When using a hierarchical standards bank, parent standards are the top-level standard which have one or more directly-assessed child standards. More information on the structure of standards in the bank can be found here.

• The title of a parent standard should be relatively short to ensure reports (e..g proficiency transcripts) can be appropriately compact. Use the description for the full text of a standard.
• Weight is optional; leave it blank for the weight to inherit from the child standards. To make all parent standards equal in weight, give each a weight of 1.
• When building your standards bank, always create parent standards first since child standards are required to belong to a parent standard.
• The standard type and content area of child standards are inherited from the parent standard.
• Standards can belong to more than one standards bank. When adding a child standard to a bank, ensure that the parent standard also belongs to the bank; a parent standard can belong to a bank even if not all of it's children do.

More information on managing standards is available in these documents:

• Managing your Standards Banks over Time
• Managing Parent Standards
• Managing Child Standards