Announcement
Arbor parent portal - now live!
Dear Parent or Carer
It is part of the school’s ongoing ambition to improve effective communications with parents. The school is pleased to announce the launch of the Arbor app, which will provide much more information about their daughters to parents.
Last summer the school moved its management information system, that contains all data relating to students, to a new provider called Arbor. The benefits of Arbor is that the school can have everything that relates to students in one place. This will include all personal data from parental contacts and medical information to student assessments, attendance, timetables, reports, commitment to learning etc.
Arbor has a parental and guardian portal which the school is now ready to make ‘live.’ This will mean that those who are both legal guardians and primary contacts will be able to register with Arbor’s portal and download the Arbor app. The school hopes that parents and guardians will find the information on the Arbor app really helpful.
These are some of the details that parents will be able to see and do:
- Check a student’s contact details including medical information and update it. A message will go to the school that an update has been requested and this will then be actioned by school staff.
- Attendance data will be visible to parents. If a student is sick, parents can notify the school on the app and then the attendance officer will log this on Arbor.
- Student timetables, including public exam timetables, can be downloaded and printed.
- Assessment reports can be downloaded.
- Commitment to learning and community awards and detentions will be visible
- Trips and clubs will be set up on Arbor
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Details of what students have had for lunch and topping up of lunch money will be on Arbor
- note this option will not be open until Thursday, 10th July
- All communication will go via Arbor once it is fully launched. This means that parents must have the Arbor app downloaded on their phones and Push Notifications allowed. This will save the school money as sending messages via the app is free to the school. Urgent messages such as school closures etc will still be sent by text.
Next steps
The Arbor portal will be open to parents and guardians from Tuesday, 24th June. A welcome e-mail will be sent to parents with a link to set up a password. Please see the attached guidance from Arbor about how to install the app.
Please can parents register and log on to the app as soon as possible so that any issues can be resolved this term. Please note it is very important that parents ensure that Push Notifications are allowed when they are setting up the app. The school will be moving to sending all messages by app to parents (unless there is an urgent situation like school closure), so if Push Notifications are not set up, these messages will not be visible to parents as an alert, unless they log into the app.
Please can parents check their daughter’s data such as emergency contacts, medical details and any requests for consent or other information so that the school’s data system is up to date.
Lunch card payments
The intention is to switch the topping up of lunch cards from School Gateway to the Arbor app on Thursday, 10th July. All balances on lunch cards will move across to Arbor. From 10th July parents will need to be using the Arbor app if they wish to top up their daughter’s lunch card.
Data, consents and messages
When logging into the Arbor app for the first time, please can parents check their daughter’s data – medical, address, parent contact details etc. If there is anything incorrect, please notify the school.
You can must do this on the app when you click into the data that is incorrect. An option to correct the data will appear.
Also please check if there are any messages such as consents being requested. Please complete these so that the school has up to date records.
Any problems
If any parent or guardian cannot log in to the app, please email the parents email at: parents@highburyfields.islington.sch.uk. Please address your email to Ms O’Hara and put in the subject line: Arbor app. Please ensure to include your daughter’s name in the message and the issues you are experiencing.
The attached document provides information about how to use and log into the Arbor parent portal and app.
We hope that parents will find the new app very helpful.
Yours faithfully,
Tim Fox
Headteacher
