Education & Sunday School Module Overview

The Education module in TimelyChurch provides a complete system for managing your church's Sunday School program, Bible study classes, and educational ministries. It connects lesson planning, class management, teacher scheduling, student enrollment, and attendance tracking into one unified experience.

Key Components

The Education module is built around four interconnected areas:

Lesson Library

A centralized repository for all teaching content. Lessons include scripture references, learning objectives, supplies lists, and file attachments. Lessons can be organized by audience (Kids, Youth, Adults, All Ages), category (Bible Study, Worship, Discipleship, and more), and grouped into curriculum series.

Class Management

Classes are where teaching happens. Each class has an assigned room, age range, teachers, and an enrolled student roster. The class detail page provides a unified "My Class" experience with tabs for Today (attendance), Roster (enrollment), and History (past attendance).

Teacher Scheduling

Schedules connect teachers, classes, and lessons for specific dates. The system supports teacher confirmation workflows, substitute request handling, lesson proposal and approval, and prep task tracking.

Teacher/Member Portal

Teachers access their own schedule, browse the lesson library, select or propose lessons, request substitutes, and manage their availability -- all from a dedicated portal interface.

How It All Connects

1. Admins create classes with rooms, age ranges, and assigned teachers.
2. Admins build a lesson library with curriculum content, attachments, and materials.
3. Schedules are created through the Events module -- linking a class to an event date and assigning a teacher and (optionally) a lesson. The Events module also includes a multi-week Schedule Grid view for filling teaching assignments across several weeks at once.
4. Teachers log in to the portal to view their upcoming schedule, select lessons from the library, and prepare for class.
5. On Sunday morning, teachers (or admins) take attendance using the Today tab, marking each student as present, absent, late, or excused.
6. Attendance history is tracked automatically and can be reviewed over time.

Navigating the Module

From the admin sidebar navigation:

• Lessons -- Opens the lesson library where you create, browse, and manage all lesson content.
• Groups -- Opens the unified Groups area. Sunday School classes live here as the "Classes" type, where you manage classes, rosters, teachers, and attendance. (Classes are also linked from the Check-In page as "Groups/Classes.")
• Lesson Settings -- Accessible from the gear icon on the Lessons page, where you configure categories, audiences, and general lesson preferences.

Note: There is no separate "Classes" item in the sidebar. Classes are part of the Groups module, so head to Groups whenever you need to create or edit a class, manage its roster, or take attendance.

Permissions

The Education module uses role-based permissions:

• Church Admins have full access to create, edit, approve, and delete lessons and classes.
• Teachers can view the lesson library, select lessons for their schedules, propose new lessons (if allowed in settings), request substitutes, and take attendance for their assigned classes.
• Members can view lesson summaries shared through the member portal (parent-facing content like memory verses and home activities).

Module Settings

Lesson settings are accessible from the Lessons page via the gear icon. Three tabs of configuration are available:

• Categories -- Organize lessons by topic (Bible Study, Worship, Discipleship, Evangelism, Prayer, Fellowship, Missions, Other). You can add custom categories, rename them, assign colors, and reorder them.
• Audiences -- Define target age groups (Kids 0-11, Youth 12-18, Adults 18+, All Ages). Custom audiences can be added with names, emojis, colors, and age ranges.
• General Settings -- Control workflow options like requiring lesson approval, allowing teachers to create lessons, requiring scripture references or objectives, and controlling display options.

Related Features

• Check-In -- Students checked in through the Check-In module appear on the class's Today tab.
• Events -- Class scheduling is integrated with the Events module for calendar-based planning.
• Notifications -- Teachers receive notifications when assigned to teach, when lessons need selection, and when substitute requests are created.
• Public Sharing -- Lesson content can be shared publicly with configurable visibility and optional PIN protection.