Dear Parents and Carers,
I am writing to inform you of the fantastic developments in MIS (Management Information System) used here at St Bede’s Catholic School & Sixth Form College.
The MIS is a system is used to hold and manage your child’s school records, in line with GDPR requirements. You may be aware that we previously used a product known as SIMS.
From August 1st 2023, we will be moving to our new MIS, Arbor. Arbor is used by many schools across the country and will also allow our Trust colleagues to manage our data much more efficiently and effectively from Central HQ.
Records we hold include contact details, next of kin, attendance, educational, medical information, school assessment data and results. All schools have a statutory obligation to hold and manage this information under current laws. Further details on the information we hold and how it is used are described in our privacy notice on the school website.
As well as contributing to improvements of our school’s workflows, our new system also offers many improvements in the ways in which we communicate and work with you as parents/carers:
Ø an easy to use, efficient parent/carer app and web portal
Ø faster, simpler 2-way messaging between yourselves and school
Ø quicker, more streamlined payments system
Ø for parents/carers with children at more than one of our Trust schools, a single app/portal and login to manage all your children’s accounts.
Other features may be introduced in the future as the system is established.
As parents and carers, you are currently able to access your child(ren)’s accounts, payments, attendance and behaviour by logging into School Gateway app.
From August (date to be confirmed) you will no longer be able to access this information with your current log in details and app. As part of the transition, all data will be moved across to Arbor, including details of any payments and bookings you may have already made in the system. We can see readable data from SchoolComms to ensure an audit trail remains of the amount students held on the system before transfer.
As we progress with installation of our new, improved system, over the Summer you will receive instructions, logins, and all other details of our new Parent/Carer App. The new app will have functionality to make payments and give parents/cares access to key information for your child/ren.
We will be using current details of your child used for migration. If you think that these details have changed, or you would like to update contact information please contact the school office.
Yours faithfully,
G Cuthbertson
Operations Manager