A student cancels with an hour's notice. Do you offer a makeup lesson, fit them in somewhere that doesn't really work for you, or quietly let the income go because saying no feels too uncomfortable? If you've been handling missed lessons on a case-by-case basis, making it up as you go and feeling quietly resentful about it, this episode is for you.
In this episode:
Why handling cancellations case by case costs you far more than money
The core reframe: what your students are actually paying for when they book a lesson slot
How people-pleasing shows up in your studio policies, and what it's quietly doing to your teaching practice
The fear of losing students when you tighten up your approach, addressed honestly
How to communicate a no-refund policy clearly and without over-apologising
Why monthly billing and a no-refund policy work so well together
Links mentioned:
Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit (£12)
If this episode resonated, the free Studio Policy Template is a good starting point for getting your policy out of your head and into writing. And if you're ready to look at monthly billing as the system that makes a no-refund policy feel logical rather than awkward, the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit has everything you need to make the switch.
If you find this episode useful, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts: it goes a long way in helping other music teachers find my podcast!
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Part 1: The refund and reschedule trap
Does this sound familiar?
You've just finished a lesson with a very bright 10-year-old who is great at practising, and it was a wonderful lesson. The next student hasn't arrived, though, so you quickly check your phone, and there's a message from them cancelling their lesson because they can't come.
The feelings you get are: "That's less income I'm going to make today," or "I don't want to reschedule another lesson. I haven't got time, I haven't got any space to move people around. I really don't want to reschedule. But if I don't, I'm going to lose that income. So suck it up and go and find a space for this person."
Vaguely, in the back of your mind, you know that you have a policy, but it just lives in your head. You've never reinforced it. You maybe hinted at it once in the first consultation lesson with your students, but when it comes to real life cancellations, that seems like too much to deal with. You justify it to yourself: "Well, isn't it just nicer to reschedule them, or refund them if there are no spaces available for a reschedule? Yeah, that's easier, it's less confrontational, I don't get anxiety about it, and I just have to cope with the consequences."
Does it sound familiar? If so, this episode is for you. I spent years in this exact position, and I can tell you now that the way I used to handle it was costing me so much in income, and more than that, in my time and my own self-perception as a business owner. It was terrible.
This episode will help you understand how to make the switch from refunding and rescheduling every cancellation to running your business the way it should be run, in a way that protects your income and your time. We're going to cover why you'd make the switch from refunding and rescheduling to not. We're also going to cover what shifted for me personally when I did this, and you'll understand practically how to communicate it, with real examples, because this is not an easy transition to make. Having gone through it myself, I want to share this with you because it is possible, and on the other side is a much calmer teaching life, much more control over my income and time, and more headspace to concentrate on the teaching, because that's what we want.
I'm Victoria. I started teaching piano part-time 18 years ago alongside a career in pharmaceutical market research, and I made pretty much every mistake you can make when it comes to running a teaching business. But today I run a thriving studio from my home on the south coast of England, with students I love and a waiting list I'm proud of. I started this podcast because I want that for you too.
If you've ever said yes to a reschedule you really didn't want to do, felt your heart sink when your phone buzzed with another last minute cancellation, or found yourself putting off increasing your fees for another year because the timing never feels quite right, this is the podcast for you. I've been there and come out the other side with a teaching business that lights me up every single day, and I'm here to help you do the same.
A policy that may as well have been invisible
When I first started teaching (I've mentioned this before), I got a lot of advice from my childhood piano teacher. She gave me a copy of her studio policy to use as a template, which was really generous, and she helped me understand the basics of running my own piano teaching business. Her studio policy was that lessons missed by the student would not be refunded, but would be rescheduled at the teacher's discretion. So I thought, "Okay, yep, that's what she did. I'm new to this, so I'll do that too."
And I bet you know what's coming. I didn't enforce my policy at all. For starters, I felt massive imposter syndrome, which I'm sure we're all familiar with. And not just in the early days; every time you try something new, imposter syndrome rears its ugly head. In this case, I thought, "I don't have the right to enforce that kind of policy. If they can't make the lesson, I don't want to charge them for it. What's my time worth?"
So I gratefully used this contract and had it all set up. I'd slip it to the potential student and say, "This is my policy," too afraid to go into any of the details, and too afraid of their potential reactions if I really spelled it out and said, "If your child is sick and they can't come to the lesson, I won't be refunding the lesson." That's really hard to say, especially early on. It's hard to say at any point until you're used to it.
So I had a policy that may as well have been invisible. As a result, I reacted to each cancellation as a fresh event, with all these confusing emotions and considerations that overcomplicated something that is quite simple. When you have a policy and you stick to it, the whole decision-making process is gone. That's the policy, that's what we stick with, and things are fine.
Instead, I was weighing up things like how well I got on with the family, and how likely they were to be upset if I told them I wasn't going to refund their lesson. If it was someone I thought was quite strict about things, or who had disagreed with the policy at any point, I'd be much more likely to create a lesson slot that was really inconvenient for me, in order to reschedule that student, rather than risk a potential confrontation by saying I wasn't going to refund the lesson.
In reality, what this looked like was this. I'd have my schedule planned for the week. It was the same every week; everyone had the same lesson slot. I'd get everything ready, take the kids to school, get myself ready and be all prepared for the first lesson, and of course I expected people to turn up at their lesson times. Then it was a mix of people either sending me a message at the start of their lesson time saying they couldn't come, or not sending anything and not showing up at all. Those ones hurt the most, don't they? You're there waiting, you're all ready, and you're being ghosted by your own student. Thankfully that wasn't the majority of the time, but for some students it was.
Looking back, I should have been much more proactive about deciding which students were right for my studio. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it? When we look back with all the experience and knowledge we've gained, some of these decisions can feel blindingly obvious. But in those beginning stages, and certainly when we haven't been exposed to any other ways of thinking about this, that's all we've got to go on: that, and our own sense of self-worth and self-confidence in doing this thing that we really love to do, which is obviously the most important thing. All this pesky admin doesn't feel as important, but it is. Otherwise, I wouldn't be devoting a whole episode to this topic, and many more to come, I'm sure.
The emotional cost
There's quite a big emotional cost to students cancelling here and there in an open-ended way, either expecting a reschedule or expecting to be charged less next term to account for the lessons they've missed. Because, as teachers, we all think of refunding a lesson we couldn't reschedule, or rescheduling a lesson into time that wasn't planned for teaching, as an act of kindness: "Oh, I'm being really kind. I'm going to fit them in because I'm a nice person and a good teacher. I still want to teach them their lesson, and they've paid for it, so they deserve to get their lesson."
In the beginning, if it's just the odd one here or there and the vast majority of your students turn up every week, it doesn't feel that bad. But over time, especially when you get serial cancellers (and you've all had them), you get to that day in the week, you know that student's lesson is coming up, and you can almost bet your phone's going to go off at a certain time, cancelling the lesson.
For me, the tipping point came when I could predict when someone was going to cancel. Reflecting on just how much effort we all put into guaranteeing that we're going to be here and ready for their lesson every week, as promised, it feels a bit like a slap in the face. I'm going to say it like that, because I can't think of a better way to say it. It begins to feel a little bit disrespectful.
I don't say that from a haughty point of view; it's just that we care so much about our students, don't we? We care so much about them and what's going on in their lives, and we want to provide the best lessons we can, to help them discover the joy of music and all this wonderful stuff. So if you get someone who cancels a lot, it really does feel like that level of respect and thought isn't reciprocated, and that's when cracks start to appear. That is not a good place to be.
You don't want to be feeling resentment over a student who's cancelled the last six lessons, with or without notice. You can't help it, though; it starts to eat away at you. We don't want to be in that situation. You think, "Well, I got myself all ready, and it's just a half-hour lesson before another student comes, so it's not long enough to go and do something meaningful. And I couldn't teach someone else in that time anyway, because it's too short notice." So it's not good. You lose income, you lose time. It's a situation none of us want to be in, yet many of us find ourselves in it.
Part 2: What you're charging for
Reframing what your fee covers
One of the biggest parts of this difficulty is how we frame what we're charging for. We always charge a per lesson fee. It's very rare for teachers not to, and more often than not it's for a half-hour or 45-minute lesson, or an hour if you've got students working on the higher grades. For comparison, you always provide a per lesson fee, and if you take that framing literally, it's very hard to understand why a student wouldn't be given a refund if they missed their lesson.
So I'd like you to consider this, and I'm not taking credit for it. I came across it by engaging with piano teachers and music teachers online a few years back, when I was refunding every single cancellation or rescheduling and losing whatever downtime I had. I heard some of them talk about how they don't offer refunds or reschedules, and they were very matter-of-fact about it. I thought, "How on earth are they doing that? I just don't know where to start. How did they get to the point where they were so confident running a studio like that?"
More often than not, these were teachers from America, so I don't know if it's a cultural thing, or just the people who were talking about it online, or the groups I was hanging out in. But it was such an alien idea to me that I thought, "Wow, there's no way I could do that. How would you get from A to B?" Well, I'm really pleased that I did get from A to B. And one of the biggest parts was reframing how you think about what you're charging for.
Yes, we give a per lesson fee, but that fee doesn't just cover the half an hour you spend with that student. We know this consciously, but a lot of us shy away from acknowledging it, because then we have to think more highly of ourselves and respect our time more. But it's a mindset shift I believe we all need to make, for the sake of our own mental health, our own wellbeing, and our longevity as successful music teachers.
What your fees pay for
You're not selling the individual half-hour or 45-minute lesson. You are guaranteeing a reserved slot for that student and no one else, every week (or however often you teach them, but normally it's every week). You can't use that time for anyone or anything else, because it's allocated to that student. And in doing so, you've turned away other potential students who could have come at that time.
You're also providing your expertise, which comes from years and years of learning, practising, performing, accompanying or whatever else you do. It also covers all the continuing professional development you will have been doing. Don't worry if you feel guilty about that bit; we'll talk about it in another episode. Even if you haven't been to a bunch of conferences or courses in the last 10 years or so, it doesn't matter. You are learning every day from everything you do, especially if you engage with other teachers online. You're learning from them, so you're engaging in professional development.
All of these things come under what your fees pay for. They pay for you to engage in courses and conferences, and for your own music lessons as a teacher. Teachers have teachers too. I know it's hard to think about, but we do.
It pays for your dedication to that student, and the lesson planning. I challenge you to find a music teacher who doesn't spend a minute outside the lesson planning for every single student. It just doesn't happen. Our brains are always on the go: "Which book could we move this student on to next? How do we solve the problem of the student who's struggling with this particular technique? What extra resources do I need to bring in to help? Am I communicating effectively enough?" You know what it's like; our brains never stop. That is active work on the service we're providing for each individual student, which is a musical education. All of that is covered by our fees.
It's not very commonly spoken about, and certainly not among our students' families. From their point of view (and there's no reason they would think otherwise), they get a per lesson fee, so in their minds they're paying per lesson. It all adds up: you pay for this number of lessons. So it's not their fault that they don't realise it covers all these things.
But when you can take that on board as a music teacher and really own it, it changes things. It's very easy to hear it all ("Oh yeah, of course it covers CPD, and yes, it covers the £10,000 that was spent on my music education as a child") and not accept it as the truth for you and the value you provide. This is something I come across so often. So many music teachers undervalue themselves and what they offer their students, and I don't know where it comes from, because we provide such a huge amount of value. We care so much about our students: how well they do, how they're feeling and how much joy they're getting from the instrument we're teaching them. We can't help it.
Other professional services don't refund
Let's compare it to other professional services, like physio appointments, your appointment at the hairdresser, ballet lessons, or organised sports groups and lessons. If you don't show up, you lose your deposit, or you don't get back the money you've paid, especially when it's arranged through schools. You don't get any of that money back, and that's accepted as the norm. No one questions it.
But music teaching has always been the exception, and the cost of that lands directly on our shoulders, as a loss of income or a loss of time when we reschedule. When we "find" space (I say that in inverted commas) for that student's rescheduled lesson, we don't find it; we take it from somewhere else. We take it from time that was maybe not consciously planned for downtime, personal practice, admin, research, or any number of things that fill our time. That means there's less time for whatever that time was allocated to. We can't create time out of nowhere, but we feel the effect.
I always find it interesting when you consider ballet lessons as an example. I had piano lessons and ballet lessons as a kid. Ballet lessons are, more often than not, done in groups. And when you think about it, the vast majority of people would look at that and say, "Sure, you missed the ballet lesson. Of course you wouldn't get the money back. The teacher had to hire the hall, so everyone pays for their lessons, and that money covers the hall hire plus their teaching fees. End of story."
Whereas for a one-to-one lesson, especially with a lot of us teaching at home, you haven't had to hire a hall or any building or get permission from anyone, so it looks as if you haven't had to pay out for anything. In fact you have, because of all the things that go into teaching from home, but that's another conversation. So the justification is: "Well, you haven't had to pay anything out and you haven't provided the lesson, so you should provide a refund."
I would argue it the other way around. You provided your time for that student. You guaranteed that you'd be there, and you were there, ready at the right time to give their lesson. The student didn't turn up, but you were still there and ready. You didn't go anywhere else; you still prepared and planned for the lesson. Your time was spent on that lesson because, as I mentioned earlier, you can't fit another student into a last-minute cancellation slot. It just isn't possible. That time is for that student, and whether they're there to take the lesson or not, the lesson is still paid for.
It's just me teaching from home, isn't it?
It's probably a bit uncomfortable hearing me talk about this. I was uncomfortable the first time I came across it, and I thought, "Oh my goodness, these are really bolshy people." I'm typically a shy person. It's got better as I've been teaching for so long, but being business-like is certainly not the identity I thought I would have, at least until a couple of years ago, when my eyes were opened to how you run a music teaching business as a business, and not as if it's a hobby.
There's this idea that all these other businesses are "proper" businesses, with important people running them, and they've all got qualifications. Whether you've got qualifications or not, it doesn't matter. I've mentioned before that I don't have a music degree. I took my lessons privately, achieved my Grade 8 practical and Grade 5 theory, and then went off to university to study biology, of all things. But that doesn't make me any less qualified to be a piano teacher. I've been doing it for so long and learned so much since that I'm perfectly comfortable in the piano teaching I provide to all my students. As my lengthy waiting list and my dedicated students show, there's nothing telling me I'm not good enough.
The point I'm trying to make is that lots of us feel like it doesn't count for us, because it's just little old me teaching piano from my home. It's personal, and we get to know our students really well, so treating the transactional side professionally feels at odds with that. The two don't tend to go well together, or at least they feel a little bit awkward until you're used to thinking of yourself as a business owner: a professional who is providing this amazing service of a musical education to your students.
I acknowledge that conflict between the two ideas: "It's just me teaching from home," and "I need to be a professional who is business-like and strict about payment times." They don't easily go together, which is where a lot of this comes from. And it's completely understandable, because I've been there. I know exactly how that feels.
The five extra minutes
I once had a student's parent contact me to let me know that their child wouldn't be available for a lesson. I think it was a couple of weeks in advance, which is great; it's good to have some notice. But what really floored me was the follow-up request: to add five minutes to the end of the next six lessons, which would add up to a 30-minute lesson, to account for the lesson they were going to miss.
It was such a specific request, and it really took me by surprise, because if ever there was an example of being seen as a by-the-minute fee, that's the one. After the initial surprise (I think it was all communicated by email), I took my time processing it and thinking about how I was going to reply. I should say this was after I'd made the switch to standing up for my policies and having a no refunds, no reschedules policy.
I said, "Thank you for letting me know that she won't be available for this lesson. I'm not able to extend her lesson by five minutes due to my schedule, so it will have to be taken as a missed lesson." And that's it. Nothing else. No over-explaining and no justifications; none of it's needed.
It still gets my heart rate up a little bit, as a person who tends to be fairly anxious (I'm getting better with it as I get older). This sort of potential confrontation doesn't feel very nice, and I'm sure you understand what I mean. You want to run the other way, if at all possible. But I'd made the switch, and I'd fully stepped into my role as a professional business owner who supports their policies and runs their music studio accordingly, with a much happier life. Each time I respond to these requests, it gets easier. I have to tell you that it really does get easier. And the response was just accepting: "Okay, thanks for letting me know." It was fine, and we moved on.
Before you experience an interaction like that from start to finish, how easy is it for our brains to go off and catastrophise, playing out the whole back and forth? We say (and we shouldn't even say sorry for it), "I can't refund the lesson. I can't reschedule the lesson. I can't extend their lesson by five minutes for six weeks to account for it. There's no room in my schedule." Then you imagine the comeback. You think you're going to get an angry message back from a parent, and you're going to feel like a small child being told off. Then you'll lose your student, and they'll tell all their friends what a terrible teacher you are, and your studio will dwindle, and you'll have to go and find some other work because it didn't work out in the end.
It can go to the complete extreme in our heads, can't it? It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that any pushback or any boundary is going to result in us losing our students. But I'm here to tell you it just doesn't happen like that.
Part 3: People pleasing, my turning point and the fear of losing students
The people pleaser in us
Okay, I am a people pleaser. I've been aware of it for a long time, and it's something I've been working on for a long time. But I've also become aware that there's a big correlation between people pleasers and music teachers. It's not a character flaw. It's often what makes us good teachers, because we care. We care so much about what our students think and feel that we want to do everything we can to help them have a good experience, learn their instrument and enjoy it.
But the downside of being a people pleaser is that we often downplay our own needs, and we have a lot of guilt about things. I've spoken to a lot of music teachers online who feel guilty for charging for lessons at all, and it still surprises me, even though I remember feeling like that in the distant past as well. Especially when I'd come from a corporate job and was doing part-time piano teaching on the side, thinking, "I get to do this, and people pay me for it." I wasn't used to being so happy doing a job that getting paid for it felt like cheating. That's where it comes from. We have a lot of guilt around taking money for doing something we love so much.
Exceptions become the new rule
That guilt causes us to accommodate things and make exceptions. And when you make an exception for a student, that exception becomes the new rule. It becomes the expectation they have, whether they're conscious of it or not. If you give a refund because they were away on a school trip and couldn't possibly attend the lesson, then every single time they have a school trip on a lesson day, they'll expect a refund. Do you see where it goes wrong?
You might have thought, "Oh, just this once I'll give them a refund, because I want to keep the relationship nice and I want them to know how much I care. I don't really care about the money; I care about their child as my student, and I want them to do their best." But it can very quickly turn to resentment. You did it as a one-off, they then came to expect a refund, and when they question it, you don't want the confrontation, so you say, "Oh yes, of course. Sorry, yes, it's a school trip. Okay, I'll refund it like last time."
That becomes resentment, even if you don't want to acknowledge it, or it's buried deep down. We don't want to resent our students or their families. Of course not; we love them. But it's there, because you should be paid for your time, and you've slipped into an unplanned situation that feels like you've fallen into a bucket with steep sides and there's no way out. There is a way out, I'm pleased to tell you. Listen all the way to the end of this episode.
That niggling resentment can erode the joy we have for our teaching. You have a student who comes to their lessons, and you know in the back of your mind that they've missed three out of the last ten lessons. That cut in income can be painful. Or, if you didn't take a hit on your income, you're so strung out from rescheduling lessons that you don't have any free time left for anything else, and it starts to take over. That's not a good place to be either. However much we love our teaching, we do need breaks. It's very important for maintaining our enthusiasm and excitement for teaching our students, and you can't keep that up if you use every last moment for rescheduling lessons rather than recuperating and reflecting.
The apology spiral
Being a people pleaser, you get into an apology spiral where everything starts with, "I'm so sorry, I know this might seem harsh, but I don't refund lessons." The apologising tells the parent that this is something to negotiate about. It's something you feel bad about, so you can be won over: "Oh, don't worry, just this once, it'll be okay."
I'm a bad one for this. I apologise a lot, and it's taken some real retraining to stop it being my default response. That's why it's great when someone cancels by text or email: you have time to consider your response, write it and then send it, rather than responding in the moment.
Face to face is the harder one. If someone tells you in person that they won't be coming next week, they often don't ask for a refund or a reschedule. They'll just say, "So-and-so can't come for their lesson next week." They haven't asked for a refund or a reschedule, but you automatically offer one because it feels uncomfortable, and you think it's expected. In some cases it won't be expected, because some parents are completely on top of paying for things termly or monthly, or however often, and they know that if appointments are missed, the money's gone; it's already spent.
Protecting your time is in their interest too
So I'd like you to consider this reframe. When you truly care about your students, you want to be the best teacher for them. Being the best teacher for them means protecting your time, by not rescheduling into every last minute of the day. It means protecting your income, so you're not having to take on more students to make ends meet. No one wants to be in that situation. It means you have the downtime you need to recuperate and to explore your own musical development and your own practice, and to explore new composers and new books that you can share with your students.
If you don't protect your time and your income, do you see how you could be damaging the quality of the teacher you can be for your students? It can be a little bit hard to get your head around in the beginning, but it's very true. If you don't protect your own time and income, it can chip away at how good you could be as their teacher. So it's in everyone's best interests to keep everything running smoothly. Refunding yourself into burnout is not in their interest.
My turning point
It took us getting to quite a difficult point in our lives as a family to push me into acknowledging how valuable my time was. I'm not saying you have to have something really difficult happen in your life, absolutely not. I'm just explaining that's what happened for me. Looking back, I realise I shouldn't have waited for things to be so desperate to make a change, but that's how it worked out for me.
All of this was pulled into sharp focus when my time became extremely limited. My daughter is autistic; she was diagnosed in 2022. For two to three years, possibly a bit longer, we were in a really difficult period where school pickups were very unpredictable. Even though the school was only half a kilometre from where we lived, walking wasn't an option, for various reasons. She has hypermobility, but it was the emotional dysregulation that meant she couldn't walk with me to and from school.
I needed to be very careful with my time, scheduling my lessons with enough of a buffer after school to allow for the fairly frequent meltdowns she had at school. They could take anywhere between one and three hours to run their course, to get her to a point where I could convince her to let me carry her to the car and get her the half kilometre home, so that I was then available to start teaching. Of course, I'd very rarely be in the best state for teaching after helping my daughter through that, but that became the reality.
When my time became so... I don't want to say precious, because all of our time is precious, it really is. But it became even more obvious that if people inadvertently wasted my time by cancelling lessons, I couldn't teach them and wouldn't make the money for that lesson. For a while, I had a limited number of lesson slots in the day because of the unpredictability of our home life. So it became really clear that to keep my business going and be able to teach effectively, I had to get strict with myself about my policies, get really clear about them, communicate them and stand up for them.
The fear of losing students
The number one fear we all have as music teachers when we consider introducing or tightening up policies like these is that we're going to lose our students. It's an extreme fear, but a very real one, because no one wants to lose their students. They're our source of income. Without students, we don't make any money, and then we can't support our families or our lives.
But think about your fear of losing students from your students' position, or their parents'. If you have children and they go to clubs, or they have music lessons themselves, you'll know that the relationship between student and teacher is often not an easy come, easy go relationship. It's a cultivated bond that allows for effective teaching. Music lessons often provide a place to escape the stresses of school. After a difficult day at school, going to your music lesson can be, and often is, fun, engaging and rewarding, and the one-to-one relationship between teacher and student is a very valuable one.
Now imagine you're the parent of a child who goes to music lessons, and the music teacher decides to change their policies. Using the same example, say they'd previously refunded every missed lesson, and then they tightened things up and said, "Okay, as of next September, the new policy is that lessons missed for any reason are not refunded." Unless you were already going to leave anyway, you're highly unlikely to go and look for a new music teacher, because that bond has already been built and progress has already been made. You understand that you can't just pluck your child out of lessons with one teacher, put them into another environment and expect everything to go smoothly. You're not very likely to quit lessons because of a policy change. It's not even that the rates have gone up; that's a different change. It's just that the policies have changed, so you don't get any freebies.
It's very easy to stay in our bubble as the music teacher and think the worst is going to happen: that when we tighten up our policies, everyone's going to leave. Well, I'm here to tell you, from my own experience and from speaking to lots of other teachers, that it doesn't happen. I did not lose a single student when I introduced my policies and made it clear that I was going to stand up for them. No one left. In fact, more enquiries started coming in, and before long I'd filled my studio and started a waiting list.
It's not a coincidence that all of that happened after I made my policies clear and stuck to them. I am certain that the act of standing up for my piano teaching business helped me change my self-perception and identity into being a professional piano teacher. To feel like a professional piano teacher, and not just someone who learnt to play the piano, loves it and wants to show other people how to do it. It's not a hobby.
The students who leave are telling you something
To reassure you, if a fear of losing students when you introduce new policies is holding you back, it's an unfounded fear. That's not to say you won't lose any students. There's obviously a non-zero chance that the odd student here or there will leave as a result of you implementing studio policies like no refunds or no reschedules.
But what's important to understand is that the students who leave are telling you something really important. They're telling you that they're only there for the convenience, not really for the teaching. And to be honest, is that really worth spending all your professional energy on? I don't think so. These are not going to be our long-term students. They're not going to be students who are dedicated to practising, and they won't be prioritising music lessons above other things, which means they're not your ideal students.
There are plenty of ideal students out there for us all. But the ones who've fallen into our lap through word of mouth recommendations, or because they found you on Google and you live close by, aren't necessarily your ideal students. Ideal students is another big topic that I'll be talking about in another episode. But it's worth considering that they can't all be our ideal students. There's really no such thing, even in a perfect world, which doesn't exist.
So acknowledge that if you part ways with a couple of students as a result of tightening up your policies, you haven't lost out. They're not your ideal students, and they're making space for the ideal students who are out there, who will find you and be attracted to your business, because the mindset shift into being a professional music teacher will attract them. You will be perceived as professional when you believe you are professional. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you don't have a waiting list yet
If you have a waiting list, making these changes is less scary than if you don't, because your waiting list is a pool of potential students who could fill any slots that open up as a result of changing your policies. If you're one of the teachers who doesn't yet have a waiting list and has more spaces to fill, it is a bit more scary to make changes to your business. But I guarantee this is a positive change. It will help your studio become more sought after, because you'll be inhabiting the role of the professional music teacher.
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I talk about the effect this change has had on me, going from a part-time piano teacher who just did it on the side because it was fun, to a full-time piano teacher who loves this and absolutely doesn't want to do anything else for their career. This is really important to me. Making these changes to allow my business to run more smoothly has also made me see myself as a professional, and it has made a huge difference.
It's changed the way I interact with students and parents, and the confidence I have when I make decisions about progress and the different pathways to take with different students. It's helped me recognise when students aren't progressing and highlight it to parents, because you know what's good for everyone, which is not to let students drift. All of these things have come from taking charge of my studio and the way I run it, and it's all been really positive.
So if you don't have a waiting list yet, yes, it's a little bit more scary. But implementing proper policies is part of how you build a full studio. It's how you get to the point of having a waiting list. Clarity and professionalism attract committed students, and they're more likely to be your ideal students. You'll stop attracting your less than ideal students. There are so many factors that go into that, but we can talk about it another day.
Part 4: How to make the switch
Timing
Okay, so now we're going to talk about how to go about making this switch. There are a number of different things to consider, and I'll talk you through what I did and why it worked, so you can understand the process.
First of all, timing. This kind of shift, from policies that aren't enforced (or loose policies with lots of exceptions and all that uncomfortable stuff) to strict policies that are adhered to, with everyone on board, takes a bit of time in the lead up, with lots of notice. If you teach in academic terms, I'd generally recommend aiming for the start of a new academic year. Here in the UK, that means starting in September. It's a fresh start, and it feels easier to make that kind of change and get everyone on board. Or if you teach per calendar year, you could start in January, after Christmas, when lots of New Year's resolutions take place.
Give parents and students enough lead time to make an informed decision, with the information up front saying when the change is going to take place. A couple of months is ideal. I sent out information in June, just after half term in the summer term, with notice that I'd be sharing a new studio policy that needed to be signed and agreed before the end of the summer term, so I didn't have to worry about chasing people through the summer holidays, and that it would come into effect from 1st September of the next academic year. Giving this lead time gives families enough time to make an informed decision, and it prevents the awkwardness and potential confusion of changing policies mid-term.
Communicating the change
When it comes to communicating all of this, several routes are best. Don't just send an email and hope for the best. Email is the first one I'd recommend. That's what I did to give advance notice, and I made it really clear in the subject line that a response was expected, just to acknowledge they'd received it.
I also gave them a printed paper copy during the lesson and mentioned it verbally, either at the beginning or the end: "Oh, did you get that email about the policy changes coming into effect from September?" Having the verbal interaction avoids the situation where a parent or adult student claims not to know about it, and they may well not, because some people just don't get on with email. So you've got the email, a paper copy in person, and mentioning it in person, and each form of communication reinforces the others.
How to word the announcement
When it comes to making the announcement itself, less is always more. To be clear and signal confidence, you need to be very matter-of-fact: you're informing families of the change, not asking for their opinion, and not apologising. Certainly not apologising.
A confident way to announce it would be something like: "Dear student and parent, I'm letting you know that from 1st September 2026, my studio policies will be changing. The main changes are [blah blah blah]. Please respond to this email to confirm you've received it. A new annual studio policy agreement will be given to you in the next lesson, for signing and returning before the end of the summer term." Something like that. It's really simple, clear, assertive and polite, with no room for misunderstanding.
Compare that with the over-explaining version, which could be something like: "Dear student or parent, I've thought long and hard about this, and I've decided to make some changes to my studio policies from 1st September. My new policies will be [da da da]. This decision hasn't been taken lightly. I'm very aware of how much time you dedicate to your lessons, and I value you as students, and I don't want to seem harsh or unfriendly, but these are things I really need to have in place for my studio to run effectively. Your lesson fees go towards lots of other things outside the lesson, such as my time spent lesson planning and all the other things I do to be a good music teacher..."
Do you get my point? It's so easy to go on and on, explaining and justifying why this is okay. You don't need to justify it. It's your business, and it's your choice. Of course, we as music teachers can talk to each other about all the things I just mentioned, but the student and family don't need to know all of that. As far as they're concerned, they need to understand, in a clear and concise way, that they're dealing with a professional in all senses of the word: clearly capable at teaching, but also at running a business effectively.
So don't do the over-explaining one. When you give lots and lots of reasons why this is okay, it opens the door to negotiation, to picking apart your reasons and asking about exceptions. When you keep it clear and concise, it doesn't invite conversation, and you don't want to invite conversation. You're informing your families that your studio policies are changing. End of story.
When someone pushes back anyway
There will always be some who push back. That's human nature. I'd be lying if I said everyone would be cool as a cucumber and say, "No problem, sure, where do we sign?" Lots of them will, and lots of them did for me; I'm very fortunate to have lots of lovely students and families. But you'll get the odd one here or there who maybe doesn't push back at the time, but starts pushing the boundaries after the start of term.
This happened to me. I did everything I've described: I announced it by email, gave everyone enough time, handed out all the paper forms to sign and logged everyone who'd signed when they came back in. I thought, "Great, everyone has signed this and they're all aware of the new changes. It's going to be plain sailing." It was a little bit naive to think that.
September started with normal lessons, and then, maybe six or seven weeks in, I had a message from a student's parent saying, "Oh, so-and-so can't come to the lesson this week," because of wherever he was (I don't remember whether he was unwell or had a school event or something like that). "Can we reschedule for later in the week?"
Being a rule follower myself, I find it really hard to understand how people can be aware of the rules and then choose to forget them, or just forget them. I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but the question was still asked. It really did raise my anxiety a bit. I thought, "Oh my goodness, I've told everyone how this is going to work. Why is this person still asking if they can reschedule? I was so clear that I'm not rescheduling lessons any more."
Obviously, I didn't say any of that. It was all by text, so I took a few deep breaths and thought, "Remain professional, remain calm, be clear, don't apologise." And I responded with something like, "Thank you for letting me know. This will be counted as a missed lesson; as per my studio policies, I'm not able to reschedule lessons. I look forward to seeing X next week." And that's it. That's all you have to say.
However cringey it might feel to think about sending that kind of message, and it does feel a bit terrifying, the small (or probably not so small) voice inside your head is saying, "What are you doing? They're going to come back and hate you. They're going to pull this kid from lessons and you'll lose a student straight away." That's all the fear and anxiety talking. And that's what has been driving your decisions all this time: fear of losing students, and anxiety over confrontation with parents. It's all for nothing, because when you stay clear, calm and professional, it works.
Yes, it happened the odd time here or there until things settled down, and I responded the same way every time, whether it was "My child is too sick to come to lessons" or "They're away on a school trip, so they can't possibly come. Could we have a reschedule?" Someone did ask for a refund, in the sense of "Can you take it off the next bill?" I'd switched to monthly billing by then (we'll talk about that in a minute), so it was to take the lesson fee off the next invoice.
No matter what it is, you stand firm with your policies. They're there to protect you and your students: to protect your students from having a strung out teacher who isn't paid enough, doesn't have enough downtime, becomes grumpy and loses it. Of course none of us would do that, but you get my point. So however much it might raise your hackles after you've drawn this new line in the sand, be prepared for some pushback. It can also help to have some pre-written text replies, so you don't have to think on the spot every time.
A gentler option: one makeup lesson per term
In talking to other music teachers, I've come across a fair number who aren't comfortable being as strict as I am, with no refunds and no reschedules except for bereavement. Bereavement is a human thing; I don't want to charge for lessons when something like that has happened. So that's my one exception, but it's a single exception.
When it comes to deciding what you're comfortable with in your own studio, if that feels too strict, I've come across a number of teachers who include one makeup lesson per term, but they keep it boundaried to avoid being taken advantage of. So it's one rescheduled lesson each term (there are three terms per year in the UK, or two semesters in the US), and they set aside one week at the end of the term or semester during which the makeup lessons take place.
That way you're being careful with your time, only allowing up to one per term, and making sure it happens at a time when you know you're available. You're not scrabbling to find a lesson slot you can offer for the reschedule. So you're taking back control of your time while allowing for life happening. If it makes you feel more comfortable running your studio like that, I've seen lots of teachers succeed that way. It comes down to personal choice.
One thing you might find with students or parents pushing back is that, more often than not, it's the same one or the same few every time. All I can say is to treat every interaction exactly the same way, even if it's the third or fourth time this parent or student has asked for a reschedule, and you're thinking, "Oh my goodness, they're really not getting it. We had this agreement, they've signed it, what's going on?" Just maintain your stance on your policies and keep the messages exactly the same: brief, clear and to the point, without apologies.
Trust me, it does work. Before long, I didn't have any requests at all. Everyone understands how my policies work now, and everything is so smooth. All my time is spent teaching and planning for teaching, and then I spend one hour a month on admin for my invoicing, which is great. I've got a lot of time back that I can spend on more fruitful tasks.
Monthly billing and a no refund policy work together
If you've been anywhere near my social media pages in the last six months or so, you'll know that I'm a big advocate for monthly billing. I happened to change from termly billing to monthly billing at the same time that I started reinforcing my studio policies of no refunds and no reschedules. I did it all in one go, so it was quite a big change, and I had a couple of extra things in my announcement email about switching to monthly billing. But getting away from termly billing and moving to monthly billing has been the best decision I've ever made.
Monthly billing and a no refund policy work beautifully together, because monthly billing reframes the payment model. Instead of paying for lessons provided, families think of it as having a dedicated slot every week: "You're paying for my time once a week, on this dedicated day. It's not about how many lessons you attend; these are the lessons that are available to you." So it really helps move away from the per lesson payment idea.
What's really great is that, once you have everyone paying monthly (which, by the way, is how we pay for lots of things in daily life, isn't it? Electricity and gas bills, council tax, broadband: it's all monthly, so why not music lessons?), it fits in really well. Once a family is paying a monthly fee for their reserved slot in your studio, the logic of not refunding individual missed lessons becomes quite intuitive. It's not something people keep picking up on. The missed lesson was theirs to lose, not yours to absorb.
The Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit
Because I feel so strongly about the benefits of monthly billing for studios, I created the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a resource to help you make the change from termly billing to monthly billing in a way that's professional, well thought out and well received by your students and families.
It includes a calculation tool, so you can work out your monthly rate based on your per lesson rate and the length of your lessons. It rounds everything off, so you get a nice even number. When you first do the calculations, you get a really odd amount, like £68.76 per month, which isn't very easy to remember and looks a little bit strange. So the calculator has a rounding element, so you end up with a figure you can charge as your monthly rate. It also covers the calculations for students who start or leave part way through the academic year, so you don't have to do those complicated calculations yourself. That's one of the most valuable bits.
It's also got email templates that you can literally copy and paste into your emails, changing the relevant details, for announcing the change, following up and communicating everything you need to. And there are responses to frequently asked questions about monthly billing, which is probably the most valuable bit. There will be a lot of questions, and the biggest one that comes up is, "I'm paying every month, but we're not getting lessons in some months, like August." So it covers all of those potentially awkward conversations, with responses you can just look up and give to your music families.
I've created this resource to help you through the process step by step, including the mindset shift of becoming a confident, professional music teacher, so you can feel true to yourself when you make this change in your studio, and not feel like you're pretending to be someone bigger than you are. It's got to feel right for you. You absolutely deserve not to be refunding lessons that people miss for whatever reasons happen in their lives. You can't take that on your shoulders, even though you have been. It's something that really does need to change, because you always deserve to be paid for your time. It's a very low-priced resource, there to help you feel confident in making that change for your studio.
An exercise to try
Before we finish today, I'd like you to try an exercise. I'm not saying you have to decide this minute to switch your whole billing system around, but start considering what could be possible for you, and what could make your life easier as a music teacher.
Have a go at writing down the last three times you refunded or rescheduled a lesson, and ask yourself honestly: did you do it because it was truly fair, or because you were afraid of the reaction you'd get if you didn't? Really think about how you felt when you made that decision. Were you running away from the confrontation? Hands up, that was me all the time. Or did you truly and honestly believe it was fair? It may have been, or it may not. But considering exactly how you felt in those last three situations is a really great starting point for acknowledging how you feel in these situations and what you might have become used to, and for considering that things don't have to be that way. Things can be a lot better when you take control.
And if I can take control of it, then anyone can, because I'm a self-proclaimed people pleaser, inherently shy, and I avoid confrontation at all costs. But when it comes to standing up for my business and being able to support my family, these things become pretty clear pretty quickly.
Life on the other side
I do want to acknowledge that this is really hard for a lot of teachers. It was hard for me too, and it took me quite a lot of thinking to get my head around it and come to a point where I respected myself and my time enough to put this change into action. But I'm on the other side now, and my studio feels so easy to run. All those confrontations, requests for reschedules or refunds, or taking money off the next invoice: they've all gone. It's not taking up space in my brain any more. I don't have to worry about potential confrontations or respond to uncomfortable texts, because they just don't happen. Like I said earlier, everything runs smoothly, and I can focus my time and energy on my teaching and the thing that lights me up, which is sharing music with my wonderful students. And that's what it's all about, after all, isn't it?
It creates parent-teacher and student-teacher relationships that feel much more mutual. You don't feel apologetic for charging for lessons any more. It's a professional business where you're providing a really high-value service of music education to your students, and you understand that you're respected for it, and you respect your families in the same way. You can say goodbye to the Sunday evening dread of wondering how many cancellations you'll have in the coming week, and to the way your stomach drops every time your phone pings with a message saying they're not coming to their next lesson, which means more lost income and lost time. You can say goodbye to all of that when you take control of your studio policies.
I'll include links to the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit in the show notes. I also have a free studio policy template, which is available at victoriaclarkpiano.com/freebie. Feel free to go and grab that. You can update it with all of your own details and the specific policies you want to have, but it takes all the formatting time out of it, so you can get your studio policy up and running in a very short space of time.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope it has highlighted some really important points for you, and helped you consider a potentially better way of running your studio if you've been feeling trapped, refunding and rescheduling every cancellation. There is a way out of it, and I'm here to help you through. Until next time, goodbye.
