Last week, I shared the start of a story about an adult student who told me in his trial lesson which of my policies he wouldn't follow. This is how it ended, and why so many of us keep teaching a student long after we know it isn't working. Letting go isn't failing them, and it can be done kindly.
In this episode:
How the story of the adult student from Episode 15 ended
Why we hold on, and what it costs you, the family, the student and the student waiting for a space
Why not practising isn't always a reason to stop
The signs it isn't working, and how to tell a rough patch from a clash nobody can fix
Why "just ditch them" is unhelpful advice
Exactly how I end lessons now, including the email I send
Links mentioned:
Episode 15: Not Every Enquiry Is Your Next Student
Episode 11: What Makes A Good Music Teacher
Free Studio Policy Template including a right-to-end clause
Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit (£12), with the calculator I use for final invoices
Academic Year Piano Planners for Students
Focus Sessions (£67/hr) one-to-one mentoring
Know a teacher who's agonising over a student right now? Please share this episode with them. And if you've enjoyed it, a rating or review helps other teachers find the show.
-
Part 1: The story, and why we hold on
His last lesson
He waited on my stairs, the way he always did, until my previous student had gone. Then he sat down at the piano and told me there was something he wanted to get off his chest. I'd been running over, he said, and he wanted his lesson to start on time. I apologised. I didn't remind him that he always got his full half hour, or that he was welcome to come in a few minutes early like everybody else.
And then he told me that over the summer he'd bought the exam books for the next grade, and the one after that, and that he was going to enter himself for the exam. That was his last lesson with me.
To recap, for anyone who hasn't listened to Episode 15, Not Every Enquiry Is Your Next Student: I had a keen adult who'd waited for around a year on my waiting list for a space in my studio, and who told me in his trial lesson which of my policies he wouldn't be following. The two policies he refused turned out not really to matter. One of them was that the teacher enters students for exams, and he had agreed not to work towards exams, so the exam entry policy became a moot point. He also said that he buys his own music books, but that was because he'd only ever bought exam books, and he was happy for me to buy his Journey Through the Classics book, which I love for most of my adults.
So we had a really clear plan: no exams for now, I needed to find and fill in the gaps in his skills, and we would be working through simpler pieces to see how he managed rhythm and reading. And for a while, it worked.
Then we had the summer break, and he came back and told me, "You won't be very happy with me." He'd taught himself the exam pieces and he was playing them, he said, very well. I said that was fine, and invited him to bring the book in with him to the next lesson so I could hear his pieces and help him with anything he might be struggling with. He never brought the book.
And he kept coming back to the Journey Through the Classics book, the book that I had chosen, but he was getting more and more frustrated with it, especially having to work hands separately on simple pieces. He would say things like, "Well, it's not really real music, is it?" And then in the next breath, he'd say he agreed with the process. So he understood it, but he resented it. With this particular adult, I could feel the emotions washing off him, so it was quite an uncomfortable place to be.
And then in that last lesson, he told me off for overrunning with the previous student, while refusing to come in and sit down to wait for his lesson like everybody else did. And when he mentioned that he'd already bought the following exam books, I realised he's not really following the plan at all. He's not trusting me as his teacher. Although I didn't say anything about it in the moment, I'm pretty sure my face did.
I'll come back to how I handled it after that point, and exactly what I did. But first, I want to talk about why so many of us keep teaching students long after we realise it's not working.
Welcome to the show
Welcome to The Victoria Clark Show for Music Teachers. I'm Victoria. I started teaching piano part-time nearly 20 years ago, alongside a career in pharmaceutical market research, and I made pretty much every mistake there is when it comes to running a teaching business. Today I run a full studio from my home on the south coast of England, with a waiting list, students I love, and a teaching week that fits around my family.
If you've ever felt your heart sink when your phone buzzed with another last-minute cancellation, put off raising your fees for another year, or heard yourself say, "Oh, I just do a bit of teaching," when someone asked what you do, this is the podcast for you. I've been where you are. Let's build you a studio that lets you be the teacher you want to be and live the life you deserve.
Welcome to today's brand new episode, which is about knowing when it's time to stop teaching a student, and how to end the lessons kindly and professionally. Some of the things we're going to cover: why we hold on to students for so long; what it costs us as teachers, what it costs the student we're teaching, and what it costs the potential student who is sat there waiting for a space; why it isn't always an obvious decision to make; the signs that it isn't working; why some of the advice you will see online is rather unhelpful; and exactly how I end lessons. But the main point of this episode is to help you understand that you are allowed to stop teaching a student. Letting go is not failing them.
Why we hold on to students for so long
All right, so why do we hold on to students for so long? There are quite a few spokes to this particular issue. For me personally, I've only ended lessons with students a handful of times in the 19 years that I've been teaching. Far more often, I've waited for students to stop of their own accord, which is usually after about two or three years, unless something else happened that caused them to stop abruptly.
I think for a lot of us, until we really think about this topic and analyse how we feel about it, it's hard to put your finger on exactly why we keep teaching students who are making no progress. In the early days, we need the income and you don't want to lose any students. That's probably our number one fear, losing students, because they provide the income that we need to support our lives and live.
This self-reflection is a very useful exercise when thinking about choosing to stop teaching a student, and it made me realise that for a lot of the time, I've had this very strong belief that a good teacher can teach anyone. So ending lessons feels like admitting that you couldn't.
And I think this comes from the fact that when teachers talk about ending lessons, either in person at meetups or in the online groups, it's only ever spoken about in the really extreme cases, where it's a totally obvious situation: the fit clearly isn't right, it's a clear no, and the answer is there staring them in the face. Nobody tends to talk about the ordinary situation of a student who isn't practising in the context of ending lessons with them. That student is only ever spoken about as "I need help to encourage practice", which is fine, because that's the first port of call. Get the practice going.
But I think one of the big reasons that lots of teachers don't openly talk about ending lessons with students, unless it's in extreme cases, is that there is a risk of prospective families reading it online. These enormous piano teacher groups, if you're a piano teacher, really are huge groups, and they're public, and anyone can find what you're typing about online.
So the fact that teachers stay silent about this in-between zone can make us feel like we're the only one struggling with a situation that's not extreme enough to warrant an immediate dismissal. We're left in this grey area where we're filled with doubt, and the first place it goes is: we must not be a good enough teacher, because otherwise we would have helped them to discover the spark of joy of music.
And because we love music so much (I'm speaking for myself personally, but I am fairly certain you will feel the same way), we have this really strong belief that if only they would practise, it would click and they would love it the way we do. But I have to tell you the truth: music doesn't do for some people what it does for us. And that's okay.
It took me so long to realise this and then accept it, because we all know how we feel about music, don't we? It's amazing, it's wonderful. We wouldn't do what we do if we didn't feel this way about music. But not everyone feels this way about music, and it's not because they haven't seen the light. Everyone has their own passion, and you haven't failed a student because they haven't discovered the magic of music.
For me personally, I think the biggest reason above all for holding on to students longer than I should have has been avoiding the confrontation and the rejection that comes with ending lessons: not wanting to leave a bad impression, and being a bit lost as to how to go about it kindly and professionally, without leaving the student or the family feeling rejected.
Part 2: What it costs, and the signs it isn't working
What holding on costs
Okay, holding on to students is a costly thing, and it costs us in many, many ways. It costs us as the teacher, it costs the student that you're teaching, and it also costs the student who is waiting for a space in your studio. Being accommodating is part of good teaching, but not at the cost of your reputation, your mental health, or your ability to teach well.
So one of these big costs is in satisfaction. Week after week of no practice is demoralising. It's demoralising for the teacher as well as the student. And with child students, for us as teachers, it can start to feel like they just don't respect you or the time you put into their lessons, even when it's not meant that way. It's just kids living their lives, and they haven't built this habit in, for any number of reasons.
Now, a lot of what I'm going to talk about in this episode relates to child students, because when it comes to practice, it ideally has a parent's support behind it. With adult students, it's a completely different situation, because the vast majority of them have work, they have busy lives, or they have other demands on their time. I understand that, and of course I don't take it personally. So I leave the adults to decide, because they are adults, whether or not they want to carry on. They are capable of making those decisions. So the vast majority of what I talk about today relates to child students, with a few exceptions.
Then there are the students on your waiting list, if you have a waiting list, or, if you don't, the next students who contact you looking for a space when you aren't able to offer them one. It reminds me of something my piano teacher said when people would ask her, "Well, why do you teach so late in the evening?" And she'd say, "Well, they could be the next Mozart," which just says everything about her. She doesn't teach any more, of course, but she loved teaching so much that she wanted to help everyone possible discover their genius at the piano.
This point is very relevant, because if you have a student who's stuck on a waiting list because a space is being taken by a student who doesn't practise, for whatever reason, you're stopping that potential student from discovering what they can do, and enjoying and developing their musicality. If you think about it like that, it does make the decision a little bit easier.
Now, there's a really obvious one here: the family's money. It's a direct cost. They're paying for lessons that aren't going anywhere. It's costing the family money, and in turn, for us as teachers, that creates a sense of guilt. Whether there's something we can do about it or not, we feel guilty for not being able to provide or encourage or develop the musical ability in the child. Whether we can control it or not. And we can't control it, because we're never at the student's house, unless you're a visiting teacher, and then that's only for the half hour or hour lesson once a week. We can't control the practice that happens at home, and children need support from their parents, and everybody has to be on board.
There's another cost when you think about the student who is having the lessons and going nowhere, and it's the story that the child will tell about themselves: "I had piano lessons for five years and never even did a grade," for example. In the UK, of course, music grades are the benchmark that people use. So a child could look back and decide that they were a failure at music, which is not the case at all, but that's a discussion for another day, this whole focus on exams.
There's also quite a big cost to our reputation as teachers. When you've taught someone for a number of years and then they leave, and it comes up in conversation, someone says, "Who was your teacher?" When a student plays poorly, or enters themselves for an exam you'd never have agreed to, people connect it to your name, and you're not there to explain the situation or to defend yourself. So there is a risk to our reputations from hanging on to students for too long without them making progress.
I mentioned something about this in Episode 11, What Makes a Good Music Teacher, with a student who had a negative experience at a music festival. If that parent ever talks to people about who her daughter's previous teacher was, it's based on her perceptions around that event, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's a situation that doesn't do any favours for my reputation, even though I know that I didn't do anything wrong. I'll link Episode 11 in the show notes. It's quite a good episode on what makes a good music teacher, because it's not all the things you might think.
It isn't always black and white
One of the things that I know I struggle with is the fact that it's not always totally clear whether or not the student should continue lessons. For most children, no practice at all means lessons should end, but there are real exceptions.
I have a student who I have taught for nearly seven years, and he came very close to stopping because he wasn't practising, and then something clicked and he re-engaged, even though we'd been trying different approaches. So you never can tell if it's going to turn around. Now he's loving it, we've branched out in lots of different areas, and he's come back around to something we were trying to get towards. So just an extra couple of years, and the maturity that comes with it, has made it all fit again.
For students who don't have the support at home, or who don't have a decent instrument to practise on, motivation at home is low, but in lessons they love what they do. For these students that I've had, progress is slower, but the lessons still really matter to them. This is not an obvious end-lessons situation.
I have taught students in the past for whom lessons were more like music therapy. I knew they would probably never read musical notation, but that's not the be-all and end-all. Making music made such a big difference to him; it was the experience of coming to the lesson every week. So that was valuable. He was gaining something from it, and so there was no question in my mind that he needed to continue lessons.
I have a student that you could probably recognise in your own studio. I call her the feast and famine student. She will be totally motivated to practise for recitals and festivals, and plays really well, so I know she can play really well. But in between, the practice fades away and it goes back to busy life and slow progress, but still, she loves music. So she has stayed in this zone where I don't think it's the right decision to end lessons, because she enjoys music so much, and because I can see the progress when it happens.
As children go through all the different stages of their lives, their brains are constantly changing: their motivations, their priorities, their preferences. So as they get older, there may well be a click that does happen, and music suddenly becomes important to them. So it's difficult. It's a difficult thing to decide on.
The point I'm trying to make is that it really is a case-by-case situation. It depends on you as the teacher, it depends on the specific student, on the family, and on how much weight you give to your integrity as a teacher. There is no single right answer, which is why I think nobody talks about it. That, and the risk of being shamed online, because there's no shortage of those people around.
The signs it isn't working
All right, so how can you spot it when things aren't working? Lessons are under way, and apart from any red flags that we talked about in Episode 15, what should we be looking for to help us decide whether things are going in the right direction or not?
For me (I've talked about this before), I have my own practice planners that I designed for my students, and I use them with all my students, adults as well. I'm not strict at all with my adult students in terms of filling in the planner, because it's up to each individual. Really, the adult planners work for them as a way of being accountable for their own practice and keeping notes on what they've been doing, if they choose to use them in that way.
But my child students have the Academic Year Piano Planner, and if you're not familiar with them, I'll put a link to them in the show notes as well. They're designed to have a week-by-week practice log, so that you can tick each of the seven days of the week when practice was done on specific pieces, scales and arpeggios if that's what you're doing with them, sight-reading, theory, and any listening homework you might have assigned. So it covers everything.
For me, if I have a child student who has just started and the practice planner is not being filled in, whether by the child, or by the parent if the child is a bit too young and needs support with it, this is one of the first signs for me that the structure is not in place. Having this planner shows them their progress and makes them accountable. So if no one's opening the planner, this is a big sign for me.
Another one is if the student comes in and they're unfamiliar with the piece they were meant to be practising, even if they said, "Yeah, I practised, sure thing." Or if the book won't fall open at the right page, because it hasn't been opened all week. I often find it amusing when they're looking for the right page, even though we've got sticky tabs to mark the page of the piece they're supposed to be working on. It's a pretty obvious signal that they haven't touched the book since last week.
Now, something I really want to talk about is the fact that telling the difference between no practice and slower progress is really difficult in the beginning, and it takes experience. This is something that I worried about a lot in the beginning, and I was totally naive and believed every word all of my child students said to me. Children fib, by the way. Spoiler alert. And it's not a terrible thing. It's just the way children's brains work, and it's because they don't want to let you down.
It really unsettled me at first, because for me personally, I find it very hard to lie. I've always found it hard to lie. But I've read a bit about it and learned a bit from my own children, and obviously from teaching all the young children that I teach, and I've understood that lying is a normal developmental stage for children, when it's within the realms of trying to make sense of the world around them and it hasn't got out of control.
However, if you spot that a child is fibbing about practice, it does need to be dealt with. With all of my students, I'm completely honest. I speak to them on their level, and I just say, "Well, if you tell me you've practised and you haven't, it's not very helpful for you or for me. Because if you say you've practised and then you're playing like you've never seen it before, I'll think that you're really, really struggling, when if you had practised, you'd be playing it much more easily, and that would be what I would expect, and you'd feel better about things. So it doesn't really help." There are various different ways I've approached things like this.
However, when you're trying to work out for yourself whether they are making very slow progress or it's because they haven't practised, it's really difficult, because every learner is unique. Some of them have slower processing; some of them have hypermobility and difficulty holding a good hand shape. All of this can look really similar at first. So it's not a criticism of any particular student. It's just acknowledging that it takes a bit of experience to discern whether it's a lack of practice, or whether they need reinforcement in a particular area.
This is a personal one and won't apply to everybody, but for me, a sign that the dynamic isn't working with really young children is if they can't sit still for even the shortest period of time, or they keep playing on the keys while I talk, despite me having explained not to do that while I'm talking, so that we can hear each other. If things like that don't work, it's a sign that they're maybe not ready for lessons, because you need a level of maturity to be able to sit and take instruction and follow along with what's going on in the lesson.
Other signs that it might not be working could have nothing to do with the student, but relate to the parents. So if they are regularly late collecting their children after the lesson, or if they're bringing their child to lessons when they're unwell, which is against my policies, or other significant breaks of my studio policies, these can be signs that, unless you have the conversation and it is fixed, this would be the beginning of the end of those lessons. But of course, we can be adults and have the conversation with parents, and if they're on board and understand, then they'll sort it out.
Part 3: Late payment, fixing what can be fixed, and how I end lessons
Late payment
Regular late payment, for me, is handled with a late payment fee first. I don't just end lessons if they don't pay me on time. And this is something that I see come up every single week in the large Facebook groups, when teachers are asking for advice: "What do I do? I have this particular student who always pays late, and I have to remind them every month, and now they're two weeks overdue." And you get the rather unhelpful response: refuse them at their next lesson until they've paid. It's such unhelpful advice.
But it does need to be dealt with, and there are lots of kind and professional ways to deal with it. The first one is having a conversation, which for most people feels awkward and difficult, but as a business owner, it's one of those things you just need to do. Be professional, be the grown-up that you are, and have the conversation.
You could send a message first and request a chat, because there might be something else going on. They might have an unexpected bill that is holding them back from being able to pay on time that particular month, if it's monthly. Or they might have no idea that your policy is to pay by this date and no later, and you could reiterate that kindly in a conversation. It's much easier in conversation than just sending it by email, because of the way different inferences can be read into text. Do follow it up with confirmation in writing, like an email, but have the conversation so that you can understand what's going on.
And if it does turn out to be what you thought, which is that they're just not respecting your payment deadlines, then once you've had the conversation, you can decide what to do after that. For me, if it was really late all the time, it would be grounds for stopping the lessons, but not in a threatening way. Just saying, "This isn't working for me and my policies and my studio, so I'm terminating lessons."
Signs with adult students
Now, I think the only sign that relates to adult students in terms of things not working is if you have an adult student who's deliberately ignoring your advice, working on other pieces and not letting you help with the music they're playing. It's a big sign that they don't trust you as their teacher, and you're there to support them and provide help for them. So if they don't want the help from you, why are you their teacher? It's a bit of a strange one.
But if I go back to the student I was mentioning at the beginning, it was never about whether he practised or not. It was the gap between the plan that he had agreed to with me and the plan that he really wanted. So if you see that kind of gap, that's the sign to look for.
Can this be fixed?
Now, the first thing to consider, I think, if there is a problem, is: can it be fixed? Rather than the sort of table-flip response that you see online. How do you tell a rough patch from a clash that cannot be fixed?
For a child, practice needs three things. You need the support at home; you need the student's own accountability, so they need to be of an age where they can have that; and you need yourself, the teacher. Without all three of those things, it's a clash that no one can fix.
So the first thing that I would recommend, and that I do, is to talk to the parents first. Tell them clearly that, especially with child students, they need to be the support at home, even if it feels tricky at first, and even if they're not musical. Make it clear that they are not expected to teach the student at home. They are there to support them. That's why I write the practice notes in the planner. And ideally, if the child is young enough, the parent will sit in on the lesson, so they're aware of what has been taught and how it should sound. Some parents are very diligent and make notes in the lessons, but you don't necessarily need to, as long as you can provide the support at home. So what I recommend for parents is physically being in the room.
Now, it varies depending on the age and the personality of the child, but the accountability for doing the practice falls partly on the student and partly on the parent. In an ideal situation, the parent will sit with the child every time they practise, which ideally is every day, even if it's only ten minutes. It's just ten minutes out of the day to sit with them, open the planner, if they have a planner, or a notebook, and read with the student what they're supposed to be practising, because everything will be written in there. Go straight to these bars, practise these bars, not just open the piece and start from the beginning. Because how many times do students do that and think that's what practice is?
What I've advised some of my parents to do, especially the non-musical ones who feel out of their depth and unable to fill in any gaps the student might have, is that if the child struggles with any part of their practice, to note it down. There's a little reflections box for each week in my planners, where the child or the parent can note down what it is they didn't understand. So when they come to the next lesson, that's the first thing we can jump on: "Oh, you couldn't work out where to put your left hand when we started this bit. Well, this is how we do it." Working through the problems, rather than "I don't know what to do", and the parent feeling helpless because, if they're not musical, they can't work it out. You could infer some of it from the notes, but it would be a dead end. So being specific enough with parents is a very important thing, to enable this dynamic to happen at home.
I have a current student who I've taught for a number of years, and near the beginning, she was particularly anxious, so much so that she wouldn't come anywhere near the piano. It wasn't right from the beginning, because otherwise that would have been, "Oh, she's not ready for this. I won't take her on as a student." We did all the beginning things that I usually do with young students, showing them inside the piano, doing finger number games and things like that. But something, I don't know what, made her particularly anxious a few months in, and I had to devise a completely new approach.
That was good for me, because it was a situation I hadn't encountered before. It really threw me, because I thought, once they're comfortable sat at the piano, that's it, and they can carry on making music at the piano. So I had an extra conversation with her parents and came up with a new approach, and I explained that we would need to go back a little bit in order to go forwards.
They were fully supportive and on board, and it's been a real success with her, because we only needed a couple of months doing games and exercises completely away from the piano: singing and clapping, and rote teaching songs rather than pieces of music. It was enough to engage her, so that when we then went back to the piano, she was ready and she was comfortable. Since then, she has performed in every single recital that I've done. She's won her class at the festival, she's performed in the festival twice, she's thriving, and now she'll be starting to prepare for her Initial grade exam next year, which is very exciting.
So it was a situation where, on the surface, it could have been, "Oh my goodness, she's not ready, something has happened." But don't give up straight away, as I know you wouldn't. That's what this whole episode is about: we don't give up, but there are times when we need to acknowledge things cannot be fixed. In this situation, it was fine.
I had a teenager that I taught online for two separate periods. I think it was about a year for the first bit, then there was a six-month gap, and then the parents recontacted me and wanted me to start up lessons with him again. He was extremely difficult to teach. He was very gifted at the piano, and we were trying to learn theory and reading, and he was very capable. But sometimes, when there is a personality clash or a behavioural issue, it's something you can't fix as a teacher, especially not on the other side of a screen.
I did stop those lessons, after the last one, where I ended up in tears because he had been so unkind to me. I'd never had that experience before, and I was quite shocked at my reaction, because I was trying to hold it together during the lesson while he was being quite mean and saying really horrible things. It was triggering all of my alarm bells and all of my fight, flight and freeze. I tend to freeze. And then afterwards, I burst into tears, and I went and spoke to my husband: "This lesson went so badly. He was so mean to me."
It was the right decision to stop lessons, because there are some things you just can't fix, some things you just can't turn around. I explained to the parents, and they understood. It was a real shame, because he was interesting and very capable, but that side of things just meant it couldn't continue.
You are more than likely a teacher who cares. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't care. Teachers who care try lots of approaches before they give up. Once you've given it a fair go, ending lessons is almost always the right decision. Sometimes learning the instrument just isn't for that person, whether it's a child or an adult, and that's not something to be fixed. It's just the nature of who they are, and that's okay. It's okay for people not to love your instrument, however hard that feels inside.
Why "just ditch them" isn't the answer
Where you see a lot of this crop up is online, in the big teacher Facebook groups: teachers asking for help because students aren't practising, or because things aren't working. And that's fine, because for the most part you do get some good advice and different perspectives, and you get to hear from lots of other teachers.
But the thing that really bugs me is that every time, you get people jumping in, just saying, "Just ditch them." It's not the answer. It's lazy and unfeeling advice. It ignores the child's feelings, the parents' feelings if the child is struggling, and the teacher's own relationship with a student they might have taught for years. And a teacher who's come and asked for help, who might be full of self-doubt, can't simply turn around and say, "Well, that's it then, lessons are over." That's not who they are.
The sentiment is fair: you should not keep teaching a student who doesn't follow your policies. But that doesn't give any help with how to deal with it in a way that fits your personality and your relationship with that student. You have to find a way that feels right for you, that is comfortable for you, that doesn't make your insides churn and feel like you're pretending to be someone else. So if you ever see this advice, just scroll on by.
How I end lessons
Now, even though I have not ended lessons with loads and loads of students in my teaching life, this is my approach to it. I'm not saying it's the perfect approach, but this is what works for me.
First things first: sleep on it. For my adult student who I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I did not email him the same day. I purposely waited overnight, in case it was me overreacting, or because I'd been triggered. But the next morning, I woke up and I felt so calm about it, and that feeling told me that it was the right decision.
You should go and check your studio policies, unless you know them inside out. I have a clause giving me, the teacher, the right to end the lessons, which means that the decision rests on the policy, not on anything personal. I take two routes with it. I can give them notice, which would be one month, and I give them the last lesson date. Or I can end it without notice, which is the one that I use when the relationship has broken down or I don't feel safe. For the adult student in question, I chose no notice, because there was no benefit in continuing any further lessons.
When you send the email, keep it short. There is no need to go into the reasons. You don't need to say, "You said this, and you did this, and that was unfair," because none of it is going to help the situation. I can read you the email that I sent to this particular student:
I'm writing to let you know that I've made the decision to end your lessons with me, and your lesson on [this date] was your last. As per my studio policy, lessons are ending without a notice period, so there'll be no charge for any further lessons.
Then I mentioned how many lessons he'd had this term, what I'd received in payment, and what the final invoice would be. And then the last line is:
Thank you for the time we've spent working together, and I wish you all the very best with your playing. Thanks, Victoria.
Keeping it short and to the point removes the emotion from what could be a very emotionally charged situation.
For the final invoice, I calculated what was left to pay, and I used my handy calculator tool inside the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit, where you just pop in your lesson rate, the length of your lessons and how many lessons you teach per year, and it gives you your monthly rate. There's a section on the calculator tool for when a student stops part way through the academic year: you pop in how many lessons they have had up to the end of their notice period, if there is one, and how many payments you have received from them, and it calculates what there is left to pay. So it's really handy, especially in a situation where you really don't want to get this calculation wrong. I mean, you never want to get the calculations wrong, but when you are ending lessons, you want the procedure to be followed precisely and for there to be as little back and forth as possible.
So I sent this email, and the wait afterwards was very uncomfortable. He didn't ever reply, and when he didn't pay for a couple of days, I was really worried that he would turn up the next week at his next scheduled lesson and I'd have to have the conversation in person. So I was steeling myself for that, reminding myself to stay professional and calm and pragmatic, and just reiterate that it's not the right fit, and so on.
Anyway, the good news is he paid a few days later, and he did not come back, and the main feeling I had was relief. It was uncomfortable from the start, and the more I reflect on the short time I spent teaching him, the more it confirms my final decision. Because what we often do is overlook red flags along the way. They might not even be red flags; they might just be mild inconveniences, or things that aren't perfect but that you just accept and move on from. But for me, the culmination of things is when choosing to end lessons becomes an important decision, for all the reasons that I've talked about in this episode.
Part 4: Ending well, what it makes room for, and the objections
Ending lessons with a child
When I have ended lessons with a child student, the last one I ended lessons with was a student whose parents kept bringing him when he was really unwell. So he had one month's notice, and at the very next lesson, he was really sad, which is understandable, because he really enjoyed the lessons, and I didn't know what had been said at home. I wanted to make sure that he knew it wasn't about him. I wasn't rejecting him. I said, "It's not the right situation, but it's nothing to do with you." Because there's a real risk, when we stop lessons with students, especially if they're children, that it can cause a deep wound if it's not dealt with sensitively and properly.
Thankfully, I was able to cheer him up. We played some piano games. I've got all those games on the top of my piano that he was always desperate to play, and we'd balance that with some reading work and some rhythm work, and then the games. It did end as well as it could in those last four lessons that I had with him, and that's the best you can do.
So make those last lessons kind: include games, make music, improvise if this is something you're comfortable doing, and wish them well at the end. Say you hope they keep playing and keep enjoying music, because for that child, ending lessons can really feel like you don't like them any more. But that's never the case. So make it clear that it's nothing to do with who they are as a person.
Timing
The timing of ending lessons is something to think about, but don't let it become a reason never to act, because there will always be another event that's about to come up. This particular child would have been in the summer recital, and one of the parents asked, "Oh, isn't so-and-so performing today?" which was quite awkward, and I said, "No, I had to end lessons. It wasn't to do with him."
Ending lessons right before Christmas would probably leave quite a bad feeling, but also, you never know what's going on at home. So consider the timing, but don't let it become a reason to procrastinate on making the difficult decision.
If you don't already have my free studio policy template, it includes my right-to-end clause, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes, so you can have a look at it and add it to your studio policy if you need to. In a situation where it's to do with your safety, or a particularly uncomfortable psychological reason, that needs to be in there to protect you.
What letting go makes room for
The part of this topic that rarely gets thought about until afterwards is what letting go of a student makes room for. Ending lessons with one child, for me, freed up a prime after-school slot, and after some shuffling around, that free slot went to a girl who'd been on my waiting list for quite a while. She has a musical mum, she has an acoustic piano at home, and she practises regularly, so all the right things are in place, and she's thriving.
She comes bouncing into her lesson every single week to show me what she's done. She looks ahead in the book and tries things out. She's so enthusiastic, and she is one of my ideal students. So every time she walks in for her lesson, it's a great reminder of why that decision was worth it.
She deserves to have piano lessons. She has everything in place. And it wasn't the other child's fault at all. He didn't have everything in place. His parents needed to have things in place for him, and it just didn't work out. And it's not really their fault either. It's their choices, and we're all bound by our choices. If they had chosen to make more time for that, or follow my policies, then things would be a little bit different.
But think about the feeling that you have after you have let go of a student who was not your ideal student, and I say that in the sense that it was detrimental to keep teaching them, for the various reasons I've already mentioned. The feeling afterwards is relief and contentment. It's not the guilt that you expected when you thought about ending lessons with a particular student.
The objections
Okay, my favourite section: the objections. These have come from my own experiences, from other teachers, and from things I have read online. So many of these are things we tell ourselves for years, and it's really important to face them head on and look at them for what they are.
A good teacher should be able to teach anyone. So, first one: a good teacher should be able to teach anyone, right? Okay. Good teachers try lots of different approaches, and you will have tried lots of different approaches with students you're struggling with. But music does not do for everyone what it does for us. A student who isn't drawn to the music and the instrument is not proof that you've failed.
If I can just get them practising, it'll click. Objection number two: if I can just get them practising, it'll click and they'll love it. I fully believed this for so many years. Practice needs support at home and the student's own wish to do it. You can't do that from your side of the piano as a teacher, or whatever instrument you teach. You can't supply that. So set a review point, talk to the parents, and if nothing changes, you have your answer.
I need the income. Objection number three: I need the income. Totally understandable in the early years. But a student who isn't going anywhere usually leaves eventually anyway, and in the meantime, the space is not free for a student who could thrive in your studio. So make the space. Make the decision.
The parents are paying, so it's their decision when to stop. Number four: the parents are paying, so it's their decision when to stop. This is a really easy one to fall into, especially if you have parents who treat you as a service provider. I have had some of those in the past, and they were not great to deal with, but they view you as, "I'm paying for you, so you do what I say." It's a big red flag, of course.
For the most part (not the ones I've just described), parents choose to pay, but they are relying on you, the teacher, to tell them how it's going and to be honest about it. Being honest about progress is part of what they're paying for. Now, if they disagree with your decision to stop the lessons, or they push back, it's a sign that they're not the right fit for you, because what they should be doing is respecting you as a teacher, and your decision about teaching this particular student. But some parents will take it as a rejection and take it personally, and all the rest of that, and we can't control for that either. If you get that kind of response, it's an even more reassuring no: they're not the right fit.
I've taught them for years. It would feel like ending a relationship. Number five: I've taught them for years, it would feel like ending a relationship. It is, and that's exactly why it deserves care rather than avoidance. Ending that relationship kindly means the child leaves with good memories, not five years of feeling that they never got anywhere, and therefore they must be rubbish at music, or at life. They can extrapolate it as far as they want, and you don't know how it's going to impact their own sense of self-confidence.
What if they talk about me? Number six: what if they talk about me? I'll be the teacher who kicks students out. This is one that I have worried about before. People talk either way. So if you have someone saying, "Well, they had five years of lessons and got nowhere," that does far more harm to you as a professional than a short email that is sent with kindness and professionalism. Most people respond pragmatically. My adult student that I've described just paid and moved on.
What if next term is the one where it clicks? Objection number seven: what if next term is the one where it clicks? It might well be, which is why you keep trying different approaches and you set a review point first. Once you've given it a fair go, the decision to stop lessons is almost always the right one.
Now isn't a good time. The next objection is: now isn't a good time. This is what I've mentioned before. There will always be a reason to wait, always, always: the next recital, Christmas, a birthday. You can be kind about timing, but notice when "not yet" has become a way of avoiding the conversation.
Who cares if they don't practise? You're still getting paid. And the last one: who cares if they don't practise? You're still getting paid. Oh, I hate this one. I hate this one so much, and I see it online more often than I wish to. Teachers who care about their students do care about whether they practise or not. Your satisfaction in teaching matters, and so does the student's sense of achievement. If you ever see this objection to stopping lessons with a student who's getting nowhere, just ignore it and move on, and see it for what it is, which is just a lazy comment from a teacher who clearly does not care about your students, or possibly about their own students.
Something to try this week
So, as we come to the end of this episode, I want to reassure you that holding on to students is normal, and it comes from caring. It does cost more than we realise, in the ways that I've mentioned, but it's a judgement call, not a rule, and it can be done kindly and professionally.
Something I'd like you to try this week is to think of your favourite student right now: the one who practises, the one who makes progress, the one who makes you glad you teach. Imagine your studio had been full when they first got in touch, because you were holding on to a student who wasn't going anywhere. Would they still be on your waiting list now? Maybe.
Then try to look back at a student who left of their own accord. When did you first know that it wasn't working, and how long did you carry on after that? If you can remember it. Sometimes they're a long time ago, aren't they? And if you don't keep records of your students in this way, think back to the students you remember the most, and think about what happened with their lessons.
And remember, ending lessons is not really closing a door on a student. It's opening one for the next student, who can come into your studio and thrive.
If you need any particular support on this topic, whether that's deciding whether to keep a student or not, or how to organise it and how to do it, I do offer one-to-one sessions that you can book through my website. The link is in the show notes for that one, as well as the free studio policy template for the right-to-end clause that you could add to your studio policies.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope it gave you some reassurance that this is not an easy decision to make, but it is a decision that we need to make. And when we are brave and professional, and we take charge of our businesses and run them in a way that is efficient and practical and feels right for us, everything gets better. That includes making these hard decisions about students who may not be the right fit for us. They may not be the right fit for the instrument at all. But remember that when you make that space, you could potentially be bringing in another student who is going to get so much benefit from your lessons.
Next week's episode is going to go into the studio policy review, so look out for that one. Have a brilliant day. Bye.
