Studio Management
Parent Complaint about Group Lessons
For those of you who teach mostly in groups, how have you addressed complaints from parents about group lessons and the student to teacher ratio? (Meaning they feel their child isn’t getting enough ‘piano time’ in their new group lesson)? I teach mostly small groups.…
Trying Out Lessons
I have run three FIS’s over the past week, and have encountered a number of potential parents who use the phrase “we want to give it a go”. Now, I know this is a phrase we don’t like to hear necessarily – as “giving it…
Missed Lessons
I have a family of 2 boys that are giving me problems with missed lessons. In the early spring of this past year the mom didn’t want to pay for missed lessons while they went on vacation so had them quit for the summer rather…
Group Lesson and Language Barrier
I have a student that is just starting with a few private lessons to catch her up to the group I want to add her to. My dilemma is that there is a huge language barrier. She is super smart and quick, has taken 2…
Quitting Families
Siblings in a shared lesson with 2 others, just finishing Foundation One (12 lessons) Big brother learning faster than average, and faster than his sister. Mom says they are having trouble at home because they are playing the same material, he wants to go faster…
Age Range in Share Lessons
Greetings all – further to a comment I just read in Sandy Larsen’s message to the group re: Accompaniment – I noticed her reference to the age range in her class of 6 students, ages 9 through 62. This was intriguing to me, as I…
Low Energy Group
I’m a brand new teacher, just a month in. I’m teaching only shared lessons and have several groups of different abilities and ages. Overall, I love the energy of the group and all the different, engaging activities you can do with them. I have one…
Cathy Hirata’s Halloween Recital
twas halloween eve and all though my house ran teeny little kids, even a mouse! (sorry…..it was the best I could come up with!) they ran to the piano and played with glee each 2 songs, very strange indeed not what I taught, but each…
Lessons After Summer Camp
I received an inquiry from a Mom (referred by a mom of a current student) regarding lessons for her two sons, ages 6 and 8. She asked for evening times because the boys are in camp during the day. My experience with kids in camp…
Slowing Down Students
What creative ways do you use to get students to slow down? I don’t know any creative ways, I just resort to tapping a slow beat, and getting them to play along to the audio slow version. I wonder if it is a stage they…