Latest Arbor Updates For You

Post 16 School Census, Assessment Reporting, Suspension Reasons, Meal Menus and More!

Hello Arbor Users, we’re back with a new instalment in our Arbor Updates For You series. Bringing you the latest features and improvements in the Arbor Management Information System (MIS). There is a lot going on this week, including several updates for the Post 16 School census which should help make everyone's lives easier. Lets get right to it and see what’s going on!

Post 16 School Census

Some great updates for this area of Arbor and just in time for the Post 16 School Census!

New Arbor Validation Errors – These have been introduced for students who left in the previous year, covering the issue of GCSE Prior Attainment records. With GCSE English / Maths grade at last census is lower than the current grade, Not Set or set to ‘Not Recorded’.

Student Transfers Planned Learning Hours – Arbor now only includes programme enrolments between the start of the last year and the Autumn Census date. This will stop the double counting of planned learning hours for transfer students, which means that this will no longer need to be fixed, very nice!

Students Joining After Last Autumn Census – If a student joined after the last Autumn Census they will still need to have their planned learning hours set manually. However using the nifty tools in Arbor you can set your start date for students to after the Autumn Census last year and see students that joined after in a clear list making it easier to work through these. If you’re not sure how to do this give us a call and we can help.

Bulk Update Learning & EEP Hours page New Columns – Two new columns have been added to this page, covering off on the Planned Learning Hours and the Planned T-Level Learning Hours as of Census day. A boon for cross checking this data and making any adjustments that may be needed!

Programmes of Study Next Year – You can now transfer student into Programmes of Study that take place in the following year. Great for getting ahead of the curve and seeing projections for the following year.

Reporting on Assessments

You can now change your Custom Report Writer reports to look ahead at your next assessment period.

Simply use the Bulk Edit Assessment Periods button. You’ll need to do this for each column you want to adjust the time frame on, and confirm if it’s for Summative Assessment or Ad-Hoc Assessment columns.

One of the nice features with this is that if you have different assessment frequencies for different columns you’ll see a drop down for each set, i.e. half term or termly – so you won’t need to worry that you’re missing one of those assessment periods!

What Else is Occurring?

Meal Menus – If your school is using this option parents will now be able to see previous choices they made after the deadline has passed.

Suspension Reasons – When using Custom Report Writer reports on the Suspensions report type, the suspensions reasons field can now be formatted as DfE Label or DfE Code.

MAT User Login – Arbor have added a reminder to the login page that MAT users must login through the MAT MIS, and not into school sites directly. Also reset password emails will no longer be sent if a MAT user is trying to log in a school site. All of this will help MAT users and prevent confusion with password generation.

Navigation Bar Accessibility – And finally, those of you who are eagle eyed may have noticed a slight change to your navigation bar as it has gotten slightly thinner (from 103 pixels to 85 if you want to be precise).

This is because the navigation bar is now accessible with keyboard, using your tab, arrow and enter keys. The drop downs are also responsive to page size.

Whooo hooo, as a touch-typer I really like this, not to mention not having to squint on some screens to check I am going to the right drop down, thanks Arbor!

There we have it for this round up for Arbor Updates for you, watch this space for more updates, advice, questions answered and more!

As always we are here to help!

Get in touch at info@swyft.org.uk or 01376 433 633 and let us make your Arbor the best it can be for you and your school!