Arbor

New academic year updates and improved experience for parents

After our migration to Arbor in January 2025, and following feedback from our parent body, we are pleased to start the new year with some updates about some changes that we have made which we feel will improve your experience.

This term, our Sports Club offerings can be booked and paid for through Arbor. More detailed information about this will be sent out by the PE department at the end of this week although many of you have already used this to book squad training and activity week.

As a consequence we are now retiring the Edulink and Gateway interfaces and using Arbor exclusively for home school communication. If you have recently submitted information via either of these platforms we will be processing this, but theses services will be discontinued shortly.

A common theme of feedback in last years Parent Survey was the lack of clarity in the way in which students positive and negative behaviour was reported. The pastoral team have led a complete overhaul of this area, and we have separated out Achievement (positive) and Behaviour (negative) scales to provide you with two totals rather than an aggregate score.

In addition we have made the narratives regarding the reason for the award of Achievement points visible to you to give you the more information regarding what was deemed merit worthy. As the categorisation of Negative incidents are already quite granular, and also because serious incidents often require follow up, narratives will not be shared on these point awards. Parents are welcome to contact the school for clarification concerning incidents - the Pastoral team are highly proactive and will always seek to contact you directly for more serious concerns.

Finally for parents who are new to JHGS, and existing parents who have not yet accessed the Arbor parent tools,please find attached information regarding accessing the web portals and app. These allows parents to view their child's key school information, such as timetable, behaviour and achievement awards, and log absences through the web portal or App.