This guide covers how to create a Club or Trip from within the Groups page.
A Club is usually a reoccurring activity/service like Breakfast Club or Basketball, while a Trip is a one off activity/occurrence like Ski Trip or London Aquarium.
- Create a New Club/Trip
- Basic Group Details
- Payment Options
- Additional Group Details
- Charges – Running Balance Clubs Only
- Associated Group Details
- Schedule
- Student Memberships
- Managing Waiting Lists
Access: The minimum permissions required to create a Club or Trip are found in the Framework Module of Config>Setup>Roles and Permissions.
See also: How to Edit and Maintain a Club & Parent View of Booking a Club or Trip on MCAS – desktop view.
In Bromcom, there are various types of Clubs or Trips
- Free – For a Club or Trip that requires no fee to enrol/attend.
- Paid – For a Club or Trip that requires a fee to enrol/attend.
- Running Balance – For School care taken before or after School times.
Create New Club/Trip
From the left Menu, navigate to Groups and in the Group Type dropdown choose Clubs & Trips.
Next, click on top-left New.
This will open the Create New Group window. Note: All fields with * are mandatory and must be completed.
- Payment Type – select Free, Paid, or Running Balance. With Running Balance, students can be assigned to specific sessions by Administrators when set to Submit Preferences, or by Parents when set to Enrol to Sessions. Parents can then make payments towards the Running Balance over time. If marking a Club as Paid – the Item Price is a one off fee enabling to student to attend all sessions.
- Group Name and Description – enter as required.
- Start and End Date – specify the dates during which the Club will be running.
- These dates can be timetabled to specific times at a later stage.
- The dates determine when the Club is active on the Groups page and are not limited to the date of the trip or club activity. It is recommended that the Start Date is set to the current date and that the End Date is at least the date of the scheduled trip.
- For larger trips with instalment plans, consider allowing additional time after the trip has taken place before setting the End Date, in case further payments or administration are required.
- When Running Balance Club is selected as the Payment Type, the End Date field is hidden. This can be amended later; however, an End Date is generally not recommended for Running Balance Clubs.
- If the Club/Trip is in a different academic year that does not currently exist in Bromcom, create the academic year first. See the End of Year guidance.
- Membership Limit and Reserved Spaces – specify the maximum number of people permitted in the Group and the number of spaces that can be Reserved in advance. Reserved spaces can be used for parents who may not have access to a computer but are known to require a place on the Club/Trip.
- Waiting List – select whether a Waiting List should be available if places become available because a student leaves the Club. Parents can add children to the Waiting List through MCAS.
- Attachments – add documents associated with the Group, such as Flyers or an Itinerary. Documents can be uploaded as attachments.
- Linked Groups – select the Linked Groups that determine which students can access the Club/Trip.
- Selecting Linked Groups opens the Group Selector page.
- Select the required Group Type, such as Classes, Year Groups, or other available Group Types.
- Select the required sub-groups and select Done.
- For a Trip intended for a specific selection of students, create a Report Group containing the required students and select this group.
- For example, for a Year 6 Film Club, selecting Year 6 under Groups makes the Club available only to parents of Year 6 students.
- Important Note: Leaving Linked Groups empty makes the Club/Trip available to all Students. To restrict access to specific students, select the relevant Group. Only students within the selected group will have access to the Club/Trip. For example, to create a Club/Trip for Pupil Premium Students, select the Pupil Premium Group.
Click on the desired Group/Groups and press Done.
This will take the user back to the previous screen (unless a Linked Group as not selected).
Now, click on the Save & Edit button.
The Group has now been created and the user will be redirected to the Groups Details page where further information can be added.
Alternatively, press Save and resume creating the Club/Trip later.
This page contains the following panels
- Basic Group Details
- Additional Group Details
- Associated Group Details
- Schedule
- Student Memberships
Basic Group Details
Use this panel to amend the Name, Description, Start Date, End Date and if the Group is paid then Edit Payment Options.
The Display club in the following section on MCAS drop down is a mandatory selection and will display the Club under the Clubs, Trips or Wraparound Care sections on MCAS.
The Payment Type is dictated by which option was previously selected when creating the Club/Trip.
Edit Payment Options
If the Club is Paid, in Basic Group Details panel there will be a button to click to Edit Payment Options.
Under Payment Options, there are Variations, if set to Yes, this offers the option to create Variations of the Club/Trip with different prices and assign them to a Group of Students. For example, a discounted version for PP/Disadvantaged Students and a full price version for non PP/Disadvantaged Students.
In the example below we have selected Yes in Variations
Then click the top left + symbol to add in Variation Name, Code, Assign Group from the drop down choices, set the Price and tick left to Save
Parents of Students in one Group will not be able to see the Club/Trip under the other pricing and vice versa.
Fixed Price and Installments
- Fixed Price allows the user to set a Price that must be Paid in one transaction
- Instalments allows the user to set a series of Payments split over a period of time.
- Enable Part Payment is only accessible within Instalments but they are separate, Part Payments allows Parents to make flexible payments of their choice as and when they want towards the total price.
Additional Group Details
Use this section to set a Membership Limit and Reserved Spaces as well as make the club Live on MCAS and configure Waiting Lists and Parental Consents.
- Membership Limit dictates how many Students can Purchase/Enrol to the Club/Trip, while the Reserved Spaces automatically deducts spaces, potentially so that you can add Students who’s families don’t use MCAS.
- For Example: If the Membership Limit is set to 50 and Reserved Spaces set to 48 only 2 spaces will be available for parents to book on MCAS.
- Live on MCAS dictates the Dates the Club/Trip is visible in MCAS. In order for the Club or Trip to be visible in MCAS a date must be entered in the first Live on MCAS Between box. For more information see How to Configure Clubs and Trips Settings in MCAS.
- Enable Waiting List will allow parents to add Students to a waiting list in the instance that the club is full when they come to enrol on it. For more information see Managing Waiting Lists section of this guide.
- Is A Trip? gives the ability to mark the group as a Trip, this is mostly used for the Trip Income Receipt Function in Bromcom Finance. (Note: This does not affect where the Trip is displayed in MCAS, this is configured in the Basic Group Details section)
- Students Can Enrol Via the Student Portal will display the club in the the Clubs section of the Student Portal, this option is only available for Free clubs.
- Ticking Consent Required will display a message to parents upon enrolment to the club informing the parent that by enrolling the Student on the club/Trip they are providing their consent. Once selected a new box will display, in which it is possible to configure the message that will be displayed.
- When using the Consent Required option, the Parent cannot enrol the Student on the Club/Trip without first giving their consent, so the Student’s successful enrolment on the Club/Trip is considered confirmation that consent has been given.
IMPORTANT: If the School adds a Student to the Club/Trip rather than having the Parent enrol the Student through MCAS, it is then not possible for the Parent to give consent via MCAS and this will need to be managed offline. In the instance that a Student is exempt from payment for a club that is usually a Paid club, please see the Payment Options section of this guide as Variations can be used to manage this. An alternative option would be to create a separate Club specifically for these students, for more information see How to Create Clubs for Specific Students
Charges – Running Balance Clubs only
- When creating a Running Balance Club an extra section is visible in the Additional Group Details panel for Charges. This is used to determine how much a Student will pay per session.
- Use this section to define different charges which could be used to differentiate the length of time spent (for example a school may have a different Charge for a 30 minute session as opposed to a 2 hour session) and can be assigned to different groups of Students (for example separate charges for Students with Pupil Premium and Students without Pupil Premium)
To Add a New Charge click Add New Record at the bottom of the table, tick the box on the far left to make the charge Active, enter a Name and Code for the charge, then select whether it will be the Default charge and if it will be Available to Parents using the tick boxes. Enter the value of the Charge (Note: This is entered without a £ sign, so a Charge of £2.50 would be entered as 2.5). Next, use the drop down to select any Groups you would like to link this Charge to (Note: if you select a Group here, this charge will only be available to the selected group, leaving this section blank enables the charge for all Students to whom the Club is available.) Once you’re happy click the Tick on the far right hand side to save the Charge.
Important Note: When updating the Charges for an existing running balance club, to avoid losing historical data, it is usually better to deactivate the old Charge and create a new one rather than deleting or editing the existing Charge. To do this just untick the Active box for the charge you are changing and then follow the steps above to add a new one.
Associated Group Details
This section allows you to add or amend any Linked Groups that have been linked to this Club/Trip.
Linking a Group to the Club/Trip means that only Students from that Group will have access to/be able to enrol to the Club/Trip.
Schedule
The Schedule is very Important when it comes to Clubs and Trips. This is how you outline when/where the Club takes places and the Schedule being present is a big part of how Students can see/enrol to it on MCAS.
Important: a Club/Trip will only become available for parents to book on MCAS if there is a future Schedule. This is time linked, so if a trip starts at 8am. By 8:05 it will be considered a past trip.
When you press Add, you will be required to populate the following information;
- Weekday: For example if the Club is on a Wednesday type Wednesday into Weekday, you can choose more than one day
- Start Time and End Time: if for example the Club starts at 3.15pm and finishes at 4.15pm then either type the time in or use the clock
- Session length: this will populate automatically from the Start and End Time
- Main Teacher : select the Teacher responsible for the Club
- Location: select the Room/Location for the Club, if this is offsite for a Trip click Unknown
All the above can be amended once the Schedule is Saved. For example if you have a club every Wednesday but for some weeks its on a Thursday in a different room with a different teacher this can be amended once you click Save Schedule.
Another new feature has been added to allow you to add Sessions for past dates in the Schedule area of Clubs. Previously this feature was not available and would cause issues if a Club was created but the first few Sessions were not in the Schedule for example.
When editing a Club, Past Sessions can be added via the Schedule.
Student Memberships
The final section of the Group Details is Student Memberships.
In general, you do not need to add Students manually to a trip/club, if the Club is chargeable we would usually advise that you allow the Parents to enroll the Students via MCAS. However, if the Club is Free you can add and remove students through the Student Memberships panel with no impact.
This is where you can view, amend or add Student Memberships to this Club/Trip. If the Club/Trip has been made available to Parents on MCAS and Parents have booked on to the trip you would see them in Student Memberships
If you add Students in this section you are adding them to the Club/Trip and if there is a charge then this will create an order
Note: If Consent Required is ticked and the school is adding Students to the Club, we expect that they first obtain the parent’s approval because the parent cannot grant consent via MyChildAtSchool once the Students are added.
When you press Add Multiple, you will be presented with a Student Selector and Start Date.
These allow you to select which Students you wish to add to Club/Trip and from which Date.
This could be useful in situations where a family does not have MCAS but they want their Child to attend, meaning you could add the Student manually on their behalf.
Adding a student manually in Student Memberships gives you the option to create an order. If you add student memberships manually then you will need to create an order for each instalment needed. If you add all instalments in the single order, then parents will need to pay all in one checkout.
If you choose Do not create then the selected Students will be added to the Club but with no charge added.
If you choose Create an order you will be asked to confirm the charge you wish to apply to the selected Students and this will now show as Outstanding in the Student Memberships
If you have selected Instalments within your Payment Options and select to create an Order you will see the following options.
Selecting Add Deposit creates an initial order for the Deposit which will be followed by all subsequent instalments as specified in the Payment Options section. This is the option we would usually recommend if you would like to add Students to the Club and have them follow the designated Instalment plan.
Selecting Add Full Amount will create an order for the Full Amount including the deposit and all instalment plans under 1 order (For example if the instalment plan dictates a Deposit of £50 and then 4 x Instalments of £50, this would add an order for £250) . The parent will need to pay for the Club in full and will not be able to make use of the Instalment plan.
Selecting Add Bespoke Amount opens the following pop-up enabling you to customise the instalment plan for the selected Student(s). You can use the Deposit field at the top to change the deposit amount, and you can then use the Number of Instalments dropdown to change the number of Instalments as well as the amount required per Instalment, the individual Instalment amounts can be amended individually but the Deposit plus all of the Instalments must equal the Total Price as selected upon setting up the Club. Clicking Create Order will create orders for the Deposit and each of the Instalments.
Managing Waiting Lists
If you have ticked Enable Waiting List and added a Membership Limit in Additional Group Details, then once the Membership Limit is reached, Parents will have the option to add the Student to a Waiting List.
3 months tip: Once a student is a part of the waiting list for a club/trip, the waiting list details for that club/trip will only display in MCAS if the clubs next session is within the next 3 months.
- For example on 21st November if the Clubs next session is 01/12/2025, this will display as this is within 3 months.
- However, If Club next session is 01/07/2026, this will not display until 01/04/2026
You’ll see the Waiting List below the Student Membership panel on the Group Page.
Once a space in the Trip becomes available you can move the Student from the Waiting List in to the Student Memberships list by clicking the + button in the Actions column on the far right.
If the Student decides they no longer wish to attend the Trip and would like to be removed from the Waiting List you can remove them by clicking the Bin icon in the Actions column.
From MCAS Web Version the parent will see the following if they click on Clubs in the left hand menu bar note ‘Spaces Available‘ column in Full
If they then click on the spy glass for that particular Club they will see a message saying ‘This club is currently full. However, you can add yourself to the waiting list in case spaces become available’
Click Add To Waiting List
The parent will then see the Waiting List section, they can click Remove if they choose to remove the child from the Waiting List.
In the MIS the student will then appear in the Waiting List panel from Groups>Club & Trips>Select Club>View
Click the + icon in the far right Actions column to Enrol this Student
OR
Use the bin icon in the Actions column to delete a Student from the Waiting List panel.
The Student them moves into the Student Memberships panel
In the MCAS Web Version the parent will see their child now enrolled to the Club.
