Do you need attendance registers?

Most definitely, yes. Keeping accurate attendance registers are essential pieces of paperwork for any club to keep on top of. Filing them away and keeping them safely is just as important as filling them in. Anywhere where you have people to manage at events, sessions or classes you’ll need to register attendance whether in education, clubs, societies or associations.

Here’s an example of an attendance register (excel template) that you can download and use completely free:

You can download this free attendance register template from here 

How about NGBs and their sport registers?

In the sports world if you want your club to be accepted as a member of your sport’s National Governing Body then you will need to comply with their rules and regulations. If you don’t then you’re out. It’s as simple as that.

Take Badminton England for example as they include sports registers in their documentation.

Here’s a screenshot of the list of documents that they require you to use and stick to:

In case you’re wondering, there are 38 in total.

As with many NGBs when it comes to using a register sports clubs are under instruction to use (or at least base their own version on) the sports register they supply. Badminton England’s sports register is typical of the format that most registers follow:

Perfectly usable and if issued by an officially recognised governing body such as BE, then they must be spot on. Or are they? What happens when it comes to actually getting these things filled in?

We’ll look at the problems you can encounter with attendance registers later on in this article.

Should attendance registers be part of my Health & Safety Policy?

Yes, they should.

If you have been involved with running clubs in any way shape or form, then you’ll be familiar with this topic already so you can skip this bit if you like. Go on, we’ll let you.

If you’re new to the world of setting up and running a sport or any other recreational or pastime organisation, then this is a topic you definitely need to get your head around.

Now this is quite an interesting topic, so we’ll digress slightly for a moment.

What do the government say?

The government’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE) say:

"A health and safety policy sets out your general approach to health and safety. It explains how you, as an employer, will manage health and safety in your business."

https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/policy/index.htm

If you substitute ‘employer’ with ‘you’ and ‘your business’ with your club or organisation’s name then you can see how this applies to you.

We at Coacha believe that any sports or recreation club, association or organisation should approach their day to day running as much from a business point of view as any anything else. And here’s the main reason why.

It’s your neck on the line if anything goes pear-shaped. And that includes if it’s as a result of the actions of one of your coaches / staff / helpers too.

How do I get a Health & Safety Policy?

The HSE state that it is only a legal requirement for you write down and document a Health & Safety Policy if you have more than 5 employees. They say it’s useful to write one though if you have fewer than 5 staff.

Google is your friend here. There’s lots of help out there to get you on the right path with sorting out your own H&S Policy. Without doubt the best place is to start with the government’s own recommendations and guidelines.

Here are a few links you may find helpful:

· https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/policy/index.htm

· https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/policy/how-to-write-your-policy.htm

· Sport England etc

And a few downloads:

· https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/policy/example-policy-statement.pdf

· https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/policy/policy-statement-template.pdf

Will my insurance company want to see my attendance registers?

As with any insurance policy, the devil will be in the detail here. With car insurance, there are usually clauses about declaring any ‘modifications’ you have made to your car. In some instances, certain types of modification need to be declared or are even excluded from cover. The same applies for house and home contents insurance too.

In order to claim on car insurance, you need to hold a driving license, have road tax and not be breaking the law for the claim. Whilst we’re not suggesting that public liability insurance or professional indemnity insurance won’t cover you if you don’t have attendances registers in place.

It is worth finding out to see what they do require. A Health & Safety Policy will almost certainly be a must. But what documents do they want to see in the H&S Policy? Again, worth checking out with your insures.

If I regularly register attendance will it help me in the event of a claim?

How about if somebody makes a claim against you and you’re sure they weren’t at the class or session they are claiming they were at? With copies on file of all your class attendance registers you’d be able to see straight away if they were there or not. If the claim’s around an accident, then an accurate Accident Book would also need to be presented to your insurance company.

It must be said though, with so much at stake, why would you want to avoid keeping class registers? Is it the hassle? Is it the amount of paperwork? If it is, then why not consider using online attendance register software or app such as the one in the image?

We look at this and what it means in this article. 

Under GDPR, how long do I need to keep copies of my attendance registers for?

For schools, they are required to keep copies of all attendance registers for three years (link to https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/pupils-and-parents/absence-and-attendance/recording-attendance/reporting-attendance-records-statutory-requirements/ - MAKE SURE HAS A NO FOLLOW). The amount of time you can keep people’s personal data on file with depend on what you use it for and is something that you should cover in your club’s Data Protection Policy under GDPR as there’s no real ‘one size fits all’ solution.

Whilst you may not think that GDRP is relevant to you, it is. It’s not just for businesses. Any organisation that collects people’s personal data must comply with GDPR and it’s an important topic to get right otherwise you could be fined (quite lot of money too) and/or potentially end up behind bars!

Don’t panic though as we have you covered. We have a huge amount of GDPR info here and can help you get all legal and up to date. You’ll only need to go through this process once, so it’s worth allocating a chunk of time to it so you can get your teeth in to it.

Whilst I’m here, can I get help with my clubs GDPR compliance?

Our FREE guide to GDPR, whilst aimed at sports clubs is relevant to any other pastime or recreation club or society. It’s an amazing go-to guide that takes a lot of legal and business mumbo jumbo and explains GDPR in plain English. Whilst no one can provide you with an off the shelf full GDRP Policy, this is about as close as you can get.

Click here to download your completely free GDPR guide and check sheet.

FREE attendance registers

Many people turn to attendance register templates as they’re often free and easy to use. Just download, save them on your computer and then use the same template time and time again. Simple.

There are a gazillion free attendance register templates and attendance register form out there. Yes, a gazillion. Once again, Google is your friend here. You can either search for yourself to find one that suits your exact requirements or follow some of the links below. Either way it’s really easy to find free attendance registers.

Try searching using phrases like:

• attendance register template
• attendance register excel
• class register book
• attendance register template pdf
• attendance register template word
• attendance register excel template
• attendance register form
• free attendance register template
• attendance register pdf

The list and combination of words is endless, but you get the idea! Alternatively, here are just a few of the free attendance registers that come up when you search using the above phrases:

• Insert a list of links here
• Then there’s this free option to (link to Coacha lite page?)

What are the problems I’m likely to get with attendance registers?

You wouldn’t really think that there are likely to be problems when it comes to using attendance registers. However, there are many pitfalls to make sure you avoid when using them that people really don’t think about. And when they do come to think about it, it’s usually too late.

The Badminton England template illustrated above is a typical example of a traditional way to register attendance. We’re by no means singling BE out here by the way as they have one of the most comprehensive sets of documents available that we’ve seen from any sporting NGB.

What’s more BE will have sought advice from (or maybe even based them entirely on) the guidance from the governments UK Sport arm. (link to https://www.uksport.gov.uk/ ) This’ll mean that these documents should be the best around for sports clubs.

If I use a free attendance register, are they safe?

As you can see on the BE register, there is some very important personal info to be added to these registers. Therefore, the privacy and security of all the people that are added to a register is very important. So, the question is, who gets to see it?

Whilst in most cases it’s important that all coaching staff and helpers have access to these class registers, it’s equally as important to make sure they are kept safe. Not just in the class or session itself, but also before and after. Where are they kept? How are they transferred from one coach to another (a common problem if different staff take the same classes on rotation for example)?

How secure is an A4 ring binder or box folder? And how easy is it for someone with dubious intention to flick to one of the attendance registers and take a sneaky photo of it on their phone? May seem a bit extreme, but this is exactly the kind of thing that paedophiles will do to get the info they need.

How about a separate class register for each class or session?

With some attendance register templates they are designed for one single use. This means you’ll need to fill out one for each session that you put on. So even if you have only, say 25 people attend, that’s a lot of writing out do at every session if you prefill them in yourself. Or not a very nice job to have to delegate to one of your helpers!

You can download this free attendance register template from here (then link to https://www.smartsheet.com/free-attendance-spreadsheet-templates - ENSURE NO FOLLOW – Use image ‘Attendance register 07’ use alt text ‘attendance register’ have so it is clickable to reveal a pop up window of a high res version)

An alternative many clubs take is to ask people to fill their own info each time, which makes a lot of sense. Reduces the club’s admin time and meaning that they will have the most recent and up to date info for that person.

However, this does get a tad tedious for your members after a while, especially if they attend several sessions or classes in a week. Many really dedicated people, especially in the sports world, will be hard at it four or five times a week…maybe more.

This often results in complacency. ‘I filled it in a couple of days ago, you know who I am, just mark me down as here’. Again, makes perfect sense, but not going to be any good from your point of view.

Also, each person that fills in the register is then able to see the personal details of everyone else in the class. Hardly GDPR compliant and definitely not good practice in any situation.

How much info can I get on to an attendance register template?

The short answer is ‘not a lot’. As you can see with the example above (and many others you’ll find online) there is little space to write what is sometimes quite detailed info on to them.

For example, how about if there are a couple of people to contact in an emergency if one of the children in your class has an accident? A very common situation where parents may have separated and something that not everyone really thinks about until they’re in a situation where the contact they have doesn’t pick up. Not good if it’s a serious accident.

There are better alternatives though which we discuss here. (link to the second article ‘online attendance register software or app’ article)

Where should I keep my attendance registers once I’ve taken them?

The simple answer is ‘under lock and key’. However, depending on how long you need to keep these and how many classes, sessions or events you put on, this can amount to a lot of paperwork over time.

What some people do is transfer the information recorded on the printed version of the attendance register template and transfer it to a digital copy on their computer. Whilst time consuming and adding yet another admin task to your workload, it’s the most secure way of keeping copies of them. Another option may be to scan them in and file away on your computer, but again that’s even more time added to your admin.

But even then, how secure is your computer? What happens if your computer beaks, gets lost or is stolen? What then? And do you take regular backups and are they stored safely and securely? The same goes for tablets and any other mobile devices too.

People who read this article also found these articles useful:

· Online attendance registers (link to the second page)

· Sign-up forms (link to third article in this series – to follow)