Differing number of Options Choices
Q. Not all my (A-level) students will make the same number of Choices. How do I handle this?
A. You use a Subject called "Free":
If you have said that your students will make 5 choices, but you are not actually expecting all your students to make the full 5 choices (eg: in the 6th-form), then you don't want to keep being told that the satisfaction is only 85% (say) when in fact everyone is satisfied.
The way you arrange this is that you add a subject called "Free" to your Subjects list, then if a student is only intending to make 4 choices, you put his 5th choice as "Free".
What Options then does is: if it sees a subject called "Free", it adds it to all the blocks, so that a choice of "Free" is always satisfied, no matter how many times any student picks it.
So there is a subtle difference between a choice of "Free" and simply an empty/blank choice ... if you leave students with no subject/choice (or '-') then Options assumes that you are still waiting for the student to decide on a Choice, and so you can never get a 100% solution (until those students make their choices).
Note: "Free" may appear more than once in a student's choices.
For example: a student who chooses just 3 Subjects out of a possible 5 Subjects, should have his choices entered like this:
Chris Johnson Maths Physics History Free Free
See also page 39 in the Options manual, where this is explained further.
By the TimeTabler Team