How to Create a Parents Evening

In this guide, we will show you how to create a new Parents Evening which Parents can book on to via MCAS.

In the scenario you have more than one Teacher assigned to a class see Event Scope in this guide.

There are four core sections to a Parents Evening, which will be explained in detail below;

• Parents Evening Details
• Event Scope
• Travel Time
• Multiple Teachers assigned to a Class
• Event Location
• Interview Allocation Rules

There are also several additional areas which will be covered;

• Further options
• Manage Bookings
• Outstanding Bookings
• Auto Allocate
• Reset Allocations
• Send Meeting Invites
• Booking Parents Evening Slots on MCAS

Access: The permissions required to create a Parents Evening are found in the Diary Module of Config>Setup>Roles & Permissions.

See also:

• How to Configure Parents Evenings in MCAS
• How to Setup and Test Office 365 or Google Integration
• How to use Parents Evening in the Teacher App

Guides to share with parents:

• How Parents book appointments in web version MCAS
• How Parents book appointments in the Phone App MCAS

Go to Modules>Diary>Parents Evenings.

You will then see the following screen, which will display any previously created Parents Evenings.

To create a new one, press New.

Parents Evening Details

This section is where you would set the Name, Date and Booking Availability etc for the Parents Evening.

• Name – Enter the Name of the Parents Evening, this is the Name that will appear to Parents in MCAS.
• Date – Enter the Date that the Parents Evening will take place.
• Start & End Times – Enter the times that the Parents Evening will Start and End.
• Booking Available – Select the Date and Time that you would like Parents to be able to begin booking slots for the Parents Evening.
• Booking Deadline – Select the Date and Time that you would like bookings to close.
• Enable Parents Evening – Ticking this box makes the Parents Evening active.
• View Only – If you select this option the parents will be able to view the Parents Evening in MCAS but will not be able to make bookings. Note: if you choose to select this option you will need to assign bookings on the Parents behalf.
• Send Push Notifications – Any Parents who have the MCAS app installed and have allowed Push Notifications will receive a notification at the time that booking becomes available.
• Online Parents Evening – Select this If the Parent’s evening is not taking place in Person and you will need to send invitations to online meetings via either Microsoft Teams or Google Meet.

Note: If you plan to use Online Parents Evenings you will first need to set up Microsoft or Google integration, for more information on how to do this please see How to Setup and Test Office 365 or Google Integration.

Event Scope

This next section is where you would outline which Students the Parents Evening is available for, which Staff members the interviews are with and how long the interviews will last.

Below is a workable example where we want to create a Parents Evening for the Parents of SEN Students in specific Year 7 Classes.

• In Year Groups only Year 7 was selected, meaning the Parents Evening will only be available to Year 7 Students.
• In Class Groups we have selected 3 Classes so the Parents Evening will only be available to Students in those 3 Classes.
• In interviews we’ve selected Class Teachers so the meetings will take place with the Class Teachers for the respective Classes and will last 10 minutes.
• We’ve selected a Student Filter looking at the (V) SEN Report Group meaning that the Parents Evening will only be available to students who are members of the (V) SEN Report Group.

The Year Group scope will mean that whichever Year Group you select, only Students from that Year Group will be available.

If you select Subject Groups, the Parents Evening will only be available to Students who are taking the chosen Subject will be available.

If you select Class Groups, the Parents Evening will only be available to Students who are members of the selected Class.

If you select to use a Student Filter you can choose between Report Group, Tutor Group and House, and only Students who are part of the Group you select will be able to see the Parents Evening.

The Interviews are also crucial, you must select the correct option based on which Staff type the MIS provides for the type of Group you selected.

• For example, if you choose Class Groups, then you need Class Teacher or Main Teacher in the Interview section.
• If you have selected to assign the interviews by Year Groups and would like the Interviews to take place with the Students Tutors you will need to select Form Tutors.

So in the example a Primary School has students taught in Tutor Groups and wants to set up a Year 5 Parents Evening then the Event Scope would look like the screenshot below.

For information on Include Travel time in scheduling see Travel Time section in this guide.

Important Notes:

• You will always need to make at least one selection in Year Groups, Subject Groups or Class Groups, and have made a selection in Interviews before you will be able to Save the Parents Evening.
• If no Appointments generate, it is likely because this section is incorrect or the combination is not compatible.

Note: If a school wishes to organise a Parents‘ Evening specifically for SEN students with their SENDCO, they should first create a Teaching Class designated for these students. All SEN students should then be added to this Class, and the SENDCO should be assigned as the Main Teacher. This setup ensures that parents can book sessions directly with the SENDCO, facilitating a structured and efficient meeting process. 

Travel Time

Include Travel Time in scheduling: This is used if parents need time in between appointments to travel to the next appointment in the instance where the school is a large site and the appointments are located in different buildings.

If required tick to Include Travel Time in scheduling then define the Travel time amount in minutes.

IMPORTANT: Setting the Travel time amount in minutes will not have any effect on the Parents Evening slot times , these will stay the same. This would just mean that parents can’t book consecutive appointments.

It doesn’t matter if you use ‘Individual Room ‘ or ‘Communal Space, it will block out the next time slot or won’t allow consecutive slots.

The Travel time amount minutes option is then related to how many meetings it will block out after your meeting is already booked, for example;

• Meeting time = 5 mins > Travel time in minutes = 2minutes > this stops the parent booking one meeting ahead of a meeting already booked. 
• Meeting time = 5 mins > Travel time in minutes = 7 minutes > this stops the parent booking two meetings consecutively after a meeting already booked

Multiple Teachers Assigned to A Class

If you have more than one Teacher assigned to the Class or Group as per the example below seen in Groups>Associated Staff we can see there are two Members of Staff assigned to the Tutor Group

For guidance on assigning Staff to Classes or Groups see How to Add Staff to Teaching Classes and/or Groups

In this scenario go to Modules>Diary>Parents Evening then in Event Scope> Interviews choose the required roles, you can click on more than one.

Event Location

This section offers you two options, it is down to you/your Staff which one you select;

Individual Rooms – This means that the interviews will take place in the Room that is Timetabled for the Class/Group.

Communal Space – Allows you to select a designated Room where all interviews will take place at their allocated times.

Interview Allocation Rules

Lastly is the Interview Allocation Rules section, which also provides two options;

Sibling interviews are allocated – If the Class/Group contains Siblings, you can set out that they will share an interview (Together) or that they will each have their own interview (Independently).

Multiple parental attendees are allocated – If both Parents are attending Parents Evening for their Child, you can set out that they either share an interview (Together) or that they can both book their own interview (Independently).

If you select either option as Together, an additional section will appear below.

This section allows you to Add exceptions to the Interview Allocation Rules so for example if you have selected that Multiple Parental Attendees are allocated Together, but there is one Student whos Parents will need to attend separately, you can select the Student in this section and tick the box in the Parental Exception column, this will allow both Parents to book interviews Separately.

Once you have completed all four sections to your desired settings, scroll back to the top of the page and press Create.

Once completed, the Parents Evening will now appear on the Parents Evenings page.

Further options;

If needed, you can then select the Parents Evening and press Actions which provides you with further five options;

• Manage Bookings – Allows you to manually manage any Bookings and to mark some Appointments as unavailable (perhaps to reserve for non MCAS users or to give Staff a break).
• Outstanding Bookings – Allows you to view any Outstanding Bookings beyond the deadline.
• Auto Allocate – This will randomly allocate each Student to an Appointment – Please use with Caution as this can overwrite existing Bookings.
• Reset Allocations – Removes all existing Bookings.
• Send meeting invites – Allows you to send meeting invites to Parents (Only for use with an Online/Virtual Parents Evening).

The most useful section will be Manage Bookings.

Manage Bookings

This area allows you to manage the Bookings for any/all Staff or Auto Allocate the interviews for them if required.

---

IMPORTANT : Please be aware that making changes to any part of a parents evening once it has gone live and parents have made bookings may cause existing bookings to be lost. The system will pop up the following warning and if proceeding it is irreversible.  

---

If there is an interview time that a Teacher cannot commit to or work beyond, right click on it and press Set as Not Available.

It will update to show Not Available. This means it cannot be booked and will not appear as available for Parents to try and book.

You can also use Manual Allocation to add a slot for a specific parent. To do this, Right Click on the slot and select Manual Allocation.

This will open the Manual Allocation menu, select the Student you would like to book the appointment for from the drop down and once you’re happy click Save.

The appointment will then display in Manage Bookings.

Outstanding Bookings

This section will show any Outstanding Bookings based on the selections you made in the configurations of the Parents Evening.

In this section you are able to add a note to log any contact with the Parent regarding the Parents Evening by clicking on the Speech Bubble in the Notes column.

Auto Allocate

As stated earlier in the guide, Auto Allocate will randomly allocate each Student to an Appointment for the select Teacher and Parents Evening.

Important Note: If used, Auto Allocate WILL OVERWRITE any existing Bookings so please use this with caution.

To use Auto Allocate, select the parents evening using the tick box on the left and then go to Actions > Auto Allocate.

You will see the following confirmation message, click Proceed.

You’ll see the following confirmation in the top right.

You can then go to Actions > Manage Bookings to review the schedule.

Reset Allocations

Selecting Reset Allocations will delete any Parents Evening bookings that have already been made for the selected Parents Evening.

Important: Once deleted, these bookings cannot be recovered.

Send Meeting Invites

This option is for Online Parents Evenings Only, it will send an email to all parents with a booking containing a link to attend their online Parents Evening appointment.