The 'maximum appointments per student per parent' option

The Maximum appointments per student per parent option can be set when creating a new parent's evening to restrict the number of appointments a parent can make in respect of a student. It is useful where students are taught by a large number of teachers and the logistics and timings of an evening mean that not all parents could see all teachers. This limit never applies to appointments made by an administrator.

• It is not used to stop appointments being made on different dates, that is done by default as long as you set the evening itself up with multiple dates within it.
• It is not used to stop both parents linked to a student from booking appointments. Any parent with a record in your system can make an appointment (since appointments are between a parent and a teacher in respect of a student, not between the student and the teacher). Schools with concerns about both parents being able to book deal with this in different ways: some use Parent Login Codes and only send one code out per household; some are able to use a filter in their MIS to limit the parents that they bring into the system (usually by Priority or Relationship); whilst others accept that, in practice, only one parent will usually book the appointments and deal with any double booking as and when it arises.

For example: a secondary school has 9 classes for a student. When a parent logs in with this option set to  No Limit, they can book all 9 teachers for that student. If you set the limit to 5, the parent will be able to book a maximum of 5 appointments with that student's teachers (if the parent has several students involved in an evening they would be able to book up to 5 bookings for each student.). Once the limit has been reached the system informs them of this.