Pastoral Notes (Staff)

Log and view wellbeing notes for your students

Nicholas Hillier avatar
Written by Nicholas Hillier
Updated over a week ago

What are Pastoral Notes?

Pastoral notes are a way for you to communicate and log well-being notes for an individual student or multiple students.

Pastoral notes are a powerful tool as they allow you to assign a pastoral type & sub-type, name the event, provide a description, and add any additional notes. There is also the option to mark this note as sensitive and to add this to the watchlist. Sensitive notes restrict who can review these notes and the watchlist will add an icon next to your student's name so it flags other staff members of this event. ​ Read more from Wikipedia.

☝🏽 Note - School has the ability to choose from 4 names for recording notes - those are Pastoral (default) / Conduct / Behavorial / Well-being - the support articles might have them used interchangeably. It means the same. Read how to change here.

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Adding Pastoral Notes

There are 3 ways to add pastoral/conduct note :-

  1. From the homeboard

  2. From individual students profile

  3. From pastoral/conduct page
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Adding from the Homeboard

From the Homeboard on the web app, make your student selection by checking the circle on the top right cover on the student card, then click on 'Pastoral / Conduct / Behavioural / Well-being' at the top right of the homeboard screen.

To only add note to an individual student, hover over that student's name, you will see a drop-down menu, click on the 'Pastoral' option

A new window will open > choose the pastoral category (and subcategory, if applicable) and fill in the incident details, actions taken, any additional notes, and toggle on if you wish this information to be added to the watchlist and/or marked as sensitive.
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Adding from individual students profile

Pastoral notes can also be added right from within the Student profile, and will be saved there, in the records section:

Note : If a note is marked as sensitive, anything written in the 'note' field will be hidden from staff members without access to 'Sensitive Pastoral'.

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Adding from pastoral record page

Pastoral note can added from the pastoral record page, from the top right corner button called + Add Pastoral Note as shown below :





All Options of the New Pastoral window
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Old View Desktop

New View Desktop
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​Without category selected

​With category selected


β€‹πŸ” Search & Add Student - search the students you want to add note for. You can add note for one or multiple students at once. If adding notes form homeboard, the selected students will appear automatically, more students can then be added/removed from here.
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​Select Category - based of the categories and sub-categories created by school admin, select the required category. Selecting a category will reveal the other options according to the settings set by admin for that category.
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​Note (description) - type in the conduct/behaviorial note for a student or group of students accordingly. You can now use rich text editor meaning set paragraphs, Bold, Italics, , add bullets, and hyperlinks
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Date/Time - select the date on which the conduct occurred. By default the date/time is taken auto filled to the current date/time, you can change this to select a back dated day.


​Points - points will appear if the category selected allows point fields. Add -/+ve points according to the behaviour. Note assigning points to multiple student will mean assigning points to all individual students in that multiple selection.
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Action - action will appear if the category selected allows action fields. Action is simply a text box which can be used to write actions actions taken by staff on the student behaviour for others to know. While exporting all notes, action has its own column, which can be used to analyse actions taken for a particular behavioural.
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​Additional Notes - additional notes is ditto to action field. Here you can add any other supplementary information or any required field as followed by your school.


​Attachments - you can add attachments in form text/image. The file must be a valid type from the following list: txt, rtf, csv, pdf, jpg, jpeg, png, docx, xlsx, pptx. and must be below 10.2MB.
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​Sensitivity - marking a note as sensitive will restrict who can view/edit the notes. Staff with access to 'View sensitive conduct notes' setting in Student Care (Nurture) settings under the Additional Permissions within the Staff Admin console can view the notes marked as sensitive.
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​Watchlist - enabling watch-list on a note, will add an icon next to your student's name, so it flags other staff members of the event. A watchlist can have an and end time enabled and will end on the selected date.


​Notifications - finally, you can choose whether you want the student and/or the student's connected contacts(s) to receive a notification about the Pastoral record. Any staff members that have notifications set for the student will automatically be notified.

Notifications Old View

Notifications New View
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Save - we don't have the draft facility yet, so don't forget to press the "Save" button.

Cancel - if you visit not to record a pastoral/conduct note midway, hit the cancel button.


Editing Pastoral Notes

  • To edit a Pastoral Note from the student's profile, navigate into the student profile and then to the 'Records' section. Use the filter to show only Pastoral notes, and click on the note. Then use the three dots on the right side of the popup to edit.

    Note: If you do not see the edit option, you have not been given permission to edit records by your school's Administrator. Contact an Admin in order to request that the record be edited.
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    If you have added this item to the 'Watchlist', you can then review the pastoral record by simply hovering over the icon on each student's Home Board Tile, as shown below:

    You can use the Watchlist filter on the right side of the Home Board to only view students on the Watchlist, and click into each Watchlist type to further filter:


    To edit a Pastoral note that is on the Watchlist, hover your mouse over the icon on the student's profile card and click on the note.
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    Select the three dots at the top right of the popup and select 'Edit'.


Sharing Pastoral Notes

Pastoral Notes can be shared with other staff members within Orah. One summary can be shared at a time to multiple staff. To share the record, click on the 'Share' button found on top right hand side of the record/note.

This will open a dialogue box where name of staff(s) needs to be entered. Their is also an option to add note which will be added in the email notification received by recipient staff member upon sharing the note/record.

Sharing option for staff within Orah

Sharing options for staff outside Orah


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Upon sharing the summary, recipient staff member will be receiving an email notification as shown below :

Email to staff member within Orah

Email to staff member outside Orah

Staff members who are not an Orah user will also be receiving an email with link to create an account


In-case of wrong share or for other reasons, the access of the summary can be revoked by using the same Share button. Staff members with whom the summary has been shared, will be listed out in the same share summary dialogue box. Use the X cross button to revoke access, which will be followed by a conformation with a green ribbon at the bottom 'Shared access revoked successfully'.

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☝🏽 Note
​- Sharing can only be done after a report is saved not prior to it.

- If a staff member doesn't has access to the student or the summary feature, sharing would supersede the permission only for that summary (a general note below will be displayed while sharing)
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Reviewing Pastoral Records

View Records Within Student Profile

- Records Tab

To locate a student's pastoral record history, hover over the student's name from the home board and 'view profile'. Click into the records section and use the filter to select pastoral. Change the date range to search if you would like.

You can then scroll through the student's pastoral notes, or use the export button to download the notes into a sheet.


- Reports Tab

If activated in your school's account*, you can also view a Pastoral Report for a student under the Reports tab in his/her profile.

Click on Reports and make sure that Pastoral Summary is selected in the menu. Below you can view a list of pastoral records over a time frame of your choosing, a pie chart of pastoral types, and any pastoral points earned by the student.

View All Pastoral Records

Pastoral records has a centralised view, that is all of students' pastoral records in one place. Read more about it here Pastoral Records Overview Page.
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*If the Pastoral Report is not visible in your school's account, please connect with your Customer Success Manager
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