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Guest Host
Samantha Coates is the creator of BlitzBooks, a popular music education series focusing on theory, rote repertoire, and sight reading for piano. Her 35+ years of teaching experience combined with her entertaining presentation style has made Samantha a sought-after lecturer on a wide range of pedagogical topics.
Transcript
Amy: I’m Amy Chaplin, a piano teacher from Indiana and host of this podcast. While I love sharing with you every week in this space, I also believe the best way to keep our ears and minds intrigued is by providing a variety of listening experiences and formats. That’s why, this year, I’ve invited some special surprise guest hosts to step in on occasion.
Plus, if we’re being honest here, it gives my idea bank a little breathing room. When this episode drops, it’s the last week of April, which means a lot of us are starting to reconsider and finalize policies for the upcoming school term. I thought this was the perfect time to bring in Australia based teacher, Samantha Coates, to talk to you about something she’s passionate about, and that’s how to not give makeup lessons.
To give or not to give is a universal struggle in our world, and Samantha is about to blow your socks off with an angle and mindset you may have never considered. I think you’ll find her real life stories and examples to be that little extra push and permission you need to take the next step in revamping your own makeup policies.
Samantha Coates is the creator of Blitz Books, a popular music education series focusing on theory, rote repertoire, and sight reading for piano. Her 35 plus years of teaching experience, combined with her entertaining presentation style, has made Samantha a sought after lecturer on a wide range of pedagogical topics.
Samantha brings her own unique touch Style and twist to today’s episode through an interview style format with her husband, Andrew. Welcome Samantha and Andrew.
Andrew: Hello, you don’t know me, but my name’s Andrew Coates and my main claim to fame nowadays is that I’m married to the wonderful Samantha Coates, who’s the our guest on this interview. Samantha, welcome.
Samantha: Oh, thanks for having me, Andrew.
Andrew: It’s funny when Amy asked you what you wanted to talk about you said two things, one is you chose this topic and we’ll get onto that in a moment and the second one is you felt much more comfortable being interviewed rather than just blurbing on. So here it is I get to interview you which is quite fun, so thanks for doing that.
Samantha: It is fun and hello to all of Amy’s loyal podcast listeners. Yes, you the thing came up about what topic do I want to do? Amy asked me she said I could talk on any topic I liked and I just thought it’s gotta be how not to give makeup lessons.
Andrew: So why did you choose that?
Samantha: Because it’s, It, I think it’s the most talked about issue on Facebook that I’ve seen in all the piano teacher groups I see there’s so much frustration surrounding what happens when students don’t turn up to a lesson and the parents don’t want to pay for it. And teachers are backed into a corner. They’ve either got to credit it or make it up. And either way the teacher loses out.
Andrew: Yeah, look, I’ve watched you agonize at this point. I’ve been talking about this for over, I guess over 30 years now, it’s been some time and it’s really I’ve been fascinated with the way you’ve evolved your policy on this.
And so we’re going to talk about a bunch of those things today what it is that’s evolved and how and why you evolved it. We’re going to talk a bit about how even things like COVID have changed the way that you’ve taught and therefore the way that you can interact with with your students and your parents about things like makeup lessons.
We’re going to talk a little bit about how you go about changing your policy. And particularly we’re gonna talk a bit about parental buy in and make that really important step of how do you get the parents to come along on that journey with you. So I’m looking forward to hearing all those things because I’ve seen him from, in the periphery and we’ve talked about them from time to time but now we can really drill down.
Samantha: Yes, and you’ve been a big part of that of course because You’re my reasonableness barometer anytime I come up with something new Yes, so we’ll start off with talking about how my policy used to be.
Andrew: Yeah Let’s do that because you’ve been teaching for a very long time now since you were I don’t know 16
Samantha: 16 Wow,
Andrew: even before I knew you almost
Samantha: no, I knew you.
I Had my first student when I was 16, I really pity you Those first students. I wasn’t a very good teacher then, but certainly I had no, no thought of a policy. I remember that my my, the parent would ring me up maybe five minutes before they were supposed to arrive and they would say, Oh, actually, sorry, we’re not coming today.
And I would just say, Oh, Okay. And then hang up and then just sadly think that, Oh dear there’s money that I can’t earn now. Oh dear. There’s my, that’s my pocket money for the week gone or whatever it was at the age of 16. So that’s the very earliest form. Of studio policy.
Andrew: There wasn’t one.
Samantha: Correct. Then the next the next step in the evolution was that students would cancel at the last minute, but I would then have to ask them for payment the next time I saw them because I would have this vague thing in place that, oh no, I need at least 24 hours notice. But that’s really awkward when you have to ask people to pay for two lessons the next time they come and they often just don’t do it.
Andrew: And how did you even notify them that was part of your policy at that stage?
Samantha: I think that was all verbal. I didn’t have anything in writing so that didn’t really work. That was no good. When I did eventually put something in writing, it was also when I started billing by the term. So in 10 week blocks.
This was much better because then at least I had all the money in. in advance, and I wasn’t having to ask them for it but then I was dealing with people asking for credits or makeup lessons, and this is where it all starts, because if the student hasn’t come to the lesson, the parent perceives that they’ve had no value.
Andrew: I can imagine the parent thinks if I’m going to have a haircut and then I don’t have a haircut, I shouldn’t have to pay. Yes. And they feel the same way about lessons. Why is that different?
Samantha: Yes. At least with the hairdresser, when a client is not turning up to that spot, they can actually sell that spot to somebody else.
Somebody else might walk in and request a haircut at the last minute. And with a busy salon, that’s what will happen. But piano teachers don’t have walk ins. There’s no one who just suddenly wants a piano lesson. There’s no one who you can slot in. There’s no such thing as casual piano tuition. That time slot is reserved for that student, and you can’t do anything else with it.
You cannot resell it. It is sold to that parent, and then, if they don’t avail themselves of that time, you are stuck with it. It’s learning how to deal, how we can deal with this as piano teachers, and about not giving makeup lessons and that is, that’s where I’ve come to. I feel completely okay about it.
But even going back to when I started billing by the term, people still ask for credits or makeup lessons and I still felt obliged to do it and I did do it, which meant that it cost me time. We’ll come to that. The cost of the real cost of makeup lessons. Then I evolved to I didn’t give any credits or makeup lessons unless they gave me 24 hours notice, but if they did I would credit it.
If they said, Oh, my child’s, we’re going to Europe and we won’t be here for the next four weeks. I credited them. I don’t know why. And then I started having a very strict policy on one of my days of teaching, Saturday afternoon was prime time. And I said to my family as well, look, if you do want to come on a Saturday afternoon, that’s okay, But there are no credits or make up lessons, even if you’re going away, if you find that you have a weekend that you always want to go to, this is probably not going to work for you.
I suggest not to take the Saturday spot because you have to pay for all the lessons. You’re paying for a time slot essentially.
Andrew: I do remember, must have been 10 years ago, maybe a bit more. One of your family said to you we’d two, two lessons of credit for the last two lessons of term because we’re going on holidays because it’s cheaper to go on holidays during term time.
Samantha: Yes.
Andrew: They were essentially asking you to fund their holiday.
Samantha: Yes, that is right. And I remember when you first pointed that out to me. Oh, you are asking, they’re asking you to subsidize their holiday. And I thought, oh no, that’s not right. But now I believe, yes, that is right. If they choose to go on holiday and they’re going to miss two lessons, they’ve got to factor that into their holiday budget.
It’s not the teacher. who should pay by not being able to work then. And then because this strict Saturday policy seemed to work for me, I then just extended it to, to every day. But I remember when I first decided that I was going to do that, and I said to you, I’ve decided I’m just going to be really strict every day.
No makeup lessons, no credits, that’s it. I remember your reaction was, it’s not entirely reasonable.
Andrew: There must be some times where it is okay to say, on short notice, and it’s, can we make it up? Do you have any pollers any times where that’s the case?
Samantha: Yes, I think that if there is a genuine family emergency, genuinely something that the student could not have ever foreseen and there is a real problem getting to the lesson, then it’s up to me to show compassion.
And of course I will try to make up that time, but what that actually is investing in the future of keeping that student. If there’s constantly non attendance, and I think it’s another thing we should talk about is not call it missed lessons, but call it non attendance. If the parent clearly isn’t particularly committed, if the student’s constantly not turning up and that is a liability for you, then you have to fix it by either saying, I’m not giving the makeup lessons, or, Getting rid of that student, but if there was a really great student that I did not want to lose who couldn’t come one week for an unforeseen circumstance then I would definitely choose to make up that lesson and I would also make a big deal of it and say, look, I wouldn’t normally do this, but of course come at such and such a time, I don’t want you to miss out on that lesson. That must’ve been really hard for you or whatever.
Andrew: And of course it’s not the only way you invest in your students, you give scholarships, you you give them prizes, all kinds of things as part of that process. So it’s just another one of those investments you decided to make.
Samantha: Yes, that’s right.
So when you do choose to give a credit or a make up lesson, it’s because Of the long term implications of being able to retain that student. That is what you’re investing in. But just constantly giving credits and make up lessons to people who are going to birthday parties, going on holidays suddenly have a school event come up.
That is just a liability and that is making you either spend double the time or if you think of it, you’re getting half the pay for those lessons.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s a really good way of looking at it. It’s really interesting. And if you don’t have a policy. then your parents or your families will take advantage of that and you need to train them in a lot of ways, right?
Samantha: That’s right. And I think that is why I wanted to talk about this because I’ve spent the last five years practicing and finessing my policy and particularly since COVID, I’ve become quite good at it. When a parent lets me know, Oh, we can’t come to, we’ve got school camp next week.
I’ve got it written down in my policy. But I just say, Oh, that’s no, it’s no problem that Ella won’t be here. I will source some repertoire for her and I will put some videos in Tonara that she can watch. And instantly the parent gets the idea that, Oh, that, that lesson’s going ahead. It’s just that Ella won’t be there.
Yeah. Or another great thing to say is when they say, Oh, next week could we possibly change the lesson time? Because, we’ve got a family dinner or something. I usually say look, you’re welcome to try and swap with another student, but worst case scenario, just send through recordings in advance.
And I will use Ella’s lesson time to review the recordings and send feedback. So that’s another way of stating, I’m going to be giving Ella this time. that you have paid for, and Ella won’t be here, but that’s okay. And it won’t be as fantastic a use of time as if Ella was here, but lessons that are non attended, lessons that are not attended, can still have some value when the parent has paid for it.
And I think that’s the key to not giving makeup lessons. The parent has to perceive that they’re not just forfeiting their money for no reason.
Andrew: Let’s talk a bit about some of the things that you’ve done to Provide that value, because you’ve talked about Tanara and some other things. Let let’s talk about some of the technology you use to make it possible to do a make up lesson, sorry, to do a non attendance lesson. without the student there. Tell me about Tonara for a start.
Samantha: Tonara is just a a learning a learning management system. And there are plenty of them. There’s my music staff. There’s a cadenza. I think there’s lots of different learning management systems. And I adopted Tonara during COVID because then I could have a virtual notebook instead of a physical notebook when I wasn’t, when I was teaching online.
But you don’t even need that. I just ask students to send me recordings that they’ve made on their phone. Really the devices are a fantastic thing and 30 years ago We didn’t have this when we were teaching there was no easy way for students to just send us recordings I don’t ask them to send me videos.
They’re not massive files. They can send me audio. So I asked them to record all their pieces or even just to record a section of practice and send it to me. And during their lesson, then I listened to those and I’m writing them feedback and I have to say though, I ask for probably if I ask 10 students to send me recordings, if 10 students were going to miss lessons in one particular term, maybe two of them would actually get organized and send me the recordings.
Now that’s on them if they don’t do it, if they don’t take advantage of the value that I’ve offered. Oh but it’s still great to be able to offer it because then there’s this perceived value.
Andrew: What do you do when someone says, Oh Amy’s sick today or she’s got a bit of a sniffle.
Samantha: Yes.
Andrew: What’s your procedure then?
Samantha: Yes, this is very clearly laid out in my policy. So if there’s any illness at all, then we have an online lesson. We just default to that. Now, it’s very rare actually that a student is so ill they can’t even do an online lesson. If rarely the parent will get back to me and say, look, I’m really sorry.
I don’t even think they’re up to an online lesson. I’ve put them to bed. They’ve gone to sleep. And then that’s when I say, no problem. I will source some repertoire. I’ll put some ideas in. I’ll record a little video. I’ll put it all in. This is why a system like Tonara is so great, but you could just email something to the parent just as easily.
When the response from the parent, when the response from me to the parent is, This is what I’m going to do with that time. They, I think they feel a lot better about it. But I also do say, if anyone else cancels at the last minute, I will let you know. And you can come. Now, I have occasionally done this.
I have rung a parent at 7. 25 in the morning and said Flossie’s just cancelled her 7. 30 lesson. Can you get here? And the parent goes no, like we’ve just got out of bed or we’re already on our way to school and but I feel like I’ve done the right thing. I’ve offered them a time slot, but they can’t drop everything and come at the last minute.
Andrew: Anyone would think kids are overscheduled.
Samantha: There you go. But when you think about the flip side of that. Essentially, that’s what parents are asking you to do when they aren’t coming. When they call up and say, or even when they give you lots of notice, they’re asking you to reorganize your timetable.
If they’re asking you for a makeup lesson, they’re literally asking you to reschedule your life around them. And imagine if every student asked for a makeup lesson in one particular week you just wouldn’t be able to do it. And so if you can’t do it for everyone, you shouldn’t do it for anyone. And you shouldn’t feel, unless there’s really, um, extenuating circumstances unusual circumstances.
Andrew: One of the things I’ve heard you say is that this works really well for private teachers, but maybe not so well for peripatetic teachers. So policies are something that, that You can set for yourself as a private teacher. What’s the difference between that and being teaching, say, at a school as part of an organization?
Samantha: Yes. I’m really glad you asked me that because I’m talking from an extremely privileged position of being my own boss and teaching in my own home studio. So I make the rules. and everyone else has to just follow them. But if you are teaching in a school, then you’re at the mercy of the policy of that school.
And it’s just not so easy to say that you won’t give credits or make up lessons because the school might insist on that. Some schools are really good about it and at least have have a really organized music department where they will let their teachers know if there is a school camp on or if there are excursions.
Or some other reason why a child might not be able to attend a lesson, but it’s a really hard situation and I don’t actually teach in a school. I have done it once for a brief period of time. I wouldn’t do it again. So this is something, everything I’m saying today is something that is not necessarily going to work for teachers who are working in an environment where it’s not their own studio
Andrew: What would you suggest? For a teacher who has listened to this and really did want to change their policy, what sort of things should they go through?
Samantha: Yes, that’s a good question. It takes time to change a policy. I gave all my students three months notice when I decided that I would no longer give credits or make up lessons.
So I wrote a medium length email. I tried to make it not too long. And I explained that the nature of. Piano tuition is such that it is not casual, that when a student doesn’t attend in the time slot that they’ve booked that time cannot be given to anybody else, and that from now on. The term fee applies regardless.
And if you find that you cannot attend a lesson for any reason, there are going to be these procedures in place, like sending recordings or that I will, give value some other way. I asked all the parents to contact me if they had any problem with it. Didn’t hear from anybody except for one parent who did call me and she said, wait.
Cause we usually go on holidays. Again, during term time we usually, leave our school breaks up earlier than others. Are you saying we still have to pay for those lessons? And, even at that point, I still felt awkward. It’s very confronting when a parent says to you, says that. And it’s hard.
I said, I was trying not to say outright and bluntly, yes, you still have to pay. I said the thing is that I am still teaching during that time, the term is still going, so the lessons are still going ahead and I can’t really put anybody else in for those weeks you’re going to miss. And I finished it by saying, I completely understand if you would prefer to find a teacher who can be more flexible.
And they didn’t want to find another teacher. I was really banking on it. I was banking on the fact that they didn’t want to, but I was going to give them that option. And that’s how I ended the email as well. And when I interview any prospective student, I say it from that point of view, look, I If you take a spot with me, here is policy, here’s what happens in the event of not attending a lesson.
I completely understand if you prefer to have a teacher who’s more flexible and who can simply accommodate any time changes that you need. And there actually aren’t many teachers out there who can do that. And if they are, I don’t think they’re that happy about it.
Andrew: It means they’ve got empty spots.
Samantha: That’s true, but also I see, what I see on Facebook are teachers who are incredibly frustrated because they’re constantly trying to accommodate all their students wishes.
But there are some teachers who do it and they are happy about it. So I guess my caveat here is, yes, this is all about how not to give makeup lessons, but if you do give makeup lessons and you’re really happy to do it that’s fine. Don’t change anything.
Andrew: Yeah. So it, Give makeup lessons if that’s your choice.
But don’t feel like you have to give makeup lessons just because parents ask you to. So let’s go on to the asking thing because we went through this one stage. You would get you would publish a policy, you had buy in from your parents. You’d had this one bit of feedback, but no other and, you’d solve that.
And then someone came to you and said, we’d like to have a makeup lesson or we’d like to get a credit for a particular time. And you were a bit upset about it.
Samantha: Yes, I would be outraged. Haven’t they read my policy? Don’t they know? And I’ll get really upset that they would ask for a credit for some extended overseas trip when clearly I had said so many times that this was not possible.
And then you said to me it’s okay to ask. It’s okay, they’re just asking and I hadn’t really thought about like that and then I gave a webinar last year about Studio policy and I talked about a particular scenario, which made it a bit more relatable for us as adults so I said Imagine that You have a hobby and you’ve taken up knitting as you do and imagine that you have a knitting lesson every Tuesday at one o’clock and you enjoy your knitting lessons and you regularly attend and then all of a sudden a friend blows in from out of town And says can you meet me on Tuesday for lunch at one o’clock?
Now there’s two possible scenarios here in the first scenario your knitting teacher is extremely flexible, does not mind if you cancel. So now I know I can just cancel my knitting lesson at the last minute and I won’t have to pay. So I do. I cancel the knitting lesson and I go and have lunch with my friend.
In the second scenario, the knitting teacher has a policy more like my piano teaching policy. No, you cannot cancel at the last minute. I know I’m going to have to pay for that lesson. So now what happens? I could either say to the friend, I’m so sorry, I can’t meet you for lunch because I can’t cancel my knitting lesson.
So that’s the first option. Or I could decide to forfeit the knitting lesson and go it’s an expensive lunch. I know I have to pay for the lesson, but I really want to see my friend. Or. I could just call the knitting teacher and maybe just say, look, I know this is unusual, but my friend has just come in.
Like maybe it will just happen to suit the knitting teacher that I can’t come that day. You never know. Can’t hurt to ask. And you were the one who made me realize I’m actually the can’t hurt to ask sort of person. I think I would be option three. I don’t think I would necessarily just forfeit without asking, and that made me, it made me get less angry when people ask.
So the trick is to gently but firmly reiterate the policy. Now unfortunately that’s not possible, but you can do it very kindly. So when students say, when the parents say, is there any chance that we could get a credit for these two weeks, we’ll be away. I say, wow, that sounds like such an exciting trip.
That’s amazing. Unfortunately, there’s no credits available, but I will make sure that we do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for Herbie’s lessons. And feel free to, we can always have an online lesson while you’re in Italy.
Andrew: Yes, that’s true.
Samantha: The time zones are tricky, but yes. Why not? We can, yes, that’s right.
Andrew: From the top of, I don’t know the Leaning Tower of Pisa or something. That’d be great. Do you remember the first time you held firm with a student or a parent?
Samantha: Oh, yes, I do. I had this student named Lauren and I, she couldn’t come to her lesson and I was happy to reschedule the lessons.
It was actually before I had instigated my policy of no makeups. So she told me a week in advance that she couldn’t come and I said I do have a spot on a Friday afternoon at 4pm. You can come then. And then her dad said, Oh no, she’s got chess on Friday afternoons. And normally I would go, Oh really?
Okay. How about, and I would then try to find other times. And this was the first time I went when he said Oh, she’s got chess on Friday afternoons. I said okay, it’s, I’ve got that, that’s a possibility for you. And I just held firm. And then they went, oh, okay, I guess we can miss chess then.
And then you realize the parent, it’s up to the parent. What are they going to prioritize? And yeah, if they’re not gonna prioritize piano, that should not be the piano teacher’s problem.
Andrew: That’s a great story because that’s, that, that illustrates every piece of the thing that we’ve just been talking about.
That’s, I love it. Excellent. Are there any other things you’d like to talk about in terms of the policy that and the evolution of your policy?
Samantha: I think that not calling them missed lessons is a really important thing in the policy. So there’s a big heading in mine that says non attendance. As soon as you call it a missed lesson, then the parent thinks they’ve missed something.
But actually, they’re not going to miss anything. They’re still, it’s their choice. They’ve prioritized something else. And again, I’m not talking about in cases of sudden family emergency. But if they’ve chosen to prioritize something, or if there’s a clash with another activity, then there’s still, that lesson is still going to go ahead.
So we call it non attendance. And I think it makes a big difference in the psychology of how the parent thinks about it. So we’ve got to get them on board.
Andrew: That’s great. And when you talk about parental thinking how do parents think of lessons? What are they thinking about when they’re thinking about lessons?
Samantha: Yes I think in this world of overscheduled children perhaps the parent knows that the lesson is really the only really good dedicated time that child spends at a piano. And somehow that lesson counts as practice time as well. And for parents who are really struggling to get their kids to a piano to then miss the piano lesson.
I think the parent knows that’s now time they haven’t spent. And they really want to reschedule that time because they don’t want their child to miss that lesson. But what they do need to understand is that the teacher is not able to accommodate every student’s whim of when they need to change.
Andrew: I like that. And if they don’t attend. What are they actually missing out on? What are the things that they don’t get by not attending?
Samantha: Yes, it’s true. They don’t get a great lesson, obviously. They don’t get a great lesson. But they’re not going to miss out on progress, really, because the progress happens during the practice time.
And I know that for my really diligent students, missing a lesson here and there does not impact their progress. And they do send the recordings in advance, and I do send them feedback, and you can progress in that instance. And when they are really busy, they are, there, there are going to be clashes that come up.
And it can even help to say this in advance, like at the beginning when I do take students on. I say, there will be the inevitable clash with other activities, and here is what’s going to happen when that happens. But, if they’re really practicing well, it actually doesn’t matter. impact, impede their progress.
They’re not, they’re missing out on maybe introducing a new piece or me playing some duets with them or interaction that obviously you need parent the teacher student present for but really when they’re missing the odd lesson, if they’re really doing the practice at home it’s not that much of an issue.
Andrew: So if you’re going to sum up a couple of little things to finish up here. About how you go about changing the policy and the things that you’ve learnt over the last little while. How would you finish up?
Samantha: I would say that first piano teachers should, or all music teachers should decide what it is that they’re comfortable with.
If you are flexible and it works for you, then that’s great. But if you’re flexible and it’s not working for you and you are uncomfortable and you want to change it, then the way to change it is to give the students in your studio, give the parents a lot of notice. two to three months notice that this is going to happen and then have the wording that supports it and hold firm because there will be pushback.
And then it’s a matter of practicing, always practicing the response. I’ve gotten very good at implementing my studio policy because I’ve practiced it. And but at first it is awkward. It is hard. You will feel pressured but it is not unreasonable. I think that’s the thing I want to say. It is not unreasonable.
It’s not unreasonable to not give make up lessons. There are plenty of ways that you can give value to that student when it’s their choice to not attend the lesson.
Andrew: Samantha, coach, thanks so much for chatting with me. I’ve really enjoyed it. And I hope that all of you listening out there as well. Back to you, Amy.
Samantha: Bye. Thanks.
Amy: Thanks so much to Samantha and Andrew for taking the time to be with us here today. Since we’re talking policy writing, my tiny tip for you is to enlist a grammar check program into your professional life. We’re not just talking spellcheck, but a program that actually analyzes your writing and makes suggestions for improvement.
Grammarly is the tool I’ve been using for as long as I can remember, and I can’t imagine going a day without it. I like to call it spellcheck on steroids. It’s so easy to use and set up. You don’t really even have to do anything. It just becomes part of your daily workflow. If you want to learn more, there’s a link in the show notes to a blog post on the Piano Pantry website, where I show you all kinds of details.
I know you’re all about to get really busy here in May. So I’ll be back next week with our regular eight to 12 minute programming. Be sure and hit that subscribe button. So all the new episodes will download to your device automatically.
