Clairvaux MacKillop College
Clairvaux MacKillop College
It seems like every school year brings with it new and interesting challenges. The introduction of Year 7 students to Clairvaux MacKillop College in 2015 was one of the biggest changes in the school’s history. Suffice to say, a lot of planning went into making the transition as smooth as possible for the staff and students.
Ability to Model
In just one day, a complete draft timetable for the entire school was constructed using Edval’s auto-scheduling, auto-staffing and auto-rooming tools. From there, it was possible to rapidly adjust parameters, such as staffing loads or teachers employed, and observe the results of these changes in ‘real time’.
The College gained new confidence in viewing a complete draft solution so early in the process. It allowed a clearer picture on the type of staff to be hired – a particular advantage over the other schools also seeking new staff for their Year 7 cohorts. They were also able to model teaching time against the indicative hours purported for each of the Australian Curriculum syllabi.
Elective Lines
Edval consultants recommended a change to the way Year 9 electives were offered. Instead of taking students’ course requests twice a year, it was determined to be more flexible to generate the elective lines for the entire year. It resulted in increased student course satisfaction, fewer classes running (financial savings), ability to maximise class size, and of course, less administration effort.
Exam Scheduling
Deputy Principal, Damian Bottaccio, found the generation of exam schedules with Edval to be much easier, much faster and of a much higher quality due to the impressive features and algorithms. It was estimated that the entire process of setting exam timetables using Edval involved a third of the time than that of the existing timetabling system.
Clairvaux MacKillop College engaged Edval at a time of significant change. Together, they were able to model and create a plan that would ensure a smooth transition, as well as improve upon many of the College’s existing procedures along the way.
