How to Create Selection Criteria

(Basic Licence)

Applicable to SIMS .net version

7.70 onwards.

Permissions required
You will need to be a member of the Admissions Officer User Group in System Manager to create
application criteria.
Please see your System Administrator/Manager if you are not sure whether you have the required
Permissions.
This particular help sheet is applicable to those schools who are their own admissions authority and have
applied an Own Admissions Authority Basic Licence.

Introduction
Selection criteria are used to determine which applicants, within a given intake, will be allocated a place at
your school, in the event of oversubscription. Commonly used selection criteria include:
ƒ applicant in public care
ƒ applicant has a statement of SEN
ƒ first choice of school
ƒ siblings already at the school
ƒ transfer from named feeder schools

NOTE: Selection criteria should only be defined in SIMS .net for criteria that have been agreed and
published locally, as defined in the DfES Code of Practice.

Once created, selection criteria are assigned a priority to enable applicants to be grouped in the order in
which they should be offered places at your school. For example, a criterion of applicant in public care could
be allocated priority 1. Any applicants who are in public care will be given priority admission over any other
applicant (regardless of what other selection criteria they may meet). A criterion of applicant has a statement
of SEN could be allocated priority 2 and so on.
Where the numbers of applications exceeds the planned admission number for the intake, applicants will
need to be ranked using tie break criteria.

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Capita Education Services, Franklin Court, Stannard Way,

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1064-001
For example, a school could have the following three selection criteria, ranked in priority order:
1. Applicants with a statement of SEN
2. Applicants in Public Care
3. Applicants who have siblings in the school
Any applicant that has a statement of SEN is allocated to priority group 1. Any applicant who is in care is
allocated to priority group 2 and so on. Applicants may then need to be ranked within each priority group if
the number of applicants exceeds the planned admission number.
For more detailed information, please see the Summary of the Admissions Process Using SIMS .net (Basic
Licence) help sheet (SupportNet Resource Number 10861).

Creating selection criteria

1. Select Tools | Admissions | Criterion Setup to display the Criterion browser.

2. After searching to ensure that the criterion does not already exist, click the New button on the toolbar
to display the Criterion Details page.

3. Enter a unique Description for the new criterion such as Has a Sibling in School. It is important to
make the description clear as this will displayed when recording selection criteria.

4. Select True/False from the drop-down list to display the True\False panel. This criteria type is used
when the answer to the selection question is yes or no, e.g. Does the applicant have a sibling in
school?.

NOTE: Other criteria types are available for selection from the Type drop-down list, but these can
only be used if you have purchased a Own Admissions Authority Full Licence.

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 5. Enter the numeric value if true is selected in the Value for True field and the numeric value if false is
selected in the Value for False field.

NOTE: Negative values can be entered if required.

6. Click the Save button on the toolbar to save the selection criteria.
7. Repeat for any further criteria required.

De-activating existing criteria

There may be occasions when previously created selection criteria are either no longer required, or you wish
to prevent them from being used for a specific application season. This is achieved by de-activating the
criterion as follows:
1. Select Tools | Admissions | Selection Criterion to display the Criterion browser.
2. Search for, then double-click the required criterion. The Criterion Details page is displayed.
3. De-select the Active check box.
4. Click the Save button on the toolbar to save the changes.
The criterion can be re-activated at any point in the future by selecting the Active check box.

For more information, please refer to:

ƒ SIMS .net Admissions Code of Practice – Own Admissions Authority handbook (double-click Other
Handbooks on the SIMS Help shortcuts panel in SIMS .net).
ƒ SIMS .net Admissions Code of Practice – Non Own Admissions Authority handbook (double-click
Other Handbooks on the SIMS Help shortcuts panel in SIMS .net).
ƒ Summary of the Admissions Process Using SIMS .net (Basic Licence) help sheet (SupportNet
Resource Number 10861).

Training courses
For information on training courses, please contact your SIMS Support Provider.

Providing feedback on this help sheet

If you have any suggestions or comments about this or any of our other help sheets, please email
helpsheets@capita.co.uk.

Help sheet revision history

Doc. Version Change Description Date
1064-001 Initial Release 12/06/06

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