# Arbor Parent App — Parent & Guardian Portal

> Parent portal for school communication, progress tracking, and payments. (iPhone/iPad app by Arbor Education Partners.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/arbor-parent-app/id1448707412 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Arbor Education Partners](https://appshunter.io/developer/602224921)
- Category: Education, Reference
- Price: Free
- Rating: 1.90/5 from 7 App Store ratings · 318 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 15.1 · 45 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2019-04-18
- Data updated: 2026-09-01
- Monetization: free
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/arbor-parent-app/id1448707412/reviews.md

## What is Arbor Parent App?

Arbor lets you book parent/guardian consultation slots, register your child for a club or trip, and manage payments all from one place. You can also use it to check in on your child’s attendance, behaviour & academic progress.

Arbor is only for parents at schools using Arbor Management Information System (MIS). If you’re not sure whether this applies to you, we recommend contacting your school office.

Use Arbor to:
- Take a look at your child’s key attendance information, including their average attendance for the year so far 
- Edit contact details for your child such as your home address or phone number
- Register your child for an after-school club
- Register your child for an upcoming school trip
- Take a look at your child's behaviour information, including positive & negative behaviour points awarded this year
- Manage your child’s payment accounts and pay for meals or trips directly 
- Track your child's academic progress, including the targets they’re working towards this year
- Download report cards
- Book slots at parent/guardian consultations
- See your child’s timetable
- Add new medical information about your child
- Check upcoming homework assignments

Having trouble? Please reach out directly to your school office for help.

## Key features

- Track attendance and behavior
- Monitor academic progress
- Register for clubs and trips
- Manage payments for meals and trips
- Book parent consultations
- View child's timetable
- Check homework assignments

## What do users think of Arbor Parent App?

Overall sentiment: negative

**Pros**

- 🚀 Versatile and has many options
- 👍 Good app for parents to view child's progress

**Cons**

- 🐛 Frequent login issues
- 👎 Confusing and unintuitive layout
- 🔒 Forced password changes every 180 days
- 💳 No option to add reminders for low meal balance
- 🤯 Complicated to book clubs and appointments
- 🤔 Lack of confirmation for purchases
- 🤷‍♀️ Difficult to access important information

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Login issues with incorrect password errors
- Inconsistent behavior across web and mobile versions
- Inability to delete or archive old assignments and activities

**Most requested features**

- Add a calendar view for events and appointments
- Improve messaging functionality with better organization and notifications
- Allow parents to manage multiple children from a single account
- Integrate with digital wallets and enable auto top-up for meal balances

## Recent user reviews (10 of 318)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/arbor-parent-app/id1448707412/reviews.md

### 1/5 — Review

*2026-08-17, version 37*

awful, can’t login even after resetting my password numerous times.

### 2/5 — Lots of potential but utterly infuriating interface

*2026-07-24, version 36*

The Arbor app looks nice and has plenty of features. However, it’s overcomplicated and lacks basic user-friendliness.

If you have multiple children, they are separated, so you have to keep switching between them, rather than (for example) booking school meals for each child on a particular day in one go with ease (instead, it’s SIX presses of buttons to go via menus and sub-menus get to another child’s meal for the same day).

Changing meals requires removing a meal, confirming, then going back into the menu before you can change it.

Payments are strewn around all over the place, separated into different menus.

Viewing payment history to check if you’ve already paid for an item is also not intuitive – you go to Payments and it’s not there, and there’s no way to access it from the payments screen (instead, you have to go to the Main Menu, scroll down and click ‘Invoices’… why not call it something more obvious like ‘Payment History’ or ‘View Past Payments’?)

When on certain pages, it’s obvious you may want to go to a related page (e.g. if I’m on the Payments menu, I may want to View Payment History to make sure I’ve not already paid for something!) but there are no shortcut links provided on most pages, so this requires going back to another menu to find your way from there, as per the above example.

There’s really no need to have Clubs, Trips, School Shop and Payments as four separate menus – if they’re separate then at least have some shortcuts to get between them easily rather than having to go via the main menu all the time.

And one of the most egregious features is that, when you get a message from the school, the push notification from Arbor doesn’t tell you what the message is – you have to click on the notification to take you into the app. That’s not all, though – once inside the app, the message doesn’t even appear, so you have to then go to the right menu, to click on ‘Messages’, and then select the new message that’s just been received to see what it says! It’s so badly thought out.

And possibly the most infuriating issue: it doesn’t even save your debit/credit card details, so EVERY time you want to make a payment, you have to enter ALL your card details from scratch. It doesn’t support ApplePay either (despite it having existed in the UK since 2015).

There are bugs, too – sometimes (though not all the time) when you go to login, it doesn’t put your password in for you, even though you’ve clicked on the ‘Password’ field, and then selected the option to input your password automatically via your iPhone.

Overall, there’s lots of potential in this app, but the interface is utterly exhausting to use, nothing is where you would expect it to be, and it then requires far too much clicking, scrolling. It’s as fiddly as you can imagine, as you endlessly click around to try and get where you want to go.

The menu layout and navigation needs a complete rethink – it very clearly lacks any thorough real-world testing.

Fix this, and it could be a superb app that’s an asset to any school, parent/carer and child – but, even as someone who is very computer literate, it often has me tearing my hair out due to its lack of user-friendliness.

### 1/5 — Very hard to book clubs and No invoices provided

*2026-07-15, version 35*

This has been the worst by far parent app. Its time consuming. I have two children attending clubs morning and afternoon. To book them in I have to deal with this more than 30 minutes every time. Topping up 4 accounts, 2 breakfasts and 2 after school . After paying I have to go to each of them (4 times again) book the days and the times. 
I don’t want to think parents with 3 or more children. Very chaotic.
And another thing, I cannot download any invoice,  thing that I need to declare my childcare costs every month. 
Rubbish

### 1/5 — TELL YOUR SCHOOLS TO STICK TO PARENT PAY

*2026-07-15, version 35*

This app is a total farce compared to parent pay. Everything takes longer to do, requires more clicks, it clunky bordering on unusable. Speak to the admin team at your school that have to suffer on the other side. No one consulted them, it so much harder for them. Schools have to be responsible with budgets but don’t let deploy this abomination

### 2/5 — Notifications not descriptive

*2026-07-15, version 35*

The notification appears as “New message received. Tap for details” why can’t the message be descriptive rather visiting to app every  time to understand about  that notifications.
The message read and unread should be highlighted with different background or foreground colour, as it is very difficult to differentiate both.

### 1/5 — Inexplicably bad

*2026-07-14, version 35*

Logged out and seemingly never to be let in again. Linked to a school that doesn’t use it, not to the one that does and can’t change. Arbor team seemingly think parenting isn’t time consuming and stressful enough so have added this fresh hell for us all. Thanks!

### 1/5 — Doesn’t work

*2026-07-14, version 35*

Always glitchy and I can’t log in

### 1/5 — It’s still awful

*2026-07-13, version 35*

The process for booking a child into wrap around care is way more complicated than it needs to be - I need to add funds before I can even register for a place, and even though the session only costs  £1.85, the minimum I can top up is £2. Make it make sense. Diabolic app that appears to have been designed by someone who never set foot in a school let alone had a child attend one.

### 4/5 — Unbelievable

*2026-07-13, version 34*

After last update app is unusable. Not recognising old password. Tried resetting it and that doesn’t work either.
What’s the point in updating if you’re going to break it?

### 1/5 — Terrible

*2026-07-12, version 34*

Absolute dog shot of an app. Useless

## Frequently asked questions about Arbor Parent App

### What does the Arbor Parent App do?

The Arbor Parent App allows parents and guardians to manage various aspects of their child's school life. You can track attendance, behavior, and academic progress, register for clubs and trips, make payments for school activities, and view your child's timetable and homework.

### What are the key features of the Arbor Parent App?

Key features include monitoring attendance and behavior points, tracking academic progress and targets, registering for school clubs and trips, managing payments for meals and excursions, booking parent consultation slots, and viewing homework assignments.

### Is the Arbor Parent App free to use?

Based on the provided information, the Arbor Parent App is free to use. There are no mentions of subscription fees, in-app purchases, or advertisements within the app.

### Who can use the Arbor Parent App?

This app is exclusively for parents and guardians of children attending schools that use the Arbor Management Information System (MIS). If your school does not use Arbor MIS, you will not be able to use this application.

### How do I get help if I have a problem with the app?

If you encounter any issues or have questions while using the Arbor Parent App, you should reach out directly to your school office for assistance. They are equipped to help you with any problems you may experience.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 38 — 2026-08-26

We’ve done some important behind-the-scenes updates to keep the app running smoothly.

### 37 — 2026-08-12

We’ve done some important behind-the-scenes updates to keep the app running smoothly.

### 36 — 2026-07-17

We’ve done some important behind-the-scenes updates to keep the app running smoothly.

### 35 — 2026-07-13

We’ve done some important behind-the-scenes updates to keep the app running smoothly.

### 34 — 2026-07-08

We’ve done some important behind-the-scenes updates to keep the app running smoothly.

## Apps similar to Arbor Parent App

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [EduLink One](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/edulink-one/id1188809029) | 4.3 (3) | Free | Education |
| [Teachers2Parents](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/teachers2parents/id1293160257) | 3.0 (2) | Free | Education |
| [Seneca](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/seneca/id1631302657) | 3.3 (18) | Free | Education |
| [School Gateway](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/school-gateway/id596039615) | 2.5 (2) | Free | Education |
| [Satchel One](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/satchel-one/id908071717) | 3.7 (379) | Free | Education |
| [MyChildAtSchool](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mychildatschool/id1394575255) | 4.6 (191) | Free | Education |

## More apps by Arbor Education Partners

- [ScholarPack Parents](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/scholarpack-parents/id1485548694)
- [Arbor Student App](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/arbor-student-app/id6499041617)

All apps by Arbor Education Partners: https://appshunter.io/developer/602224921

## Related topics

[aubor](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/aubor) · [arbor](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/arbor) · [ardor](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/ardor)

---

*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-01.*