Group Generator with Keep-Apart Rules

Example: A Year 6 class of 12 students — 6 boys, 6 girls — needs mixed-gender pairs for a collaborative project. Marcus and Olivia have had a conflict and must not be paired together. Diego and Sofia also need to be kept apart. Since every pair must have exactly one boy and one girl, both separations are cross-gender — and that's the only kind that matters here.

We've pre-loaded 12 students with preferences and ensured there is one of each gender per group using the Category Entry capability. To add the keep-apart rules: open Marcus's Edit Preference button → Click Add Blocked Student → select Olivia. Repeat for Diego → select Sofia. Then hit Generate Groups (bottom right), we've set it up for 1 Boy + 1 Girl per group, and to create 6 pairs of 2, so just go ahead and click the Create button. Check the generated groups and confirm that Olivia and Marcus are not in the same group, and neither is Diego and Sofia in the same group.

Keep-apart rules are enforced as hard constraints — the separated students will never end up together regardless of how the rest of the class is arranged. Because the category constraint already requires 1 Boy + 1 Girl per pair, separating two boys or two girls has no effect — only cross-gender keep-apart changes the outcome.

Try it free — register to save your class and run separated groups all term.