Student Retention: Keeping the Students you Worked HARD to Find!
Summer can be a difficult time for piano teachers as many students want to "take a break" from their lessons during the summer months. This is when student retention takes the BIGGEST hit.
As an original Southern California girl, I LIVE for summertime. I love the heat, the endless sunny days, swimming, and grilling all of my favorite foods.
However as a piano teacher, the summer months can bring a sense of anxiety and dread--with students wanting to "take a break" from piano lessons during the summertime season.
Poor student retention makes relying on a consistent income very difficult.
Over the years, I have developed specific strategies in my studio to reduce the summer break mindset from taking away the majority of my studio, to it being the expectation that piano lessons is a year-round education.
Set the Expectation
If parents haven't started asking already if lessons continue through summer, you can expect that they will. Be kind, but firm and confident when you state that your studio continues lessons through the summer.
Many parents will take that at face value and not ask for further explanation. Personally, I like to explain my decision so that I have parents enrolled and committed to my vision for summertime lessons.
I still have SOME parents that will still insist on taking the break, but I make sure they understand that I will not hold their lesson spot as it would not be fair to the students on my waiting list.
Perhaps addressing the expectation with parents brings you some anxiety, which is a sign your piano parent relationship might be suffering.
Give Them Something to Look Forward To
Summertime is a great opportunity to try new things in your studio! This year, I'm helping my students compose their very own video-game theme song and printing the score for them to make it official as their very own composition.
My students and I love a healthy competition, so I actually turned their compositions into a "composition competition!" By the end of summer, we will be recording their compositions and uploading them onto a google drive for all piano parents to listen to, and cast their votes on which compositions earn 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
We also came up with a couple of summer goals, with finishing their current level in their method books as one of the goals to complete before school starts again. We will also be creating a VISION BOARD for all students to participate in throughout the summer.
Regardless of what you choose to do in your summer lessons, make it exciting and valuable for the students. Parents will be less likely to push back on your summer policy for fear of their child missing out on all of the summer educational fun.
Explain How it Inhibits the Student's Education
This is how I really get parents enrolled and committed to my summer vision.
Like I mentioned above, you do not need to offer an explanation if you don't want to. It can just be one of your studio policies. However, I find that if I can get parents to see how it can actually inhibit their child's music education and can waste time/money, they are more than happy to keep that student enrolled through the summer.
With the few students that have decided to take a break in the past, I've noticed these things:
It takes a few months to get them back into a routine of regular practice
We waste precious lesson time to re-learn concepts and songs that they already learned in previous lessons
As a result of the above, progress for these students is slower and parents are spending money on lessons that the student essentially already had
When parents understand the loss that is taken when a significant break occurs, they start to believe WITH YOU in the importance of a year-round education for piano.
But What if You Want a Summer Break too?
If you find yourself not able to relate to this article because you WANT the summer break, that's OK! You are the boss, and call the shots that best fit your needs.
I tend to lean away from taking a break during the summer because I find that it's more difficult for my pre-existing students to return back to me in the fall when school starts.
They get comfortable not practicing.
It's one less thing for the parents to run them to.
And sometimes it's the popular idea of today's generation "I've tried it and learned the basics, now lets move onto the next thing."
But we know as musicians ourselves, studying an instrument is a lifelong skill that most of us are still developing even as teachers!
So I would encourage you that even if you do take a summer break in your studio, still utilize the above points to make your students excited to return to their piano lessons.
As always, stay tuned!
(pun unapologetically intended)
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