Summer Lessons

[Appenato]

I'm curious to know how many of you teachers teach during the summer. Do you make it an option to students to continue for the summer or are they required to take a certain amount of lessons over the season?

This summer, because I've made summer lessons an option, 3/4 of my students took a break. First summer since I've been teaching that this has happened, and it also happened to be the summer that I really needed the income from teaching. Since I'm revising my studio policy for the year, I'm debating whether to include something about requiring summer lessons, say, 5 lessons between a certain time frame. Should this go in my policy or just in a letter sent out at the end of the academic year? Lessons would be required so that regression wouldn't happen so much during the 2 months that would normally be off... as well as the gurantee of reserving a spot for them in the fall.

So... what do you do for the summer... and should I mention it in the policy or end-of-school-year letter?

[pianonut]

that's great that you care so much.  yes.  send lots of cards and letters and make it known that you are available.  sometimes students think that you are busy or on vacation.  or, maybe they think they are just not much good anyway, so why not take a little vacation, paint the house, clean out the basement, etc.

right now, i'm painting walls.  my house has become a living memorial to hand sizes that have changed in the last two years.  the small ones are lower.  also, there's some kind of sticky stuff (buggers) on the hallway wall.

[thalberg]

LOL pianonut!

[lagin]

I gave the option, since I myself take them through the summer.  Two out of three stayed on.  I'm thinking about not doing it next year.  I'll see.  I want a break myself.  I might just give assignments instead.  Summer is a hard time to get kids to practice, anyway.  But, I'll see what it's like come next summer.

[abell88]

I had one student who took a few weekly lessons in July, then one week of daily lessons. This made an incredible difference in her pieces. Unfortunately, she's now visiting her grandma in another country, and I doubt she has access to a piano there.

I have two students (brothers) who are coming for twice weekly lessons. I know they are busy kids and don't necessarily practise much between lessons, so I feel no compunction in treating it as a practise time...I figure it will help them learn to practise better.

I really appreciate the summer income, and I think it really makes sense to have lessons when the kids aren't overloaded with homework.

[Astyron]

I don't require summer lessons but all of my students take them each year, except maybe one or two.  There a couple things I do regarding summer lessons:

*  I let them know that people who have summer lessons have first choice of signup times.  Those who did not take summer lessons choose from what's left.  The one girl who didn't sign up for lessons this summer is the student who's been studying with me the longest privately so I'm a bit concerned about this. 

*  Also, when students sign up for summer lessons I do require that they take a minimum number of lessons.  I was personally available for nine weeks, so I required of my students a minimum of six lessons.  Last summer I required seven.  Most only took the six, leaving August for trips, but about 25% took them all the way through summer.  It is a pay reduction for me but only a small one. 

*  I also send out a studio email/newsletter talking about summer lessons and explain how students can really loose a great deal of ground over summer (particularly the little ones) if they aren't taking lessons; some lessons done consistantly (weekly for a stretch of time) are better than none or sporatic lessons scattered here and there throughout summer. 

*  Finally, I decide my work hours and days and hang a schedule up in my waiting room and let THEM signup wherever they want, but they must pay me for all their summer lessons when they put their name on the sheet to reserve their time and make their commitment.  I've found that by doing this they are more apt to make it to their lessons or arrange to switch with another students time instead of easily "forgetting" or reshuffling their priorities.  Hanging up that sheet does something psychological, I think -- they see other names going up and perhaps feel competitive ("keeping up with the Jones") or just jump on the band wagon. 

I'm sure there's lots of other ideas.  I hope these few give you something to ponder.

[jeremyjchilds]

I teach in the summer too.

about 2/3 of my students stay on.

I really like the idea of having a "piano week" where there are lessons every day.. awesome!!

[whynot]

It used to be that all my students took the summer off, then a few wanted some help, and now most of them continue lessons, just on a more relaxed schedule.  I make it optional, and encourage them to see me once or twice a month, and certainly more often if they wish.  I also switch them to projects that they can do more on their own:  playing by ear, composition, sightreading through easy books-- something fun that they're likely to keep up with even if they don't see me every week.  My main goal is to keep them playing, and most of them do so.  When we resume more frequent lessons in the fall, they aren't "behind" in their playing, they've usually been playing quite a lot.  They have generally spent the time getting much better at some particular thing, so they see that accomplishment.   Plus they feel like they got some respite from the usual routine, so they're pretty cheerful about getting back into it.  It's not a perfect setup from an income standpoint, but it seems to work well for the growth of the students.  If my financial situation were different, perhaps I would do this differently, I don't know. 

[ashcatty]

I find the issue of summer lessons to be a big problem.  As a college student who also teaches full time I cannot afford to have all students quit and then have no income for the summer! Although I have students who did quit during the summer, I find it hard to start students again during the fall, some children completely forget their notes and it seems to then take another month of lessons to get them back into the swing of things, plus I find once people quit that they don't follow through in calling and starting lessons again.  I have a few people that I know will restart, and once fall hits I call the students to see if they will be starting up again and inform the parents I need to plan my fall schedule and whether or not I need to be preparing a time slot for them. During the summers I advertised to home schoolers, which means I can fit them in in the earlier times during the school year because they don't have a schedule where they can only have a lesson during they after 3:00pm times.  I think that you have to emphasize that this is your job and your income...it is hard to just suddenly find some summer job for income when you are left with no students.