Explanation of Make Offers for Discrete Banded Receivers

The Make Offers routine for banded receivers is identical to the routine for phased, non-banded receivers up to the point where applications with no parental preferences are added to the No Application base (step 5 of the process as detailed in Explanation of the Make Offers Process (Phased)).

However, One uses a different process to allocate students to banded receivers, as opposed to non-banded receivers. Furthermore, the allocation process for banded schools differs depending on whether the school in question is an Edit Rank school or not. The process below details the routines One uses to allocate students to bases where Discrete banding is in use.

When discrete banding is used, students can only be associated with and considered for an offer in one band.

Non-Edit Rank Receivers

  1. One sorts applicants into bands, based on which set of band criteria each applicant fulfils.
  2. One ranks the children applying for the highest priority band by the oversubscription criteria defined for that band, or by the sub group oversubscription criteria if these criteria have been indicated in the band details. The students are sorted on the first oversubscription criterion, then sorted on the second criterion in sets of the first, and so on.
  3. One makes offers for the band up to the PAN. Students ranked within the band PAN are given a status of O (Offer), while students ranked outside the PAN are given a status of N (No Current Offer).
  4. One repeats steps 2 and 3 for the lower-priority bands.

Edit Rank Receivers

  1. One sorts applicants into bands, based on which set of band criteria each applicant fulfils.
  2. One sorts any ranked preferences for a home LA school which uses discrete banding in an Edit Rank subgroup. These preferences are sorted according to the existing band rank.
  3. One updates student offer statuses for the highest priority band:
    • Students ranked within the band PAN are given a status of O (Offer).
    • Students ranked below the band PAN are given a status of N (No Current Offer).
    • Unranked preferences for a Home LA school that uses aptitude banding in an Edit Rank sub group are updated to R (Refused by LA). If a student with unranked preferences is then exported using the ALT file, the allocation status is mapped to N (No current offer).
  4. One repeats steps 2 and 3 for the lower-priority bands.

    All changes to the main offer status are reflected in the Preference History.