East Lothian Council has embarked on one of the most ambitious digital transformations of school-based sport and physical activity anywhere in Scotland. By adopting Spond as its school sport management system across all seven of its secondary schools, the Council has unified communications, strengthened safeguarding, improved data governance, and dramatically reduced admin time for staff and volunteers.
We’ll explore how the rollout works in practice, and what impact it’s already having—with insights from Mark Urwin, Team Manager for the Active Business Unit, and Jamie Chapman, Active Schools Coordinator at Ross High School.
A Single System for Seven Secondary Schools
East Lothian’s Active Schools network supports extracurricular activity across seven secondary schools, four sport development officers, a disability sports programme, and a performance swimming pathway. Historically, each school used its own tools—meaning fragmented communications, duplicated admin, and inconsistent safeguarding standards.
Mark explains the challenge: “We wanted an efficient way of communicating to participants and parents, not just within one group or school, but across the entire authority. Parents with young people in multiple activities needed a consistent method of communication.”
Working with Spond’s UK team, East Lothian created the Active East Lothian Spond Club, bringing all schools, programmes, and development officers under the same digital umbrella.
Early Success: 1,500 Members and Growing
Although the rollout only started in August, adoption has been rapid and enthusiastic. Over 1,500 parents and participants are already active across the system.
At Ross High School alone, 200 pupils joined within weeks.
Jamie says: “We’ve only been in since the start of August, but the fact that we’re already at 1,500 members across seven secondary schools is fantastic. From my school alone, we’ve transferred around 200 pupils over in a very short time.”
Jamie sees Spond in action every day: “I’m hands-on with the app daily and absolutely loving it. It’s managing to do everything we need it to do—if not better than anything we’ve had before.”
Safeguarding Improvements: Real-Time Visibility and Safer Communication
Safeguarding was a major factor in the Council’s decision. Spond allows the authority to control exactly who can message who, prevent children from messaging each other, ensure parents receive mirrored copies of all communications, give relevant adults access only to the data they need, and track attendance in real time for improved safeguarding and oversight.
Mark highlights the impact: “Parents can check if their child has actually turned up to an activity—that’s huge. It removes the need for volunteers to make six phone calls because six kids haven’t arrived. From a safeguarding point of view, it’s brilliant.”
Mass Messaging Across the County
Previously, development officers could only message pupils in their own elite squads. Now, they can communicate with every young person participating in their sport across East Lothian, instantly.
This has reshaped opportunities—everything from development camps to new activity launches can be communicated authority-wide.
Mark calls this transformative: “Today our rugby development officer can message every pupil and guardian involved in school rugby, whereas before he could only reach his performance squads. That’s a massive step forward.”
Authority-wide messaging has also been used effectively for urgent updates—for example, storm cancellations.
Mark added: “In severe weather, any one of us can jump on and send a real-time message to every parent in East Lothian. That’s incredibly powerful.”
Streamlined Admin for Staff and Volunteers
Before Spond, staff relied heavily on manual registers, printouts, spreadsheets and a legacy database—especially painful for schools offering 20+ activities.
Jamie describes the difference: “Previously I’d be spending huge amounts of time printing registers and pulling data for 20 sports. With Spond, it’s all automated. It frees us to focus on coordinating activities, not admin.”
To support staff, Mark and Jamie have created a Master Spond Guide shared across all seven schools, driving consistency in how groups and events are set up.
Weekly check-ins help staff refine their workflows and share best practice.
Stronger Data Governance and Compliance
The Council’s adoption required detailed work with governance and IT teams, including a full Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). With support from Spond, the system was approved for both desktop and laptop use, with mobile device approval pending.
Mark reflects: “The governance work was probably the hardest part, but once approved, everything flowed. It’s far more secure than paper registers.”
A Single School Sport Management System
East Lothian is already preparing to extend its Spond usage, introducing the platform’s features into more development officer programmes, and using it to support wider opportunities such as youth panels and emerging sports. These expansions will allow even more young people, parents, and coordinators to benefit from consistent communication and streamlined organisation.
As participation continues to grow across the authority, Spond;s school sport management system is rapidly becoming a core part of how East Lothian delivers school sport. The strong early momentum shows just how powerful a unified system can be when it comes to safeguarding, engagement, and operational efficiency.
A Personal Seal of Approval
Mark has even introduced Spond to his own rugby club, where he serves as president. The experience has reinforced just how transformative the platform can be outside of a school environment. By streamlining everything from membership applications to approvals and payments, Spond has replaced a patchwork of manual processes with a single, efficient workflow that volunteers and committee members can manage with ease.
He said: “As a club president, Spond has vastly reduced my admin time. From membership applications to approval and payments, it’s seamless. An absolute game changer.”
Transforming School Sport With Spond
East Lothian’s adoption of Spond’s school sport management system is proving that when communication, safeguarding, and admin workflows are unified across an entire local authority, everyone wins—parents, pupils, coaches, coordinators, and development officers.
With 1,500+ members already active and the rollout expanding, East Lothian is becoming the blueprint for how councils can modernise and coordinate extracurricular sport in schools.
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