What is Arbor?

Arbor is a GDPR compliant and secure management information system (MIS) which we use to collect, store and manage your child's information such as contact details, medical information and attainment. The software enables us to manage and track attendance, attainment, medical conditions, dietary requirements, parent/guardian contact details. As a parent, you will be able to view and amend some of your child's school record through the Arbor App or Arbor Portal.  Arbor is also our preferred communication method for email and in app messages. 

Only adults who are primary guardians of a child can access the app. Primary Guardians are usually the person/s who have parental responsibility for the student.

Arbor App & Portal

When your child joins school, we will add their details on to Arbor and ask you to download the Arbor App for your phone or log on to the parent portal on your PC, laptop or tablet. Once you you have accessed Arbor, you will be able to view and amend some of your child's school record, see their current attendance, find any communications from school, make payments, book meals, book and pay for clubs and book your slot for parents evenings. We can send you in-app messages as well as school emails, letters or SMS straight from our Arbor system.

Please follow this link to help you get started with Arbor:

Welcome to Arbor Portal & Parent App - Instructions

Payments

With effect from 1st July, St Luke's will be changing its payment system over to Arbor. This will enable us to keep all our main functions neatly within 1 system making payments easier for parents using credit/debit cards, or via Apple Pay or Google Pay, which many of you may already use. 

Any payments required by school, will be created within Arbor from this date. We would urge all parents to clear any outstanding balances on ParentPay to eliminate the need to transfer debt over to the new system. 

Any credit balances, should you wish to claim back, will need to be done before 17th June, as all withdrawals will be paused during the final 2 weeks with ParentPay.  Don't worry if you do not withdraw credit, as we will transfer all credit balances over as at 30th June. 

Wraparound Payments

One of the huge benefits of this system, is that it will allow us to merge the information into invoices especially in relation to those who use our Larks and Fledglings provisions. We will be working with these invoices in a slightly different way, in that they will be produced half termly, meaning that you will know in advance what your charges are going to be for the entire half term. This should enable better budgeting for all parents. Clearly, if any changes are made during a term this may have an impact, but as a month's notice is required to make any changes to these provisions, it is unlikely to have a significant impact. 

If you currently pay by childcare voucher, this system will have no impact, as your voucher funds will continue to be credited to the account, just as they were in ParentPay, as soon as they are transferred over to us by County. Please bear in mind, for anyone new, or just starting to use vouchers for these payments, that this process can take 7-10 days so it does not show on your account immediately  

You will also be able to download invoices yourself for individual payments made at any point. We have attached links to all the relevant guides that you will need in order to make payments for things like meals, clubs, nursery and Larks but if you need any help with anything please do not hesitate to contact the office. 

We are new to this system too, so please be patient, if we are able to resolve queries without seeking support.