E10 - Choice: Setting Course Prerequisites

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:52 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble
Why use prerequisites?
- How is this different to Forbidden Courses?
- Examples of when you might use prerequisites
Five minute overview of the prerequisite capability
Flythrough
Appendix: Common uses of prerequisites

Preamble

For a quick introduction, skip to the Five minute overview of the prerequisite capability section below.

Prefer to be shown? See an instructional video of this capability!

To help students achieve success, schools will often set prerequisite requirements for courses to ensure students have previously demonstrated the required capability. For example, entry to senior Physics might require high marks in a prior Mathematics study, or entry into a language study requires prior study in that language.

Edval's prerequisite capability enables schools to set these requirements during subject selection, ensuring students select courses for which they are eligible. Schools can set different mark thresholds for any course, and combine multiple requirements, including attendance or exam results.

Why use prerequisites?

The prerequisite capability is designed for use with Edval Choice and prerequisites are set before subject selection begins. Schools would use either the Forbidden courses capability or prerequisite capability.

In broad terms, schools upload student marks into Edval 10, set minimum or maximum thresholds for eligibility to relevant courses, then upload the course selection forms and requirements to Edval Choice. Once this is done, students can only select the courses for which they are eligible.

Where students haven't met requirements, schools often have systems in place whereby students, their parents and their teachers can agree on a support plan to help the student achieve success, should they take a course where they haven't met the prerequisite. Edval's prerequisite capability has the flexibility to adjust eligibility, enabling you to help students achieve success.

How is this different to Forbidden Courses?

In some ways, this is a replacement for Forbidden Courses. In the past, schools manually constructed spreadsheets listing each course that each student was ineligible for. Such a spreadsheet would have been manually put together based on schools' prerequisite rules. Using the prerequisites capability greatly speeds up the timetablers' work to prepare student eligibility in subject selection.

We advise schools to choose either the Forbidden courses or course prerequisite capability, as there is the possibility of raising conflicting eligibility if both facilities are used.

Examples of when you might use prerequisites

Edval's prerequisite capability can be used by schools to pause automatic entry into courses in these example circumstances:

ensuring a student has studied a specific course in a prior year
ensuring minimum marks are achieved (for example, senior Physics and prior Mathematics)
ensuring marks are below a maximum score (for example, low literacy result required for entry into a literacy support class)
ensuring an attendance requirement is met
ensuring an examination mark threshold is reached

Additionally, Edval's prerequisite capability supports multiple conditions:

ensuring multiple criteria are met in full (eg. Physics prerequisites: Maths mark > 80 AND Science > 75)
ensuring a single criterion from a list of options is met (Senior Art: Previous study in at least one Arts subject)

Five minute overview of the prerequisite capability

The Prereq column of the Courses table

The Prereq column shows prerequisite settings for courses. Double-click to add a prerequisite, and press DEL in the cell to remove.

Adding prerequisites to courses

Use the prerequisite editor to define your prerequisites rules:

Select AND to ensure both prerequisite requirements are met. Alternatively select OR for either prerequisite threshold to be met
Select at least or at most to specify whether a student needs to have a higher or lower mark than the threshold you specify
Enter the threshold mark as a percentage (0-100)
Click Add new prerequisite for additional rules.

Importing student marks

Import student marks as percentages in the Students screen:

Specify the data format you want to import.

List format (where each student has multiple rows)

Each row in list format contains either:

a single course and mark (eg '10ENG' and '66' for the student shown), or
a keyword and value as a percentage (eg. 'attendance' and '66' for the student shown)

Table format (multiple courses per row, one row per student)

Each row in table format is for a single student, where:

additional columns are headed with a course or keyword (eg. '10ENG', 'attendance')
the data in the column is the relevant mark or value as a percentage

Manual override of eligibility

You're able to manually override student eligibility as needed, via the right-click menu in the students table:

Reimporting results

If marks change, or more information becomes available, re-load your marks into Edval - the previous marks are replaced. Any eligibility you manually overrode is remembered.

Flythrough

Appendix: Common uses of prerequisites

What follows are instructions for achieving a number of common outcomes. Please get in contact with Edval if you have prerequisite requirements not outlined below.

Set a minimum mark for eligibility

This would be the most common use of prerequisites, ensuring students achieve a minimum required standard to be automatically eligible for a course. In the example below, a school requires a Year 10 Science mark of 60 to be achieved for automatic eligibility to Year 11 Chemistry:

Set a maximum mark for eligibility

Some support classes might only be offered to students who need them. In the example below, a school wants to allow only students with a score below 55 in Year 10 General Mathematics automatically eligible for Year 11 Foundation Mathematics:

Ensure previous enrolment in a specific course

Where simply studying a prior course is necessary (regardless of result), a simple rule stating that a result is 'at least 1' will ensure that a student has a result (and has therefore completed prior study). In the example below, a school wants prior study in Year 10 Vietnamese Language as an automatic marker of eligibility for Year 11 Vietnamese:

Minimum marks in course X OR course Y

If there are two or more ways students can meet the eligibility threshold for a course, they can be joined with an 'OR'. In the example below, a school wants prior thresholds in either Year 10 General Science or Year 10 Psychology as automatic markers of eligibility for Year 11 Psychology:

Custom prerequisites

Schools can use custom concepts such as:

attendance rate
specific exam mark
participation in specific extra curricular activities

in prerequisite rules. In the example below, a school wants a threshold reached in Year 10 Outdoor Education, participation in a canoe camp and involvement in a sports team as automatic markers of eligibility for Year 11 Outdoor Education: