Church Admin Plugin

Allocate Children to Groups

⭐ Premium

The Allocate Children to Groups screen shows every child in the directory and lets you assign each one to an age-related group. You can do this manually for each child, or let the assignment reflect the automatic age-based allocation — the screen gives you full control either way.

Go to Church Admin → Children’s Work → Allocate children to groups.

Who appears on the screen

The screen lists everyone in the directory with a People Type of Child or Teenager, sorted alphabetically by last name. If the list is empty, check that children in your directory have the correct People Type set on their records. See People types.

Using the screen

The screen displays as a grid — one row per child, one column per age-related group. A radio button at each intersection lets you select which group that child belongs to. Only one group can be selected per child.

Work through the list selecting the appropriate group for each child, then click Save at the bottom. A confirmation message confirms all assignments have been saved.

Manual vs automatic allocation

The assignment made on this screen is stored as a manual override — it takes precedence over any automatic age-based allocation. This means:

  • If a child has a date of birth stored, the automatic allocation would place them in the group matching their age — but if you set a different group here, the manual assignment is used instead
  • If a child has no date of birth stored, automatic allocation can’t work for them — use this screen to assign them manually
  • If a child is better suited to a different group for pastoral reasons — for example an older child who benefits from staying with a younger group — simply select the appropriate group here regardless of their age

If no groups appear

The columns across the top of the grid are your age-related groups. If no columns appear, no groups have been set up yet. Go to Church Admin → Children’s Work → Age Related Groups and add your groups first, then return to this screen. See Age related groups overview.

After allocating

Once children are assigned to groups you can:

  • Generate a children’s groups PDF — a printable list of every child in each group. See Children’s groups PDF.
  • Generate a check-in PDF — a sign-in sheet for a session. See Children’s check-in PDF.

Related tutorials