Nearly one in four children leaving primary school in England are living with obesity, according to National Child Measurement Programme data reported by The Guardian. Progressive Sports exists to change that number, one PE lesson, sports club, holiday camp and wraparound session at a time. Eighteen years in and Progressive Sports are doing it at serious scale: over 75,000 children active every week, across schools and communities nationwide.
But the systems running that scale were buckling underneath their popular classes and growth. A payment system not suited for the growth they were experiencing, a platform that added barriers to parents making easy bookings, and wraparound care compliance admin mounting, all of it quietly capping the capability of the Progressive team to handle their growth. Here's what changed when they moved to Enrolmy, and what it took to get there.
Meet the team behind the scale
Progressive Sports has grown into one of the UK's leading providers of in-school and community sport, running physical education coaching, sports clubs, holiday clubs and wraparound care across three regions. We sat down with Finance Coordinator; Emily Whitchurch and Office Manager; Gemma Latty, the two people who keep that operation's admin backbone standing, to talk through what running it actually looked like before Enrolmy, and what's changed since.
Between them, Emily and Gemma oversee every booking, payment and compliance record behind the organisation's franchise network, developing and implementing the systems that let franchisees operate independently while head office keeps everything consistent underneath them.
The problem: growth was outrunning the admin
Payments held bookings hostage. Before Enrolmy, parents paying for sports on the old system had to pay upfront, all in one go. As Progressive Sports started to extend their service offerings into the wraparound care sector, this became a barrier to parents booking. Paying for a term or two, or the full year of wrap, in one go was a struggle for many families. That large lump sum... did what large lump sums do: it made parents hesitate, delay, and occasionally book at the very last minute out of necessity rather than plan ahead, the kind of late "panic booking" that makes forecasting and staffing a headache for everyone on the other end.
"What we could offer to parents generally on the old system was just very limited," the team told us.
The booking journey was creating unnecessary friction. The previous system required parents to navigate multiple steps to find and book a spot, and it could not be embedded into Progressive Sports’ own website. For a multi-region franchise, every extra click increased the risk of parents abandoning the process and calling instead, creating manual follow up work that eats up time and resources for the administrators at Progressive Sports who are dealing with tens of thousands of bookings across the UK, every season.
Ofsted compliance requirements were evolving alongside the business. As the wraparound offering grew from a side service into a core part of the business, being on the voluntary register wasn’t enough and having a purpose built system that automated Ofsted compliance across franchises and multiple settings became crucial.
What changed with Enrolmy
Payments became something parents could actually manage. With EMY Pay, Progressive Sports moved away from forcing one lump sum payment and into flexible, scheduled payment options.
"Enrolmy offers more flexibility for parents as they can manage their bookings and payment schedules," the team explained. "It gives them a little bit more flexibility and control of their own."
Parents booking earlier, on their own terms, instead of scrambling at the last minute, is exactly the shift a growing multi region operation needs.
The booking journey got shorter, literally. Being able to embed Enrolmy directly into the Progressive Sports website removed steps that used to bounce parents between systems.
"There are fewer clicks for them to get to what they need," the team said, of the change. Fewer clicks isn't just a nicer parent experience, it's fewer emails and phone calls landing back on the admin team's desk.
Compliance stopped being a question mark. Moving off the voluntary register and onto Enrolmy's compliance tooling gave the team a straightforward and automated way to meet Ofsted's wraparound care requirements in full.
"The apps are definitely better," the team told us. "They help with Ofsted in terms of compliance."
Built for a franchise, not just a head office
Progressive Sports runs as a franchise model, which means every improvement has to work twice: once for head office, and once for every independently run setting underneath it. The team's approach has been to trial and refine new processes centrally, then roll out what works to franchisees, keeping the parent experience consistent whether a family is booking in Staffordshire or the South East.
That consistency matters more as the business scales. Running old and new systems side by side during the transition, starting with wraparound care before folding in holiday camps, let the team fine tune reporting and processes without disrupting a single term of bookings.
What's next
Progressive Sports currently runs 21 wraparound care services across three regions, with an ambitious next chapter already mapped out: doubling that number, while expanding by 50% across all three regions they operate in. Holiday clubs stay firmly in "quality over quantity" territory, growth there is deliberate, not just a numbers game.
It's the kind of growth that's only realistic with payments, bookings and compliance already running themselves in the background, which is exactly the gap Enrolmy was brought in to close.
Ready to grow the way Progressive Sports is?
If manual payments, a clunky booking journey, or a compliance grey area are quietly capping how fast your organisation can grow, that's a familiar story, and a fixable one.
Book a demo and see what Enrolmy could do for your organisation.