How to streamline club sign-ups at your school for fair access
School club sign-ups
It’s great when you’ve generated interest in a club – but too much interest can be hard to manage. It can be difficult to allocate places when a club is oversubscribed, and managing paperwork often takes up valuable time for busy teachers and school staff.
However, access to school clubs has a range of benefits for young people, so it’s important to find ways to overcome these challenges.
Why club access is important
A UK study from the Education Policy Institute found that school club attendance is associated with a range of positive outcomes – for example, those who attend clubs in secondary school are reported as more likely to progress to higher education and be in employment later in life.
Access to and engagement with school clubs can help young people build connections and a sense of belonging. Being engaged in a school community also often improves a young person’s attitude towards their school, which in turn benefits their wellbeing. This can be especially important in international schools, where students may move areas or schools much more often than in other settings.
However, some students, such as those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are often less likely to attend school clubs – therefore missing out on these benefits. This highlights the importance of inclusion and fair access for all.
How you can streamline school club sign-ups
The largest barrier in effectively managing school clubs is often time. For teachers and school staff in busy international schools, clubs and related admin are balanced with lesson time and other work such as planning, marking, safeguarding and SEND support responsibilities, and meetings with parents and colleagues. As such, making club sign-ups as streamlined as possible ensures effective and fair club management while also saving you time.
Get rid of paperwork
The best way to streamline club sign-up processes is to manage your clubs electronically. As well as reducing the chance of errors, electronic club management means no paperwork to take up space or get lost. It enables easier communication with parents and automates processes that would otherwise be time-consuming.
This means less time spent managing club sign-ups and more time spent elsewhere – such as focusing on making your club accessible to more students.
Request club preferences
At schools where clubs are in high demand, one way to manage sign-ups is by enabling parents to submit numbered preferences for several clubs and allocate places based on these. This makes access fairer, as places are given based on a student’s preference rather than simply on a first come, first served basis – it also means teachers and school staff aren’t the sole decision makers in allocating places.
Electronic club management software like Tes Clubs and Events can automate this, so you don’t have to dedicate time to setting up your own forms and gathering responses – or do any chasing where parents haven’t followed up.
Better school club management with Tes
School clubs require admin that can take up a lot of your time – but fair access to clubs and other extra-curricular activities are invaluable in supporting young people’s engagement with both their peers and their education.
Tes Clubs and Events supports you to streamline the club sign-up process and make it fairer, taking pressure off teachers and school staff and saving precious time. Whether it’s a regular club, one-off trip or a school play, Tes Clubs and Events helps you manage your school’s extra-curricular life in one place.