Lauriston Girls' School

‍Lauriston Girls’ School is a leading girls’ school in Melbourne offering education from 3-year-old Kindergarten to Year 12. The Senior School consists of 650 girls, and sport is compulsory for Years 7 to 10. The school offers a diverse range of 30 sports, including snow sports, rowing, triathlon, table tennis and Rugby 7s. The school employs close to 100 staff and external coaches to run the sports program.‍

We spoke to Mr Rob Cooper, Director of Sport, about how Clipboard has streamlined the school’s management of the sports program and enhanced the parent experience.

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Previously the Sports Department relied on a multitude of disparate systems to manage their extracurricular sports program; Google Sheets, paper, emails, a club sports app and more. 

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“Our processes created double handling, even triple handling - they weren’t efficient or accurate.”

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With Clipboard, everything is now in one place, which has simplified processes. For example, scheduling training and fixtures had previously required Rob to create schedules for each sport that were printed for noticeboards and emailed to coaches. He would repeat the process if there were changes or cancellations. 

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“Now, if fixtures change, I can simply update the schedule and notify coaches very easily. I can also create a fixture in the draft format while I wait for it to be confirmed, and then with a click of a button, it can go live. It gives us so much flexibility to be able to do that, which saves hours.” 

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Time saved has been directed towards enhancing the sports offerings, giving students more variety and finding ways to engage girls who don’t naturally gravitate towards sport. 

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“Every Head of Sport is time poor, there are always extra things you want to do to give the students as many opportunities as possible. The scheduling function of Clipboard has saved me time which I’ve used to implement new programs. Just this year, we’ve been able to add recreational table tennis for girls who want a non-competitive option and Rugby 7s after the success of female rugby at the Olympics.” 

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Streamlining processes has also improved the user experience for Lauriston parents. 

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“The biggest complaint the Sports Department received from parents was that there were too many places where information could be found.”

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As a Schoolbox school, Lauriston has also been able to benefit from the Clipboard-Schoolbox integration, which joins the two systems to create one seamless experience for parents and students. 

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“Schoolbox is the go-to place for parents and students, so to have Clipboard integrate with Schoolbox just made sense. The integration allows us to have a sports calendar on Schoolbox, providing all the details for parents.  It’s a logical connection which has really suited our school.” 

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For parents with two or three daughters at the school, they can see all their daughters’ commitments in one place and can look ahead to future schedules so they can make plans.

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“Giving parents a great experience is important. They now know everything will be in the one place, it’s clear, and it’s eye-catching. Parents walk away saying, ‘hey, that was quick and easy’. That’s the kind of experience we want to provide for our families.” 

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Overall Lauriston has found Clipboard to have made a huge improvement to how they manage the sport program. 

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“Clipboard saves us an enormous amount of time. The ease of access, improved communication to parents, the clean and clear interface, plus the support from Clipboard staff when you need it is fast and efficient. Clipboard gives you everything you need in one place, and coaching staff can access all the information they need on their phones. I would highly recommend using Clipboard.” 

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What’s Next? 

After using Clipboard for the past year, Lauriston is now implementing the Clipboard Timesheets module. Currently an exceptionally time-consuming and paper-heavy process for both Accounts and the Sports Department, Rob is looking forward to having this module in place. 

“The amount of time that will be saved with the Timesheets Module will be fantastic. At least a day’s work for payroll plus a good couple of hours from the sports side. There are currently lots of back and forth, and so often there are mistakes.”

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