1700+ children
LocationCambridgeshire, United Kingdom
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Customer Stories
JS Sports & Education saved up to 75% of the admin behind its extra-curricular activities
4 min readJS Sports and Education runs sports clubs, wraparound care, after-school clubs, extra-curricular activities, holiday camps and birthday parties for children across Cambridgeshire, built around the belief that “Together Everyone Achieves More.” Jamie Segrave founded and grew the business and directs it, and Sean Andrews, Operations Manager, has been there for 12 years.
Four years ago, the admin behind all of it was done by the same people delivering the sessions.
of admin time saved
parent satisfaction
to full confidence
The admin was the constraint
“We wanted to free up admin time as we were doing a lot ourselves.”
Every half term meant getting registers and bookings sorted early, while also advertising and teaching. Sean describes it as “really quite stressful just trying to fit everything into a day's work.” Parents had to type in exactly what they wanted every time they booked, with no one-time sign-up, and the team then had to move it all by hand.
“We then had to copy and paste everything from what they sent to us onto our spreadsheets to make sure that got sent to the staff.”
Admin and finance were under pressure, activity leaders were carrying paperwork they had not been hired to do, and the volume of manual work set a ceiling on how many extra-curricular activities the business could run at once.
Choosing a system
JS Sports and Education moved bookings, payments and registers onto MagicBooking, with a mobile booking page parents can reach at any hour and a one-time sign-up in place of retyping every booking. Implementation scored 10/10 for ease, and staff were confident within three months, so the switch didn't add a new burden while the team was still busy delivering sessions.
“The support is second to none.”
Between half and three quarters of the admin, returned
JS Sports reports saving 50–75% of the time it previously spent on administration, which is up to three quarters of the workload handed back. Staff workload reduction scored 10/10, meaning admin, finance and activity leaders all feel the difference.
“MagicBooking has really helped us free up valuable time.”
“Our time has been cut easily, weeks of work that we've had to go through, especially as we've got slightly bigger with more schools and more camps.”
Payments are tracked automatically against the right accounts, reports generate themselves, and parents pay by card or childcare voucher, which shortens the time between a booking and the money arriving. That earned financial reporting a 10/10.
A full year of camps, planned in September
JS Sports now puts its whole year of camps on MagicBooking in one go, and keeps an eye on bookings and payments without chasing through forms.
“We can get our whole year worth of camps on MagicBooking in September all the way through to the summer of the next year.”
“We can keep an eye on the bookings rather than having to go through loads and loads of forms to see if parents have paid. We can all see in one place.”
The time that came back has gone into the rest of the business.
“Since we've been in MagicBooking for the last four years, we've been able to focus and catch up with staff, catch up with the teachers, give a lot of our areas a lot more attention rather than giving our sole attention to just doing our bookings.”
“MagicBooking has really helped us [...] grow the business.”
Digital registers that reach the school the same day
The change activity leaders notice is that nobody prints anything. Digital registers record attendance as it happens and arrive at the host school on the day of the club, which cuts admin time and keeps records accurate.
“Ease of staff seeing online registers, school auto receiving registers on the day of the club at their school.”
For a provider working inside other people's schools, digital registers do two jobs at once: they remove the paperwork and they give the host school an accurate record without anyone having to ask for it. They also let the team control how many children can book onto each session, and look weeks and months ahead.
“With the MagicBooking registers, we can just easily manage the amount that are allowed to book. We can't live without that, knowing that we can look ahead to weeks and months to see our bookings.”
Ten out of ten, across the board
JS Sports scored MagicBooking 10/10 on every measure below, from the first weeks of setup to the parent experience.
| Measure | Score | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of implementation | 10/10 | Staff confident within 3 months |
| Staff workload reduction | 10/10 | Admin, finance and activity leaders all benefit |
| Efficiency | 10/10 | Day-to-day running is faster end to end |
| Booking management | 10/10 | Capacity and bookings controlled in one place |
| Financial reporting | 10/10 | Payments tracked and reports generated automatically |
| Parent/carer satisfaction | 10/10 | Parents book and pay online at any hour |
| Parent communication | 10/10 | Families kept informed without extra admin |
Customer support was also singled out for being helpful and quick to respond.
The final word
JS Sports and Education recommends MagicBooking to other providers looking to scale without scaling their admin.
“If you make the switch, if you gamble and go for it, it will really help you grow. It's definitely worth the jump. It's only going to increase your support, your outreach, and make your life so much easier to get on with other jobs.”
Ready to scale without scaling your admin? Book your free demo and see how MagicBooking could give your team their time back.
