How St Aloysius College Streamlined Sport Admin to Support Staff and Improve Family Communication

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“Most of our challenges were around effective streams of communication with parents, but also effective streams of information sharing around fixtures and trainings and just general information.”

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Sport at St Aloysius was growing, but the systems behind it weren’t keeping pace. Fixture changes, absentee tracking as well as parent comms, all sat across different tools, with most of the pressure landing on staff like Meg and her colleague in primary sport.

The turning point came when they realised other parts of the school had already modernised, yet the sports program was still running on spreadsheets, disconnected tools and mostly stress.

Clipboard helped them bring everything into one place by making daily tasks simpler. Post adoption, communication with families became clearer, and most importantly, the role itself became more sustainable.

The role was already stretched—and the systems didn’t help.

For Meg and her colleague Sarah, who coordinate sport across secondary and primary at St Aloysius College, the day was already splintered before they reached their desks, and most mornings started with a ping.

A parent texting to say their daughter was sick. A coach asking for a venue update. A fixture change that the association had sent overnight. To add to the disconnected comms, there was the problem of overwhelming admin load.

Team lists lived in Excel. Absentee notes came through email, text, and phone. Coach contacts were printed and clipped into folders. And when game day rolled around, Meg carried it all — two phones, printed draws, contact sheets and a mental list of who to follow up.

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“On a Saturday morning, I used to have a sport phone where I'd be getting text messages, phone calls, emails coming through,” she says. “Then I’d also have a hard copy folder with everything printed out for the weekend, with coach contacts in it. And then I’d have my other phone, looking up parent details.”

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Every task felt like double-handling. Build teams in Excel, then copy them into SEQTA. Send fixture updates by email, then follow up via text just in case. Chase payments, track interest, monitor attendance — each with its own tool, process, adding chaos to the admin.

And all of it was reactive. When something changed (which it often did)  Meg and Sarah were the ones trying to hold it together.

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“We were using three or four different applications or functions to get one job done,” Meg says. “It just became too much.”

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And with the pressure building every term, it was clear something had to change before the role burned them out completely.

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How the sports team at St Aloysius brought everything into one place

While the shift didn’t happen overnight, the relief Meg felt was immediate.

What started with curiosity about how other schools were running their programs quickly turned into action. After hearing about Clipboard from a colleague at Loreto, Meg decided to take a closer look.

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“We were actually looking at a different platform earlier on,” she says. “But then I heard about Clipboard and got an email from your team. The timing was perfect, and the product looked way more user-friendly and way more appropriate for our context.”

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The decision to move ahead wasn’t about bells and whistles, but about finally having one place to manage everything.

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On game day, everything just works

Saturday game day went more smoothly from the start. Juggling phones, folders, and coach lists became a thing of the past. Clipboard’s mobile experience gave Meg everything she needed at her fingertips, with no need to switch between apps, folders, or platforms.

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“It’s my most used app,” she says. “It’s changed the way I manage, especially on game day.”

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Unlike other platforms that struggle on mobile, Clipboard is designed to work intuitively on any device. Meg could send out last-minute fixture changes, check if students had marked themselves absent, and message teams — all while walking between games. Live attendance tracking and clear team lists meant she could stay ahead of the day, not react to it.

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“Fixture changes could go out instantly. Attendance was logged live. Instead of chasing messages across platforms, we could focus on the flow of the day, not the mechanics of it.”

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Activity selection gave the team structure and flexibility

One of the biggest time savers was Clipboard’s activity selection feature. Instead of collecting sign-ups through forms and rebuilding teams manually, students could register directly through the system. From there, Meg and Sarah could build teams visually, drag and drop players across groups, and keep everything up to date — even as schedules shifted.

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“I love that you can just play around with the teams on the spot,” she says. “And see who’s selected a sport but hasn’t been placed in a team, so no one gets left behind.”

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Clipboard’s activity selection tool automatically flags unplaced students, highlights group balance issues, and supports rapid changes — especially valuable in the final days before competition.

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Absence management became clearer for everyone

Meg knew that absence tracking would improve with Clipboard. What surprised her was how much smoother it made life for families as well.

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“I knew that Clipboard was going to help me see absences live,” she says. “But I didn’t expect just how easy it would be to log them, or how quickly I could follow up.”

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Using Clipboard’s attendance and absence management tools, families now submit absences in a consistent, structured way, minus the 7am texts.“Parents have actually said to me, wow, this is way better,” she says. “They don’t feel like they’re waking me up on a Saturday anymore.”

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Payments without the bottlenecks

Clipboard’s built-in payments feature, powered by Stripe, was another quiet win. Meg could collect upfront payments, see which families had paid, follow up where needed, and issue refunds directly, without needing to loop in the finance team every time.

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“Now I don’t have to email finance to ask for reimbursements,” she says. “It gives me more control, and saves them time too.”

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Clipboard Payments also meant Meg could gauge interest and manage new programs,  like snow trips or knockouts, with minimal admin. Parents could register interest, make deposits, and receive reminders all through the same flow. That consistency kept everything running smoother, especially when managing multiple cohorts at once.

“I’ve used it for way more than just Saturday sport,” she says. “Now I’m telling other teachers — you could use it for this, or that. It can work across everything.

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Why St Aloysius would recommend this approach to others

As it is evident, Clipboard removed the friction, and gave Meg the space to do what she’s actually there to do: run programs, support students, and make sport a consistent, trusted part of school life.

If your sport team is juggling spreadsheets, folders, and phone calls just to get through the week, Meg’s advice is to find systems that actually support the work, especially as programs grow and expectations rise.

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“If you’re concerned about the amount of admin that you’re doing and the processes that you have in place, then this is a great solution,” she says. “And yeah, I highly recommend it.”

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What made the biggest difference at St Aloysius wasn’t any one feature, but having everything in one place, in a format that gave staff control without adding another layer of complexity. The result was a role that felt manageable, a program that could keep evolving, and a better experience for families and students along the way.

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If you're a Sport Coordinator or Head of Co-Curricular facing the same challenges Meg and her team did — systems that can't keep up, rising pressure, and too much double handling — we’d love to talk. Book a demo with our team to see how Clipboard can support your program.