timetabling students'
choices into options (electives)
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Options for Windows is a well-known program for analysing and organising the subject Choices (electives) that students make in the optional part of their curriculum. You can download a Tutorial version from this site.
Options
is designed
to help you streamline the annual business of arranging the subject Choices into
an Options Pattern, ready for timetabling.
This process is often done for students about to enter Year/grade 10 and
Year/grade 12.
It is important to:
| Get the highest
satisfaction rate for the students, to let them study the subject choices they have
chosen. This improves students' motivation, and Exam results. And improves relations with parents. |
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| Keep the cost of staffing the curriculum as low as possible. This is particularly important if the course lasts 2 or 3 years. |
Options is designed in the same friendly and intuitive way as TimeTabler and StaffCover.
The free download version includes an interactive Tutorial which takes less than an hour to work through, during which time you see both the manual and automatic ways to create an efficient Options Pattern.
In outline, the
6 steps in using Options are:
| 1. | Students Names can be entered from the key-board, or electronically from a file produced by your school or college Admin System, or from a spreadsheet. |
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| 2. | The
students Subject Choices can be entered very quickly. You have a choice of 3 different methods, including the new TOOLS system for Parents/Students to enter their Choices from home via the internet to reduce paperwork. Have a look at more details of this great new feature. |
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| 3. | Options then analyses the data for you, rapidly producing a Clash Table and other reports. |
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| 4. | Trial patterns
of Option Blocks (or
Pools or
Columns) can be quickly drawn
on screen, with the Subjects arranged in any pattern,
All your patterns can be kept in a Library if you wish. |
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| 5. | Options then quickly shows you how well it would suit your students.
It shows you:
Options has a number of tools to allow you to manipulate and fine-tune the groups (for example, there are buttons to Bunch or Equalise, so you can experiment . . . see the screen shown below). This helps you to obtain the most effective and cost-efficient Options for your Year 10 or Year 12 (Lower Sixth) students, while also aiming to keep students and parents happy. |
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| 6. | When a final
pattern has been chosen, and the timetable completed, the Option groups can
be linked to the teacher and the room and to the scheduled times of the week,
to produce neat printouts of:
(This data can be exported automatically from TimeTabler.)
This helps you
to ensure a very neat and well-organised start to the new term. |
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| See what experienced Users say. |
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click on items in the menu to see more details.
If you have
any queries, please e-mail them to:
keith@timetabler.com
We will answer any questions you may have about using
the software with your particular curriculum.
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© Chris & Keith Johnson