The hidden cost of manual school club management (and how to do it better)
At school, managing clubs manually may be the default – but it comes with a hidden cost. When you are already overwhelmed with work to do, you may have accepted that school clubs aren’t a priority – but studies show they can support students’ success, making it key to consider how you can make club management work for you.
The cost of manual club management
Running your school club manually means lots of individual pieces of paperwork – this comes with risks and challenges in managing your club effectively. These include:
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Time-consuming: manually undertaking all the processes in club management requires a lot of time, which many teachers and school staff don’t have
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Risk of human error: manual recordkeeping always carries the risk of making a mistake – and this is made more likely if you're noting down the same information multiple times
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Inconsistency: different staff members likely have different recordkeeping practices – if a club is managed by more than one person or if a supply teacher covers a session, records will likely be inconsistent
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Data is less secure: physical paperwork is much easier to gain unauthorised access to – and can get lost, usually with no back-up copies available
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Less useful in case of emergency: information can't be accessed by multiple members of staff in different locations – plus the risk of human error means records could be wrong, such as a student being wrongly marked absent from a session
How can you manage clubs better?
Mitigating the burden of school club management benefits your own workload and student outcomes – and the easiest way to simplify club management is by doing it electronically.
Keeping your data on an electronic, centralised platform saves time and ensures it’s consistent, secure and easily accessible – plus far less likely to contain errors. As your club changes, such as if it grows in size, electronic records are much easier to scale up with your club.
Club management software like Tes Clubs and Events helps you manage all your school’s extracurricular life in one place – whether it’s sports, arts, a one-off trip, or regular breakfast and after-school clubs, the platform supports you to:
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Allocate school club and trip places fairly, with waiting lists for in-demand trips
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Collects information during booking processes with the option to customise questions, giving you total flexibility
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Take payments electronically and send payment reminders to parents so you don’t have to do the chasing, plus record cash payments
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Record and report on attendance, so you know which students were present and when
Using an automated, electronic system means the admin is done for you, so you can focus on your students.
Streamline club management with Tes
School clubs may add to your workload, but they are an important part of a young person's academic life. Removing the administrative burden associated with manual club management means supporting your students as well as yourself.
With Tes Clubs and Events, you can keep all your records in one place and save the time you’d usually spend gathering payments, allocating places and recordkeeping – making school club management easier than ever before.