E10 - Collapse classes

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:59 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble

Preamble

This report shows opportunities for collapsing classes per year level, for a significant cost saving of a teacher and room. The report analyses all the cross-line swap options for students to move, and looks to reduce disruption by limiting to the smallest number of changed teacher relationships.

To ensure the report is accurate:

all classes for a given subject must have the same subject name, otherwise the classes will appear as different subjects
the maximum class size must be set for all classes, else the collapse operation may be overloading classes beyond the allowable limit.

Only subjects that have multiple classes running can be considered in the report.

Report columns:

Class: Each class (course code and class identifier) in the selected year level are listed.

Faculty: The faculty of the class.

Teacher: If teachers are assigned, their code will display.

Current size: The current class size.

Students left: if the class were to be collapsed, the Students left field displays how many students E10 is not able to re-assign, as they would have subject clashes. Classes with a remaining size of, say, one student left may require further investigation, as perhaps this student may drop this class, take it externally or leave the school – i.e. a very low remaining size may still have some options for collapsing the class.

New teacher relationships: shows the number of different teacher relationships that students will have as a result of collapsing the class. Ideally this is kept low. For simple collapsing, the number of changed relationships will be the same number as the size of the class being collapsed, as each student moves out of this old class. Where there is a complex collapse and students have to change multiple classes in 'other' subjects to facilitate the change, there will be more changed relationships than just that related to the collapsed class. Sometimes the disruption is too large to warrant collapsing the class, despite the cost savings, or perhaps the beneficial low student to teacher relationships may mean the class is not collapsed despite this being an option.

Old class sizes: shows the class sizes prior to collapsing, and allows comparison with the proposed sizes.

New class sizes: Shows the new class sizes after the collapse. The collapsed class will show here as a size of zero to indicate it is now empty.

Details: Lists each affected student, showing the class swaps affecting them.

Do it: Executes the action of collapsing the class and re-assigning the students to alternate classes.

Report example

Consider 11GMA.E in the image.

Current size: 11GMA.E currently has 11 students in the class.
Old class sizes: shows that there are currently five Year 11 GMA classes running, and the class size of each is shown.
New class sizes: shows that, with some student shuffling, we need only run four 11GMA classes.
New teacher relationships: shows that 11 students will have a change of teacher by collapsing the class.
Students left: There are no students left without a 11GMA class. E10 can fully allocate the 11 students to other existing classes.

Collapse Details

The Details button enables the slide out screen showing each affected student, and the class swaps affecting them by collapsing the class.

Do it - Collapsing a class

Clicking this button executes the collapse and makes all changes to the affected class lists.

Once this is done, the class itself is not removed from the Class data screen. The user must delete the class manually, or, if the user wants to retain the class in the file, perhaps consider:

- removing any assigned teacher from the class

- removing any rooms allocated to the class

- removing the class from the grid

- adjusting the class size for this class to zero, in case students are inadvertently placed back into the class.

Tracking changes

To report the changes to the students, either:

Export the Details screen to Excel (via ctrl-X) and distribute
Perform a 'Compare files' action with the saved version of the timetable to produce a list of the changes. Also consider printing marked up change timetables for these students, as well as printing a text report of the changes.