If children or teenagers under 16 sing in your choir, switch on Members under 16 for the choir. cori then asks new singers their age when they join, and for everyone under 16 a parent gives consent once. A parent signs up children who don't have a phone of their own. Fixed rules apply to members under 16 that nobody can switch off, and parents see their children's appointments and responses without being members themselves. This page gives the overview for choir leadership and for families.
Switching it on for your choir
- When creating the choir
cori asks: “Do children or teenagers under 16 sing with you, even just a few?” “No” is preselected. If you choose “Yes”, “Members under 16” is switched on from the start, and cori briefly explains how children join the choir.
- Or later in the choir settingsWeb appOpen ChoirSettings, switch on Members under 16 under “For the whole choir” and click Save.Mobile appIn the Choir tab, open Choir settings, switch on Members under 16 and tap Save.
The switch applies to everyone who joins from then on: “Nobody already in the choir is asked.” Only people who arrive via the invitation link without a cori account are asked their age. Anyone who registers themselves confirms in the process that they're at least 16. So cori only knows the age from these details and doesn't check it.
How children and teenagers join the choir
Depending on age and phone there are three routes, and every family takes whichever fits right now:
- Children without a phone of their own: a parent signs up the child via the link for parents. The child gets no login, no email address and no photo; the parents reply yes or no for them. More on this in Signing up a child as a parent.
- Under 16 with a phone of their own: the teenagers open the normal invitation link. cori asks “How old are you?”, and for under-16s the account is only created once a parent has given consent by email. More on this in Parental approval.
- From 16: their own account like everyone else, via the invitation link.
A child signed up by a parent can later move to their own phone with a code, and everything is kept. Until 16, the parents decide who accompanies a child in cori; from 16, the teenagers decide for themselves.
If you've already added a child by name, send them or their parents their personal link. Whoever opens it chooses “Lena's parent” or “I'm Lena”, and whatever you've already entered for the child, such as attendance, is carried over. See Adding members without the app.
Sending out the link for parents
The link for parents is a separate link alongside the invitation link. It only signs up children and doesn't make anyone a member.
- Open “Add members”Web appOpen Choir and click Add members at the top next to the choir name.Mobile appOpen Choir and tap next to the member count. If you're still alone in the choir, the Add members button is there instead.
- Choose the “Via link” tab
At the top is the invitation link: “For everyone who sings themselves. cori asks for the age when someone joins.” Below it is the Link for parents: “For the letter to parents. Parents sign up their child, with or without a phone of their own, and join the parents' chat.”
- Share
Share the link for parents with the prepared text, copy it into the letter to parents or show the QR code at the parents' evening. The link for parents doesn't expire.
If a letter to parents has fallen into the wrong hands, create a new one with Create new link. The previous link for parents stops working after that.
What always applies to members under 16
These rules apply to everyone who joined with parental approval or was signed up by a parent. They aren't settings; nobody can switch them off, not even the choir leadership:
- Starting a private conversation with them is only possible for the choir leadership, the admins and other members under 16. The same goes for adding them to a group. Parents can write to their own child. The teenagers themselves can write to anyone in the choir, and a chat that already exists carries on as normal for both sides. The chats cori fills automatically, such as the whole choir's chat, stay as they are: everyone reads along there.
- Their birthday is only visible to the choir leadership and the admins.
- Audio and video files can't be sent by them in the chat.
- Their own choir can only be created from 16.
- Choir leadership or admin is only open to them from 16. The menu entries for it are missing from the member list.
- “No ads, no tracking.” That's what it says on the page where parents give their consent.
Nobody writes directly to a child without a phone of their own; messages go to their parents. The rules apply in every choir the member sings in and end on the first of the month after their 16th birthday. The teenagers themselves can see the rules on writing, birthdays and files under SettingsParental approval, together with the day they end.
Blocking is available to anyone in cori, whatever their age. In a private chat there's “Block” for this: the blocked person can then no longer send you private messages or add you to groups. You still see each other in the whole choir's chat. They aren't notified.
Confirming new children
In a choir with “Members under 16”, every new child under 16 and every child without a phone of their own waits for confirmation by the choir leadership or an admin before a chat opens. They get appointments and songs straight away. Instead of the chats they see “Almost there”, and until then the only member they see is the choir leadership. Their parents only join the parents' chat after the confirmation. That way nobody with a false age or an invented child gets into the children's chats.
- You're notified
In the app you get a notification for every new child straight away, with name and age and, if a parent signed the child up, the parent's name. While someone is waiting, an email also arrives in the evening.
- Open the “New in the choir” card
It sits on the Choir page above the member list. Each row shows name and age, and below it “own phone” or, for a child without a phone, “via” and the parent's name.
- Confirm
Tap Confirm for every child you know. If several are waiting, confirm them all at once with Confirm all. The child gets their chats, and their parents the parents' chat.
If you don't know a child, or they're signed up twice or in the wrong choir, choose Remove in the menu next to their name.
A child only gets in without waiting if the choir leadership has already vouched for them: via a personal link the choir leadership created for exactly that child, as the sibling of a child the choir leadership has already confirmed with the same parent, or when someone from the choir leadership signs up their own child. Anyone who rejoins within 30 days keeps an earlier confirmation.
What parents see and what they don't
Parents have their own cori account and aren't members of the choir. They see what they need for their child:
| Do parents see this? | |
|---|---|
| Their child's appointments and responses | Yes. For a child without a phone of their own they reply yes or no; with their own phone only while the response is still open. |
| The parents' chat with the choir leadership | Yes, once the choir leadership has confirmed their child |
| The choir's songs | The current songs, as long as their child doesn't have a phone of their own |
| Which of the other children are coming | Only how many per voice have said yes, no names |
| Their child's chats and exercises | No |
| The member list | No, only the choir leadership and their own children |
The children see who accompanies them. For every child, the choir leadership sees who the parents are, and for a response given by a parent, “Replied by” with that parent's name. If a parent sings in the choir themselves, they're a perfectly normal member there.
What it costs
Every child is a member of the choir and counts in the subscription like all singers, with or without a phone of their own. Parents don't take up a seat as long as they don't sing themselves. How seats are calculated is explained in How billing works.
At 16
On the first of the month after the 16th birthday, the under-16 rules no longer apply. The birthday is then visible to the members of the choirs too, as it is for everyone else. Parents who accompany their child carry on doing so in a choir with “Members under 16”, but from then on the teenagers decide for themselves and can end the accompaniment at any time. In other choirs it ends at 16. If a child still doesn't have a phone of their own at 16, there are three months left to move to their own phone. Everything about this is in From the parent account to their own phone.
Switching it off again
Nothing changes for anyone already in the choir: the rules continue to apply, and children without a phone stay in the choir via their parents. But cori no longer asks new members their age, the link for parents no longer signs up children, and parents of members aged 16 and over no longer see the choir. Before you save, cori shows how many members this affects. Children still waiting for their confirmation stay in the “New in the choir” card.
What's next?
- For parents: Signing up a child as a parent
- For teenagers with a phone of their own: Parental approval
- Choir leadership and parents: The parents' chat
- Their own phone and the 16th birthday: From the parent account to their own phone