Learning platforms 🇬🇧 London, United Kingdom Since 2011 1.4 · 2K ratings

Arbor

A management information system for schools.

Visit arbor-education.com All companies
schools, according to Arbor
12,500+
multi-academy trusts
930
per primary student, Core package, plus base fee
£3.40
schools using Arbor AI
4,000+

About Arbor

Arbor is a London company that sells a cloud management information system (MIS) to state schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities in England and Wales. Schools use it for attendance, behaviour, assessment, census returns, parent messages and payments. Arbor says 12,500 schools and 930 trusts use it. Prices in its 2026 G-Cloud document start at £3.40 per primary student plus a £2,500 base fee for the Core package. Arbor belongs to The Key Group, which also sells SAMpeople for HR, TimeTabler for timetables and Arbor Finance.

Arbor runs the central records of a school in the browser: registers, behaviour points, assessment, census returns, staff profiles and reports. Parents use the Arbor Parent App to pay for meals and trips, book parents’ evenings and read school messages. Students see their timetable and homework in the Arbor Student App. Trust and local authority teams use MAT MIS to see data across all their schools.

James Weatherill co-founded the company, and Arbor Education Partners Limited was registered in London on 28 September 2011. Arbor launched its MIS the same year. By July 2020 it counted more than 1,000 schools and 100 trusts, and United Learning chose it for 72 state schools. In December 2020 The Key, owner of the primary MIS ScholarPack, bought Arbor. Nesta and Ananda’s Social Venture Fund II sold their stakes in that deal.

The Key Group added RM Integris and RM Finance in 2023, then TimeTabler, SAMpeople and Habitude in 2024 and 2025. In February 2025 Arbor announced that ScholarPack and Integris would close in February 2026 and their schools would move to Arbor. Since January 2025 Arbor has faced a £4 million claim from rival Bromcom over the 2019 United Learning tender. Arbor denies the allegations.

History

  1. 2011 Arbor Education Partners Limited is registered in London on 28 September. Arbor launches its MIS.
  2. 2018 REAch2, the largest primary trust in England, moves to Arbor.
  3. 2020 United Learning chooses Arbor for its 72 state schools in July. Arbor counts more than 1,000 schools and 100 trusts.
  4. 2020 The Key buys Arbor in December. CBPE invests in The Key’s holding company in the same deal.
  5. 2021 Academies Enterprise Trust chooses Arbor for its 57 schools.
  6. 2023 RM Integris, RM Finance and RM Accounts join The Key Group in June. The group’s MIS products serve more than 7,000 schools.
  7. 2024 The group buys TimeTabler in May and SAMpeople with FusionHR in July.
  8. 2024 Arbor relaunches as the Arbor School Management Suite in October and releases the Arbor Student App in November.
  9. 2025 Arbor buys the workflow platform Habitude in January. Bromcom files a £4 million claim against Arbor.
  10. 2025 Arbor announces in February that ScholarPack and Integris will close in February 2026. Cardiff picks Arbor MIS and Arbor Finance for 128 schools in July.
  11. 2025 CBPE sells its investment in The Key Group to Permira in November.
  12. 2026 Arbor AI wins the Bett Award for AI in Education, workload reduction. Arbor adds an Ofsted Inspection Companion in February.

Arbor funding and investors

Not disclosed raised before the 2020 sale
  1. 2015–2020
    Venture Amount not disclosed

    NestaSocial Venture Fund II, managed by AnandaFounders and other shareholders

    Source: FE News, Companies House
  2. December 2020
    Acquisition by The Key Amount not disclosed

    Lead: The Key Support Services CBPE Capital, in The Key’s holding company

    Source: Arbor blog, FE News
  3. November 2025
    Group buyout Amount not disclosed

    Lead: Permira Permira

    Source: Mayer Brown

Arbor did not publish the amounts of its venture rounds. FE News names Nesta and Ananda’s Social Venture Fund II among the shareholders who sold in December 2020. Companies House shows share allotments in 2015 and from 2017 to 2020. The price The Key paid and the value of the 2025 Permira deal are not in the sources we opened.

Leadership

  • James Weatherill Co-founder and CEO
  • Philippa De’Ath Chief Revenue Officer, director since 2019
  • Bex Campbell Chief Product Officer
  • Damian Brooks Chief Technology Officer
  • Harriet Cheng Chief Marketing Officer
  • Sonia Leighton Chief of Customer Success

Leadership from arbor-education.com. Companies House lists Emile Axelrad as a director of the company from its first days in 2011 until 2019 and as a shareholder until 2020. Christopher Kenyon has been a director since The Key bought Arbor in December 2020.

Careers

Workable
6Thiruvananthapuram 3London
18 open roles on 6 October 2026
  • Engineering14
  • Marketing3
  • Payroll, SAMpeople1

Products

  • Arbor School MIS Registers, behaviour, progress tracking, census and statutory returns, custom reports, student and staff profiles, email and SMS. Sold as Core, Comms and Perform packages. School MIS
  • Arbor Parent App Parents see attendance and behaviour, book clubs, trips and parents’ evening slots, and pay for meals and trips. Only for parents at schools on Arbor. 1M+ downloads on Google Play. App Store
  • Arbor Student App Students see their timetable, homework, behaviour points and messages from school. Released in November 2024. App Store
  • Arbor AI Ask Arbor answers questions about school data. Auto Absence transcribes absence voicemails and suggests the code. Other tools draft emails, student summaries and Ofsted packs. Arbor says customer data is not used to train models. Arbor AI
  • Arbor MAT MIS Trust-wide dashboards, live national benchmarks, central staff records, pushdowns of assessment and permissions to schools, BI Connector and a custom data warehouse. Arbor for MATs
  • Arbor Payments Payments Core covers trips, clubs, meals, invoices and cashless catering links. Payments Plus adds a school shop, meal choice and Apple Pay and Google Pay. Payments
  • SAMpeople, Arbor Finance and TimeTabler SAMpeople handles HR, recruitment and payroll exports for 2,300+ schools and trusts. Arbor Finance is cloud accounting for maintained schools with CFR reports. TimeTabler builds school timetables and sixth-form options. SAMpeople

How much is Arbor?

  • Core, primary £3.40/student + £2,500 base, attendance, behaviour, census, reports, AI
  • Parent App included Comms, primary £7/student + £2,500 base, adds parent and student apps, payments
  • Perform, primary £11.80/student + £2,500 base, adds assessment, Payments Plus
  • Core, secondary £4.40/student + £5,000 base, KS1 to KS4
  • Comms, secondary £8/student + £5,000 base, KS1 to KS4
  • Perform, secondary £12.50/student + £5,000 base, KS1 to KS4, FE base £5,600

Is Arbor free?

No free plan. Schools tied to a SIMS contract until 2027 or 2028 get the Arbor Core licence free until that contract ends, under the Pay-for-One Promise.

Prices from Arbor’s G-Cloud 15 pricing document dated 7 September 2026, in pounds, checked on 6 October 2026. Each school package adds a base fee. The document gives MAT MIS prices as annual and does not state the period or VAT for school packages. Trusts get 5% to 65% off for 3 or more schools. Third-party support lowers the price.

How a school leaves Arbor

G-Cloud listing
  • Written notice ↗
    1. Wait for the end of the initial licence period
    2. Send 30 days’ written notice to Arbor’s registered address
    3. Export data during the 60-day countdown before the MIS is switched off
  • Schools export data as a standard migration export in CSV, as custom reports or as Common Transfer Files.
  • Access ends on the contract end date. Arbor deletes the data 30 days later.
  • A 48-hour export window after the end date costs £500 plus VAT.
  • Parents cannot cancel. The school holds the contract.

Refund rules

Pay-for-One Promise
The free Core licence requires the school to stop using SIMS and give SIMS notice. Arbor checks this through the census.
Data
The school owns the data. Arbor acts as data processor until the contract ends.

From Arbor’s G-Cloud 15 service listing and the Pay-for-One Promise page, checked on 6 October 2026.

Arbor for trusts and local authorities

Arbor for MATs
  • 01MAT MIS Essentials costs 50p per student a year plus a £3,000 base fee.
  • 02Plus costs £1, Advanced £1.30 and Enterprise £1.50 per student a year. Enterprise adds a custom data warehouse and a £4,000 base fee.
  • 03Every MAT MIS package has a £1,500 set-up fee in year 1.
  • 04Programme management costs £3,250 a term. Secondary onboarding costs £2,500 per school.
  • 05Data is hosted on AWS in London. Arbor holds ISO 27001 certification.

Prices from Arbor’s G-Cloud 15 pricing document of 7 September 2026, on top of each school’s MIS licence.

App ratings, UK stores

1.2Trustpilot · Bad 162 reviews · company profile claimed in March 2024

Arbor Parent App, App Store UK

Current version
40, released 15 September 2026
First release on iOS
18 April 2019
Requires
iOS 15.1 or later
Price
Free, for parents at Arbor schools
Google Play downloads
1M+ Parent App, 100K+ Student App

Is Arbor worth it?

What parents and students like

What parents and students criticise

What users write in reviews, not our rating. Parents and students write most public reviews. Schools buy Arbor, and staff rarely review it on Trustpilot or in app stores.

Arbor reviews

  • I am a parent unhappy with Arbor
    “Arbor Parent App is very poor at supporting multiple schools.”
    Stu · 17 September 2026 · App Store
  • Awful app
    “While parentpay allows parents to do auto top up, arbor can’t.”
    Tess · 28 August 2026 · App Store
  • ABSOLUTE UNSENSATIONAL
    “I like how you can submit your assignments, I like how you can see your timetable”
    Random Man Ran An Marathon · 27 February 2026 · App Store

Latest news

  1. CBPE releases its investment in The Key Group to Permira, Mayer Brown
  2. Cardiff chooses Arbor MIS and Arbor Finance for 128 schools
  3. The future of ScholarPack, Integris and Arbor
  4. MIS turf war: Firm launches £4m court battle with rival, Schools Week
  5. Welcoming Habitude to Arbor
  6. Introducing the Arbor School Management Suite
  7. Arbor joins The Key Group

Contacts and company data

Legal entity
Arbor Education Partners Limited, 4th Floor, Fora Great Eastern Street, 21-33 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3EJ, United Kingdom
Company number
07790198, registered 28 September 2011
Parent
Arbor Education Partners Group Ltd, 09678031
Group owner
The Key Support Services Limited, 08268303, since 10 December 2020
Previous name
L&P 243 Limited, until October 2011
Security
ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials
Hosting
Amazon Web Services, London

Alternatives to Arbor

How we built this profile

  1. Sources. Facts come from the company’s own website, press room, imprint and careers page, from Wikipedia, the App Store, Google Play and Trustpilot. Every source is listed on the page.
  2. Checks. Kinescope checked every number on 6 October 2026. Prices, ratings and job counts change, and we refresh them with each update.
  3. Our words. Descriptions are written by the Kinescope team. Quotes from reviews are marked with the author and source, and we do not rate the company ourselves.
  4. Corrections. The company can send new facts or corrections, and we update the profile.

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Arbor FAQ

A cloud management information system for state schools, trusts and local authorities in England and Wales. It covers registers, behaviour, assessment, census returns, parent communication and payments.

Arbor’s G-Cloud document of September 2026 lists primary schools at £3.40, £7 or £11.80 per student for Core, Comms or Perform, plus a £2,500 base fee. Secondary schools pay £4.40 to £12.50 per student plus a £5,000 base fee. Trusts get scale discounts.

Parents use the Arbor Parent App on iPhone or Android, or the Parent Portal in a browser. The app works only for parents at schools that use Arbor, and its store listing sends parents with questions to the school office.

In UK stores the Parent App scores 1.4 on the App Store and 1.9 on Google Play, the Student App 1.3 and 1.2. Reviews on Trustpilot mention failed logins, slow loading and trouble with children at more than one school.

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