01
National templates
Department of Education-aligned, statutorily-grounded, ready to circulate. Pre-cited against the relevant Acts and Circulars. You fill in your school; the structure is fixed.
Giraft — An Ark HQ product
Giraft · An Ark HQ product
Run the school. Not the filing cabinet.
Policy lifecycle software that keeps every policy current, approved, audit-ready and grounded in Irish law — without the spreadsheet or the version-control headache.
Giraft
School policy management · An Ark HQ product
Run your school. Not your filing cabinet.
Type your school name and it pre-fills a Child Safeguarding Statement — address, principal, roll number — for you to review, cited against the Children First Act 2015 where it is required. Then it watches Irish education law so you're told which signed policies a legal change affects.
See a sample portalWhere the time goes back
Hoursback each term
Drafting, chasing the Board, version control, and re-reading every circular to catch the one that matters — handled across the draft → review → seal → re-review lifecycle, so the time goes back to running the school.
Watches the law. Drafts the edit. Seals the approval.
Siobhán DohertyCompliance Specialist"Schools used to wake up to a 90-page red-line. Now they wake up to a checklist of three changes."
Approvals · This term
Sep–May
EU
Hosted
SHA-256
Sealed
Hosted in EUYour school’s data never leaves the European Union.
School-level isolationYour policies are private to your school. No-one else can see them.
GDPR-compliantSigned data processing agreement on request.
02 · The pipeline
However a policy starts, it runs the same five states.
National template, generated, or brought-your-own — every policy lands in one pipeline, so the question is never “is this current?” but “what state is it in, and who owns the next step?”
- 01DraftWritten, generated, or uploaded.
- 02In reviewCirculated; comments + AskArk edits land in one panel.
- 03ApprovedBoard-voted by magic link. SHA-256 sealed.
- 04Due for reviewThe radar flags a citation that changed.
- 05Re-sealedA successor version supersedes; the lineage carries forward.
The cycle restarts — when the law moves, or on the policy’s own review date
03 · Watches the law for you
When Irish education law changes, Giraft flags which of your policies cite the section that changed.
It monitors the Department of Education circulars, the Oireachtas Acts feed, and the statutory-instruments register — twelve sources, continuously. When a section changes, it re-runs citation checks against your live policies and surfaces exactly the ones affected, with an edit already drafted. You don’t have to read every circular to catch the ones that affect you.
Regulation update detected0 / 3 queued
Education (Amendment) Act 2024 · Section 12
Three of your policies cite the section that changed.
Review all 3 →- Admission PolicyReferences §29 — wording changeReview
- Code of BehaviourReferences §29 — wording changeReview
- Bí Cinéalta PolicyCross-reference to amended definitionReview
04 · Three ways to start
Three ways to start a policy. One pipeline after that.
Draft from a national template, generate from our catalogue, or bring your existing work — every policy ends up in the same review, approval, and audit pipeline.
02
Giraft templates
Our curated catalogue, drafted from Irish education law and refined with school feedback. Generated in 30–90 seconds, then yours to review.
03
Bring your own
Upload your existing PDF or DOCX, or paste from any AI tool. Giraft bakes it straight into the review cycle — you do not start over.
05 · Circulation & comments
Every comment, in one panel. Every reply, drafted for you.
Circulate a policy and every staff, parent, and Board comment lands in one panel beside the text — no chasing email threads, no PDFs scribbled on, no “I sent you that on WhatsApp three weeks ago.” For each comment, AskArk drafts a defence or a precise edit; you decide which to accept.
Review feedback · 2 awaitingv3 · circulating
- 3. Reporting Procedures2 days agoJ. O'Connor (Deputy)
“The escalation path here doesn’t mention the DLP by name. Should it?”
AskArk · suggested responseThe DLP is named in §1 and referenced in the cross-section flow. Children First Act 2015 §14 establishes the role; we already point to it.
Approve defenceSuggest edit - 5. Online Safeguarding3 days agoM. Walsh (Parent)
“Could you spell out what 'inappropriate use' means in this section?”
AskArk · suggested responseReasonable ask — current wording is general. Suggest substituting a definition with concrete examples (filters, messaging apps, confidential material).
Approve defenceSuggest edit
The suggested responses are drafted by AskArk — our assistant, a peer Ark HQ product — grounded in the cited Acts.
06 · One-click edits
When you’d rather change the text than defend it.
AskArk drafts a precise diff — strike for what goes, highlight for what replaces it — exactly what would change and nothing else. One click applies it, and every change is recorded against the comment that triggered it, as an audit-trail event.
Suggested edit · §5 Online SafeguardingPending
AskArk The reviewer is asking for clarity on what counts as inappropriate use. Substituting a definition with examples should resolve.
−Inappropriate use of school technology will be addressed under this policy.
+Inappropriate use — including unauthorised messaging apps, sharing of confidential material, or attempts to bypass content filters — is addressed under this policy.
Edit applied to v3 · 05:59 PM · audit_event #4127 · triggered by M. Walsh comment
Accept editDismissRecorded as audit-trail event
07 · Board approval
Passwordless Board approval. No logins. No apps. No helpdesk tickets.
Board members vote by magic link — each one personal, single-use, time-bound. They click, read the sealed draft, and record a vote. No account to create, no app to install. Quorum reached, you seal the policy with one click.
Giraft
Response required · Expires Friday 2 May 2026
CBSCBS Midleton
Board approval requested
Dear Chair, please review the full policy and record your vote before the link expires.
PolicyCode of BehaviourVersion 4
Review & Vote on this Policy →Single-use magic link · no password08 · Seal & audit trail
Cryptographic seal. Full audit trail.
Every approved policy carries its complete lineage — who voted, what they said, every diff applied, and the comment that triggered it. A SHA-256 seal certifies that the Board-approved text is the text in force today. When an inspector asks “how did this come to exist?”, you hand them a URL.
Code of BehaviourApproved
CBS Midleton · Version 4 · Sealed 1 May 2026SHA-256 · 9f2a…c41b
- Sealed policy · A. Murphy (Chair)1 May 2026 · 14:22
- Voted Approve · J. O’Connor (Deputy)1 May 2026 · 11:08
- Voted Approve · M. Walsh (Member)30 Apr 2026 · 18:14
- Accepted edit · §5 · triggered by M. Walsh29 Apr 2026 · 09:31
09 · What changes for you
What changes for you.
One sealed source of truth.
No more “which version is live?” The SHA-256-sealed text is the one in force, and everyone is looking at it.
A URL, not a scramble.
The full lineage — votes, comments, diffs, seal — is a link you hand over. The night-before panic disappears.
Magic links, not meetings.
Board members vote from their inbox. Quorum and the seal happen without a calendar invite or a helpdesk ticket.
10 · Ask Giraft anything
The questions schools ask first.
Answered the same way reviewers and Board members talk to your policies inside Giraft — grounded, with citations, by AskArk.
Often the same day for a template policy; generated drafts take 30–90 seconds, then go at your pace. The Department of Education-mandated policies (Child Safeguarding Statement, Admissions, CCTV) interpolate your school details into the statutory template in minutes. Generated policies then run through review, Board approval, and seal at your pace.