Load your class, say whether you want groups of four or four groups, and press go. The names deal themselves out on the board with an animation the class can watch, which stops the whole thing feeling like a decision you made about them. Paste a list, upload a CSV from a school export, or save a class once and have it there every morning after.
Most of what makes this useful is in Advanced setup, and it is the part people miss on their first go.
Avoiding repeats is not a setting, it just happens. Groupings remembers recent pairings and steers away from them, so the same four children do not quietly end up together every week.
Drag a name straight from one group card to another on the board. This is the thing nobody notices first time round. If a grouping lands badly, and sometimes it will, you do not have to reshuffle the whole class and lose the ones that came out well. Move the one name and carry on.
Yes, and this is the part worth knowing about. Tick station rotation and instead of one set of groups you get a full timetable where every child visits every station exactly once, guaranteed. Tick mix the teams each round as well and they get new faces along with the new station, with any unavoidable repeat pairing marked on the plan so you can see it coming.
Put it on the board and reveal it a round at a time, or print it. The print puts the whole rotation on one page, which is what you hand to the other adults so everyone is working from the same sheet.
I use this for small things and big ones. Recently it was working groups for a drama activity, which is thirty seconds of setup. But the one that earned it was a science fair, where the children were going round activity stations and we wanted them round robin, and we wanted the groups mixed up so they were not with the same people at every station.
That is exactly what station rotation with mixed teams does. It went on the interactive whiteboard so the children could see which group they were in each round, and the printed list went to the other adults so everybody knew who should be where. That is what made a science fair run instead of drift.
Two things I got wrong the first time. I did not know you could drag a name between groups, so when I saw a pairing that was not going to work I just sat with it. And I had not found the keep-apart setting. Now I turn that on before anything else, for the two or three children where it genuinely matters. It takes ten seconds and it saves the lesson.
Worth being honest about this one. It works for every child, but a class used to picking their own groups will find the first few goes uncomfortable, and that is a learning curve rather than a fault in the tool. Some children need time to get used to working with people they did not choose. The mixing is the point, and it is easier if you name that out loud rather than pretend the shuffle is neutral. After a few weeks it stops being a conversation.
Yes, genuinely, and it will stay that way. Groupings spends no tokens at all, however many times you use it, because it calls no paid service and makes nothing to take away. You need a free Sage Teachers account so it can hold your class list, and there are no ads anywhere on the site. Nothing to lose by trying it on a Monday morning.
How do you split a class into groups fairly?
Load your class, choose groups of four or four groups, and press go. Tap anyone who is away first. Recent pairings are steered away from automatically, so the same children do not keep landing together.
Can I stop two children being put in the same group?
Yes. Add a keep-apart rule for the pair once and every future grouping respects it. Keep-together works the same way, and you can drag a name between groups on the board afterwards.
Can it plan a carousel or station rotation?
Yes. Every child visits every station exactly once, with an option to mix the teams each round. Reveal it round by round on the board, or print the whole rotation on one page.
Is Groupings free?
Yes. It spends no tokens however often you use it. You need a free account so it can save your class, and there are no ads.
Can I use it without a saved class list?
Yes. Paste names one per line, or upload a CSV from a school export. Saving a class just means not doing it again tomorrow.
The rest of the class-organising shelf: Seating Plan Maker works from the same saved class, Spin the Wheel picks a single name, House Points scores the teams once they exist, and how this compares with Flippity if that is what you use now.
Written by a practising primary school teacher · checked August 2026