Managing Forms and Students Moving
Found in: Attendance, Forms & Organization, Shared Lessons, Studio Management
Kerry
Students often move around from one Shared Lesson to another, or from a Private Lesson to a Shared. How do you keep your Attendance Sheet to reflect these attendances. Sometimes you start a new group and then people move around for some reason so do you start a new page for each group, add and subtract them, mark they have moved to a different time, what do you do to keep track of them?
Neil Moore
Just a quick response at surface level. This is one of the issues facing us with regard to using various forms that I provide. Mostly, they are provided as a guide, with some being required material, and others being a support tool (if you think it helps and it works for you).
With the forms, we will have to experiment, switch them out, alter and change them as circumstances change, and now, particularly with the continued, strong preference for Shared Lessons and the vast array of benefits they offer to everybody, such circumstances as you have described do need addressing.
Firstly, ALWAYS write information that is subject to change, in pencil, so that your forms can be easily cleaned up visually managed.
Secondly, I recommend that you always keep your current and prior Lesson Records. Amongst other things, it is a profoundly valuable tax and income-tracking record, it will help you determine your student longevity, as well as your improved student-retention ability.
Those who have taught lots of Shared Lessons would agree that, if well managed, students shouldn’t have a need to move around very often. So, at a practical level, when a student moves merely make a note in the section allocated for Attendance, “moved to Tues 4pm on Aug. 25th 2005” etc. On the new sheet, enter a cross-reference – “moved from Mon 5pm on Aug. 18th 2005.”
Whilst it is not a comprehensive and perfect system, it retains a perfectly accurate thread, and this is what is vital for now. I used these exact forms for all my teaching and merely did exactly what I suggested above.
I’m open to considering a better form or a more functional alternative if anybody has the time to devise one.