-live date. Consider when you need to start taking payments from parents for example, if you are going to be using Arbor Payments for a certain trip you will need to have everything set up for the date you want parents to start signing up and paying for that trip.
Step 3 - Review how card payments work in Arbor by reading this guide
With paid for training
If you have purchased Payments Training this will be available for your Project Lead to book via the Arbor Training Hub.
Make sure you plan your sessions around your go-live date so that you have attended all the sessions you need to prepare for setup and go-live.
Aimed at Business Managers and Finance Managers, this course will teach you how to set up your system for card payments and manage your Accounts and Balances.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Set up Accounts and card payments
- Add Bank Accounts
- Set initial Parent and Guardian Account Balances
- Find and review payee account details
- Create and manage Invoices and Credit Notes
- Top-up and Refund Accounts
- Find Reconciliation Reports
Without paid-for training
If you haven’t purchased any Payments Training you have plenty of resources on the Help Centre that will help guide you through the process.
Start with this payments setup guide and follow the 6-step setup process.
How long will it take?
- Add school details and documents - 5 minutes
- Add controller/owner’s details - 5 minutes
- Add school representative’s details and documents - 3 minutes
- Add a bank account - 5 minutes
- Add a bank account for receiving payouts - 5 minutes
- Add your customer account types - 15 minutes (depending on the number of accounts to set up)
Make sure the Parent Portal is set up correctly (see Parental Engagement section above) and inform your parents and guardians that they can start making payments in Arbor.
Clubs and Trips
Step 2 - Decide your go-live date. Consider when your first clubs/trips will be. Fo example, if you have a breakfast club on the first day using Arbor you want to make sure you have set everything up so that parents can sign up for that and pay if required.
Step 3 - Review how card payments work in Arbor by reading this guide
With paid for training
If you have purchased Parental Engagement Training this will be available for your Project Lead to book via the Arbor Training Hub.
Make sure you plan your training session around your go-live date so are prepared to set up clubs and trips ready for this date.
There is a trainer led session included in the Parental Engagement Course will show you how to manage Clubs and Trips.
Without paid-for training
If you haven’t purchased the Parental Engagement Training course you can read through our setup guides to familiarise yourself with the Process:
- Setting up the trip - 5 minutes
- Adding prices - 10 minutes
How long will setting up a club take?
- Adding the club - 2 minutes
- Adding sessions - 5 minutes
- Adding prices - 10 minutes
Top Tip: Make sure you have set up Card Payments on your site to allow payments via card.
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