Rowing Software for New Zealand Schools

Built for school rowing programmes, junior through senior

Rowing software for school rowing programmes

The platform NZ schools run their rowing on. Junior welfare built in, parents stay informed, the school keeps full visibility - and the teacher in charge of rowing stops chasing WhatsApp messages. Built for NZSSRA-affiliated programmes preparing for the Maadi Cup.

Book a demo Set up your club free

No card needed. Setup in a day. Free roster import from your existing school list.

Coach dashboard showing squad attendance and crew planning for a school rowing programme

Why school rowing needs its own software

Rowing software for NZ schools runs every operational layer of a school rowing programme from one platform: training scheduling, crew selection, junior welfare and emergency contacts, parent communication, regatta entries, bursar billing, and the audit trail the school requires. Row HQ is built for the way New Zealand schools actually run rowing, from junior squads through to first VIIIs at the Maadi Cup at Lake Karapiro and the NZ Secondary Schools Champs. Schools including Auckland Grammar, St Cuthbert's, Christ's College, St Bede's, and Otago Boys' High School are part of a community where programme admin takes hours, not days.

New Zealand school rowing runs through the NZ Secondary Schools Rowing Association (NZSSRA) and culminates each Easter at the Maadi Cup, rotating between Lake Karapiro and Lake Ruataniwha. Around 2,200 school rowers converge on those venues each year. The teacher in charge of rowing, captain of boats, and committee balance training schedules around term dates, NCEA exam windows, and the long preparation season from January through to Easter. A generic platform with no concept of parents, no Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 welfare layer, and no Incorporated Societies Act 2022 compliance support cannot safely run a NZ school programme. Row HQ has those requirements built in from the start.

Three audiences, one platform

One platform, three groups. Coaches do the coaching. Parents get the schedule. The school keeps oversight without sitting in coaches' meetings.

Teacher in charge of rowing

Your TICR / head coach can:

Schedule training across junior and senior squads
Build crew selections with full availability visibility
Take attendance per session in one tap per rower
Track erg scores and athlete progression
Push announcements to a squad or whole programme

Bursar / school admin

The bursary office gets:

Roster, attendance, and welfare audit trail
Billing integration (Stripe or school invoicing)
Trip and camp rosters with parental consent
Real-time fleet inventory and maintenance log
Year-on-year reporting for Board of Trustees

Parents

Parents see in their phone:

Training schedule, boathouse locations, pickup times
Their child's crew for the next regatta weekend
Camp rosters and consent forms
Direct messaging to coaching staff
School announcements about Maadi Cup season

See what each audience actually sees

Same data, three views. Tap a tab to see how Row HQ looks for coaches, the bursary, and parents.

Plan a session. Build the crew. Check who is on the water.

Coach editing a training session for the junior squad

Coach assigning rowers to crews for a regatta

Coach availability and weekly schedule view

Track programme fees. Audit fleet condition. Pull attendance for the Board of Trustees.

Bursary managing programme fees and outstanding balances

Programme-wide attendance record across all squads

See your child's schedule. Get instant updates. Skip the four WhatsApp groups.

Upcoming regattas and Maadi Cup travel details

Built for the way NZ school rowing actually works

Multi-squad management

Junior, intermediate, senior, novice - every squad gets its own coaches, calendar, and roster while the TICR sees the programme-wide view.

Parent visibility without parent admin access

Parents see their own child's schedule, crew selections, and trip details. They don't see the back office. Coaches get one channel to push updates to families.

Aligns to the NZ school year

Term dates, NCEA exam blackouts, half term, training camps, Maadi Cup lead-up, head and regatta weekends - all built into the scheduling layer.

Bursar billing integration

Charge programme fees through Stripe or via bursary invoice. Track who has paid, who has a fee concession, and who needs follow-up.

Reporting the school will accept

Attendance reports, welfare reports, and end-of-season reviews formatted for Board of Trustees and school council.

Coach handover that doesn't lose data

When a coach moves on, the programme data stays. Roles transfer, history is preserved, no one walks out with the rowers' records on a personal laptop.

Privacy and welfare

Designed for under-18 protection from day one

A NZ school rowing programme holds emergency contacts, medical notes, parental consent, and travel details for rowers under 18. Row HQ is built so that data is handled the way your bursar, your welfare officer, and your insurer expect - consistent with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

Welfare officer role with full audit access
Parental consent records timestamped on every trip and camp
Encrypted cloud hosting
Audit trail of every coach-rower interaction
Encrypted at rest and in transit, no third-party trackers in the rower portal

NZ Privacy Act 2020 Aligned

Cloud-Hosted

Encrypted in transit and at rest

Audit Log

Parental Consent Records

HSWA 2015-aligned

Free up to 20 members. No card needed.

Get rowing software your bursary will sign off on

Free roster import, full feature access, and a real person walks you through setup. Most programmes are live within a day.

Set up your club free Book a 20-min walkthrough

How a NZ school programme actually uses Row HQ

Three workflows that come up every week of the season - from club training through to Maadi Cup prep - and how Row HQ collapses each one.

Coach editing a training session in the Row HQ scheduling interface

Training scheduling

A coach plans a week of training in five minutes

Recurring session templates, squad-level overrides, and NCEA exam blackouts handled by the calendar. Rowers see updates the moment a session changes - no separate WhatsApp group.

Recurring sessions templated per squad
Auto-respects NCEA exam and term calendar
Instant update on every change

See the scheduling tools

Bursary dashboard showing programme fees and outstanding balances

Bursar reporting

The bursary pulls termly reports in two clicks

Bursary dashboards roll up programme fees, fee concessions, attendance, and welfare events into export-ready reports. End the days of cross-referencing five different spreadsheets the night before a Board of Trustees meeting.

Stripe billing + invoice tracking
Attendance and welfare audit trail per rower
Export to the formats most NZ school councils request

See the admin dashboard

Announcement log showing messages sent to parents

Parent communication

Parents stop asking what time pickup is

Every session, every regatta, every Maadi Cup travel detail goes to the parent app. Updates go out the moment schedules change. WhatsApp groups and forwarded emails disappear from the coaching staff's evenings.

Parent app shows their child only
Instant updates on every schedule change
Camp and consent forms in one place

See the member portal

School rowing without Row HQ vs with

Job to do

WhatsApp + spreadsheet

Row HQ

Training attendance

Manual head count, parent WhatsApp

One tap, parent gets an instant update

Crew selection for the next regatta

Whiteboard at the boathouse

Live availability, drag and drop, published

Parent emergency contact

Word document on coach's laptop

Built-in, encrypted, bursary-accessible

Tracking who has paid programme fees

Manual spreadsheet, bursary chases

Stripe + invoice tracking, bursary dashboard

End-of-season Board of Trustees report

Two days of compiling

Click "export"

Coach handover at end of season

Files on personal laptop

Roles transfer, history preserved

A typical NZ school rowing programme runs on three or four WhatsApp groups, a couple of Excel spreadsheets, a paper sign-on sheet at the boathouse, and a teacher in charge who spends most weekends reconciling all of it. The Maadi Cup alone requires weeks of paperwork - crew sheets, travel consents, regatta entries - on top of the normal weekly admin. Row HQ collapses that into one platform.

How NZ school rowing runs on Row HQ

For junior and senior school programmes, NZSSRA-affiliated

See pricing

NZ school rowing software FAQs

Is Row HQ designed for schools or just clubs?

Both. The same platform supports NZ school rowing programmes, university boat clubs, and community clubs. Schools get specific features around bursary billing, parent visibility, welfare officer roles, and audit reporting. Each programme toggles which features they need at setup.

How does Row HQ handle junior welfare and minor protection?

Every rower record can have multiple parent or guardian contacts. Coach-rower interactions are logged. Designated welfare officer roles get full visibility. Camp and trip rosters require parental consent before travel can be confirmed. Communication channels are auditable.

Where is our school's data stored?

Your school's data is held on hardened enterprise cloud infrastructure in a UK data centre, encrypted at rest and in transit. Row HQ is operated under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 - member data is processed under comparable privacy safeguards consistent with the 13 Information Privacy Principles. We can share our sub-processor list and hosting documentation on request.

How does Row HQ align with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015?

Row HQ supports the operational side of your school's HSWA 2015 obligations - welfare officer access, audit trail of on-water activities, parental consent records, retention rules, and role-based visibility. The platform supports your safety management system without replacing it.

Can the bursary see across the rowing programme without running it?

Yes. The bursary gets a read-only view of the entire programme: roster, attendance, welfare events, finance, fleet condition. They don't need to attend coaches' meetings to know what is happening. Year-end reports export to the formats most NZ school councils request.

How do parents access information without breaking the platform?

Parents have a parent role tied to their child's record. They see their own child's schedule, crew, regatta entries, and trip details. They cannot see other rowers, the coach's back office, or finance. In-app updates keep them informed.

Will it work with our school management system?

Most schools use Row HQ alongside their existing system rather than replacing it. We import roster from CSV at the start of each term and export attendance and finance reports for the school. Direct integrations are on the roadmap.

Is Row HQ free for school programmes?

Programmes with up to 20 active members use the full platform free, for good - no card, no feature limit. Above 20 members you pay a flat monthly band by active member count, with every feature included on every band.