“We’ve already fixtured next season, and its only October!”: Inside Kilvington’s Journey to a Smarter Sports Program

‍Kilvington Grammar School’s tagline, small enough to care, big enough to excel, is more than a phrase; it shapes how the school approaches sport. With over 600 students and 35 teams competing weekly, inclusion is part of the culture. Everyone plays, from elite squads to those joining in for the joy of it.

When Luke Bahramis stepped in as Head of Sport, he found a program built on strong participation and proud tradition. What he saw next were the growing pains of scale, with coaches working late to stay organised and systems stretched to keep up with the pace of the school week. 

His goal was simple: make it easier for the people running sports to focus on what matters most — the students on the field.

That search would lead to a rethink of how the school managed communication, safety, and the daily rhythm of its co-curricular life.

The challenge and the quiet rebuild behind a thriving sports program

After years spent in school programs and community clubs, Luke brought an athlete’s mindset to management, which was to observe first, then improve the system around the team. 

In his first seasons, he listened, followed the paper trail, and saw where time disappeared.

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“There was a lot of pen and paper,” Luke recalls. “Timesheets, fixturing, scoring — all of it.” Coaches were handwriting hours on slips that needed chasing down. Fixtures were buried in email threads that required constant cross-checking. Each task worked in isolation, but together they stole hours that could have been spent on the field.

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Luke knew the flaws weren’t about effort; they were about time.

‍“It was taking up a lot of my week,” he says. “I wanted something that made life easier for coaches, for admin and for myself.”

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The goal he set felt practical and ambitious at once: keep participation high, make safety and communication clearer, and move the system around sport into one connected place. 

That philosophy is why Clipboard made sense. It matched the culture he wanted to build: efficient, transparent, and simple for everyone to use.

The solution: Moving everything online with Clipboard

When Luke introduced Clipboard, he started small. The aim wasn’t to overhaul everything overnight, but to prove that one simple change could save hours each week. Timesheets were the first test.

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“Once we got them set up, it stopped the triple and quadruple checking,” Luke explains. “Before, three or four people had to review every entry. Now I check twice a month, approve them, and send them off. It’s much simpler.”

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That early win built confidence. Coaches began to see how a digital system could work for them rather than add to their load. 

Attendance came next. Tracking who was on the bus or missing from a fixture had once taken half a dozen messages. With Clipboard, those updates became visible to everyone in real time.

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“Clipboard talks to our attendance modules,” Luke explains. “So if a student’s marked absent for the day, it’s already reflected on our sports rolls. Coaches don’t have to chase it — it’s just there.” Luke says. “Now we know exactly where students are. Coaches can see if someone’s been away for the day, and I can pull a report within minutes of sport starting.”

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Safety followed naturally. Coaches could log incidents directly from their phones, instantly notifying Luke, team managers, and the school’s first-aid officer. “It’s just so quick,” he says. “Everyone gets the same information straight away and it gets followed up properly.”

One of the most useful changes came from Clipboard’s integration with Kilvington’s existing systems.
That real-time link between systems became another layer of safety and efficiency. Admin teams could see absences at a glance, and parents no longer needed separate follow-ups to confirm where students were meant to be.

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Then came activity selection— a process that once relied on Microsoft Forms and follow-up emails. 

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“Before Clipboard, we couldn’t see who hadn’t picked their activities,” Luke says. “Now it’s a click of a button. You can instantly see who’s yet to choose, and even swap students between teams when they change their mind.”

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That flexibility mattered.

‍“It saves us days at the start of each term,” Luke adds.

‍“Instead of spreadsheets and forms, we’re ready for training on day one.”

“The best part is how simple it is,”

Luke reflects. The systems caught up to the spirit of the program, freeing coaches to focus on students, not spreadsheets.

Scaling impact across the EISM network

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“Once EISM came on board, it streamlined fixtures to the point where it’s October and I’ve already fixtured everything for next season,” Luke says. “The conversations I don’t need to have anymore with other sport coordinators have just disappeared. No more double or triple checking, no more chasing emails. It’s all there in Clipboard.”

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When the Eastern Independent Schools Melbourne (EISM) association adopted Clipboard Compete, it transformed Luke's fixturing workflow from a time-consuming coordination process into an efficient, automated system.

With EISM managing fixtures centrally through Compete and publishing them directly to all member schools, Luke no longer needs the constant back-and-forth communication that previously consumed hours of his week.

The platform creates a single source of truth where any changes made by the association or competing schools appear automatically in Kilvington's system, with schools simply reviewing and accepting updates through their Fixtures Inbox. 

Because Kilvington was already using Clipboard's core platform for their internal sport management, the integration was seamless. EISM's fixtures flow directly into the same system Luke was already using to manage timesheets, attendance, and incident reporting, requiring no changes to his existing workflows or additional training for his coaching staff. 

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This real-time integration eliminated the endless cycle of catch-up emails, confirmation calls, and manual double-checking that Luke had to manage when coordinating with seven other schools across the district. The efficiency gains were so significant that by October, Luke had already completed all fixture scheduling for the entire 2026 season, something that would have been nearly impossible under the old system of fragmented spreadsheets and email chains where every change required verification from multiple parties.

Lessons in trust and transformation

When Luke first introduced Clipboard, there was hesitation. “Staff had been burnt before,” he says. “There’s always a bit of fear that a new system will add more work, not less.”

That fear didn’t last long. Once coaches and admin teams saw how Clipboard simplified things (from tracking attendance to approving timesheets) trust built quickly. 

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“My youngest coaches who are 19 or 20 love using it, and they don’t want to touch anything else, paper or computers. It’s fantastic. And it’s so easy for my older staff as well. They got straight onto it — it tells them where they’re coaching the next day, and it’s really simple to use.”

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For Luke, that shift in attitude marked a turning point. What began with caution became everyday habit. “Knowing that everything is set gives you space to think about the program, not just the paperwork,” he says.

Clipboard now sits in the background of Kilvington’s sport program, powering the structure that keeps hundreds of students in motion each week, which is proof that good systems don’t need to be loud to make an impact.

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If you’re an EISM school or a Head of Sport looking to bring the same clarity and connection to your programs, we’d love to show you how Clipboard can help. Book a demo and see how simple it can be to run sport with confidence and ease.

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