Feeder Schools
The use of the Feeders sheet
This page appears blank at first but will be cleared and refilled every time a class assignment routine is run so do not make changes to this sheet. It shows the names of the feeder schools and the classes to which their children have been assigned.
You can also generate this list before or after a class assignment routine has been run using the “Update Balances and Feeders” button on the Utilities sheet.
The sheet can be viewed to help you make an informed decision as to which, if any feeder schools you would like to balance evenly. In the example above you would perhaps desire to balance the three main feeders to avoid creating any tutor groups dominated by students from these schools.
Balancing children from your main feeder schools
Before you assign students to classes you can obtain some useful information about feeder school numbers by pressing the “Update Balances and Feeders” button on the Utilities sheet. Having examined the Feeders sheet you may want to avoid a situation in which children from one feeder school dominate a particular tutor group. In this case you could choose to “evenly distribute students from some feeder schools” when running the assignment routine. You will then be asked to state, what you consider to be the number of main feeders for your intake (i.e. those supplying the most children, as shown at the top of theFeeders sheet).
Only choose to balance your main feeders. The more feeders you try to balance the less chance the program has of balancing your other factors.