How to book your child into a class

Start from the link your centre sent you

Term starts in a fortnight and you want your child's place before it goes. That link your centre sent opens the classes they are running. Bookingo is the software behind it, so the classes, the dates and anything you owe all sit in the same place.

Your family gets one account with your children on it. The first booking asks for the details your centre needs about you and your child. The next one asks for far less.

Programme cards on the parent portal with cover photos and prices — A parent starts here, on your public booking page.

Find the programme, then the right schedule

A programme is what you are signing your child up for: Tuesday ballet, a football week in half term, beginner piano. Each one says what it covers and who it suits.

Inside a programme there is often a choice of schedules. Tuesdays at four at one location, Saturday mornings at another — the same programme, running on different days in different places. Pick the one that fits your week, because that choice decides which dates your child is booked on.

Prices are set per schedule, so the Saturday group can cost a different amount from the Tuesday one. The card shows the lowest price as a figure followed by ‘onwards’, because what you actually pay depends on how much you book.

The programme summary at the top of the booking page, showing name, centre address and price — Choosing a programme opens its own page with the centre address.

You pick weeks, not individual days

This catches people out, so it is worth saying plainly. The calendar on a booking page shows every date, but the dates themselves are not what you click. Down the left there is a row of week links — Week 1, Week 2, and so on — and those are the buttons.

Choose a week and two things appear. The programme summary at the top gains the dates you have just committed to, and a timings panel opens beside the calendar showing the session time and whether it still has room. Until you choose a week the Proceed button stays greyed out, which is the clearest sign that nothing is selected yet.

The week selectors down the left of the booking calendar, outlined, with week one highlighted — The week links are the buttons. Clicking a date does nothing.

Check the dates before you confirm

Schedules come in two shapes. One repeats on the same weekday between a start and an end date. The other is a specific list of dates — a half-term camp, four Saturday workshops. Either way, you see the dates before you confirm anything.

Read them against your own calendar first.

Whether any dates fall in a school holiday or a week you are away
The day and time, which can differ between schedules in the same programme
Which location it runs at, if your centre has more than one
Which of your children you are booking

The week selectors down the left of the date picker outlined — Weeks are the unit, not individual days — you pick Week 1, not the 3rd.

Choosing which child is going

You pick from the children already on your account. Centres name that list themselves, so you may see Students, Members or Children on screen. It is the same list.

If the child you want is not on it, add them before you book. What staff know on day one — allergies, medical notes, who to ring — comes from that record, not from a conversation at the door.

A timings panel showing four to five PM marked Available, outlined — The available slot only appears once a week is chosen.

If the class is full

Places are counted session by session, and your booking takes one on every date it covers. A run of eight Tuesdays takes a place in all eight. That means a single full date in the middle of a run is enough to stop the whole booking.

Some centres keep a waitlist. Where they do, you can put your child's name down and they will contact you if a place comes free. Where they don't, it is still worth asking — places open up when other families cancel, and a cancelled place goes back into the class straight away. Waitlists explains how they work.

The booking summary showing one participant times one week at twenty dollars, totalling twenty dollars — The summary prices it as they go.

After you have booked

You get a confirmation listing the dates. Payment depends on your centre: some take it as you book, others raise an invoice afterwards. Either way, what you owe and what you have paid sits on your family account.

Plans change. A booking can be moved to other dates or cancelled, and your centre decides how much notice they want for either.

The Proceed button, now enabled, outlined in the summary panel — Proceed stays greyed out until a week is selected.

On a phone or on a computer

The parent portal works the same on both. Most parents book on a phone, usually standing in a corridor at pick-up, so everything is reachable one-handed — but if you would rather sort out a whole term at a laptop, the same pages are there and nothing is missing from either.

You do not need to install anything. It is the same link either way.