Church Admin Plugin

Age Related Groups Overview

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The Age Related Groups module lets you define the children’s groups that run in your church — Toddlers, Junior Church, Youth, and so on — with age boundaries that automatically update each year. Children in the directory can be allocated to the right group automatically based on their date of birth, or assigned manually if needed.

Go to Church Admin → Children’s Work → Age Related Groups. You’ll need the Kidswork permission level to access this screen. See Permissions and roles.

How age groups work

Each group has a youngest and oldest date of birth range. Anyone in the directory whose date of birth falls within that range is eligible for automatic allocation to the group. On 1 January every year the age boundaries automatically advance by one year — so your groups always reflect the current ages of the children without you having to update them manually.

This means you define a group once — for example Junior Church, ages 5–11 — and it remains accurate indefinitely as children age through the church.

The groups list

The screen shows all your age-related groups in a table with the following columns:

  • Group name — the name of the group as it appears on PDFs and check-in sheets
  • Gender specific — whether the group is for boys, girls, or mixed
  • Led by — the ministry team linked to this group, whose members are the leaders and helpers
  • Youngest — the date of birth of the youngest child who qualifies for this group
  • Oldest — the date of birth of the oldest child who qualifies for this group

Adding a group

Click Add a kidswork age group at the top of the screen and fill in the group name, age range, gender setting, and linked ministry. Save and the group appears in the list immediately.

Editing and deleting groups

Click Edit next to any group to update its name, age range, gender setting, or linked ministry. Click Delete to remove a group — you’ll be asked to confirm before anything is deleted.

Before you set up age groups

Two things help but are not strictly required:

  • Dates of birth in the directory — children need a date of birth stored on their record for automatic allocation to work. Without one they can still be allocated manually (see below). Use Church Admin → People → Bulk edit dates of birth to add missing dates in bulk. See Bulk edit dates of birth.
  • A ministry for each group’s leadership team — the Led by field links the group to a Ministry so the right leaders and helpers are associated with it. Set up your children’s ministries first at Church Admin → Ministries. See Ministries, small groups and classes.

Allocating children to groups

Once your groups are set up, children can be placed in them in two ways:

  • Automatic allocation — Church Admin looks at each child’s date of birth and places them in the matching group. Quick and accurate when dates of birth are complete. See Allocate children to groups.
  • Manual allocation — individual children can be manually assigned to a group regardless of their date of birth. This is useful when a date of birth isn’t recorded, when a child is better suited to a different age group for pastoral reasons, or when you want to override the automatic placement for any other reason. See Allocate children to groups.

What you can do once groups are set up

  • Allocate children to groups — assign children automatically by age or manually one by one
  • Children’s groups PDF — generate a printable list of children in each group for leaders to use on the day
  • Children’s check-in PDF — generate a sign-in sheet for each group session
  • Safeguarding records — track DBS and safeguarding training for everyone in the linked ministry teams

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