You Are A Professional Music Teacher

Do you feel like a "proper" professional, or does part of you still feel like you're just teaching piano on the side?

In this episode, I share the story of the night I agreed to something I never wanted to do, and what it taught me about self-respect and boundaries. From there, I unpick what professionalism really means for a self-employed music teacher, why it has nothing to do with qualifications or years of experience, and how it shows up in the everyday systems, habits, and small decisions that make up a working studio.

Whether you have been teaching for months or decades, this episode will help you see your own studio, and yourself, as the professional you already are.

In this episode:

• What professionalism really means for a music teacher, and what it doesn't
• Why qualifications and years of experience aren't the whole picture
• How continuous professional development supports a professional mindset
• How policies and systems either reinforce or undermine your professional identity
• What a professionally run studio looks and feels like from a family's point of view
• The small, everyday habits that signal to families that they're in good hands

Resources mentioned:

• Piano Planners
• Teacher Piano Planner: available Summer 2026
• Focus Sessions (£67/hr)

Access the show notes here: Episode 10 Show Notes

Transcript

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I remember it so vividly. It was the 22nd of December, 2008, and I was in Putney. It was about probably about eight o'clock in the evening, so at that time of year it was completely dark. I'd just finished teaching a lesson at a student's house, somewhere I never wanted to be teaching in the first place, and I was walking the fairly short walk from her house back to the tube station on my own. Suddenly I wasn't walking forward anymore. Someone had grabbed my bag from behind, which had stopped me in my tracks. My arm was trapped, and I couldn't get away, so I just started screaming and screaming, and no one came. I was all alone, and eventually, after going through many terrible scenarios in my head in this very short space of time, that felt like a long time, they let go and gave up, and I ran as fast as I could to the tube station. That night has stayed with me for many reasons, one of them being traumatic, but another reason being this night had a really big impact on me because I never should have been walking that route at that time at all. The reason I was in that situation is because I had said yes to something I didn't want to do because I didn't yet believe that that I was allowed to say no. When I first decided to start teaching part-time, I put an ad in Gumtree. There's a website Gumtree, I don't know if it's still around, but it was very useful. I put an ad in. It said piano teacher in training, looking for five students to teach piano to, £10 for 30 minutes. And it was very successful. I got contacted straight away by several and started booking them in. And one of them was she was a lovely student, she was an adult lady, and she came to my house for her lessons, as they all did. And then after a while, she explained to me that her young son got really distressed when she left the house, to the point where she and her husband had to do like a masquerade kind of pretend like she was just taking the bins outside so that her son didn't get upset and then she would come and have her piano lesson with me. So this led to her requesting that I come and teach at her house. Now, teaching at other people's houses is something I never ever intended to do. I basically took the advice of my own childhood piano teacher and she said, you make sure they come to you, you teach in your own home, this is a much better way to do it, and I absolutely agree. Not just because of that one terrible experience, but because of other teachers I've spoken to who are so-called traveling teachers, because very few of them actually put their rates up enough to cover the cost of travel, the wear and tear on their car, and also the additional time it takes to travel to and from the student's house. Anyway, when she asked, I didn't even think that I could say no. I just heard this request, I was in full-blown people-pleasing mode, as I was back then, and because she was older than me, I was only 23 at the time, and she was probably mid-thirties, I think, I felt obligated to say yes. It was a sort of a hierarchy thing, which doesn't really work because I was the piano teacher. But the problem is I did not see myself as a piano teacher. I saw myself as someone who teaches piano lessons on the side. So once I got back home after that horrible interaction, I sent her a message and just explained that I can't teach her at her house anymore because of what's happened. And she was she felt awful. She she was, I mean, she's a really lovely person, but I just I shouldn't have had to have had that experience to make me strong enough to hold up my boundaries. This decision wasn't really about safety at all. It was because I didn't really respect my own boundaries enough at that point to hold them the first time they were tested. This episode is all about what it means to be a professional teacher, to be a professional music teacher, and how that identity shows up, or maybe doesn't, in the everyday running of your studio. 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. Now you might be wondering, why does it even matter if we think of ourselves as professionals or not? Surely it doesn't impact much. But actually, what I have realised, what I've understood through my own experience and speaking to lots of other music teachers, is that it has a profound impact on everything to do with being a music teacher and running a music studio. I'm sure you've experienced this yourself, this stereotype. I've had grandparents of students and students themselves asking, so what do you really do for a job at the end of their piano lesson? And it always makes me laugh, but I know that there would have been a time in my past where I was feeling insecure or vulnerable, not quite sure of myself in this role, and that really would have stung. Now it just makes me laugh because I am a professional piano teacher. That is the identity that I live in. This stereotype that those who teach piano or any instrument is just a hobby on the side is very, very strong here in the UK. I'm not too sure what it's like in other countries, but I know particularly in the UK, there is this really strong stereotype of piano teachers in particular. I'm not sure what it's like for other instruments, but piano teachers being elderly ladies, grannies, you might say, who are teaching piano on the side to supplement their pension. For all the music teachers that I've met, none of them really fit that description at all. Because I have met them at professional events, and we are a community of music teachers that come together to discuss all things music teaching because we are engaged in our profession and we are professionals. So for me personally, when I went through this mindset shift, and it very much is a mindset shift, switching from oh, I teach piano after work or I teach piano in the evenings to I am a piano teacher. It really changed so much about my confidence in all areas of piano teaching and running a business. It gave me more confidence in my teaching decisions. It gave me more confidence in how I do my admin, creating invoices, creating automated invoices, doing all of that side of things. And it gave me, more importantly, much more confidence in holding my boundaries. So with this mindset shift, the underlying feeling that I have now is that I belong here as a piano teacher and that I do deserve to be paid for my time as a piano teacher. And that's not a belief I used to have. It was very much an identity that was I love music and I love piano, and I do this job in pharmaceutical market research, but I want to do piano teaching on the side because I enjoy it and because I love it so much. You don't really have to pay me. Of course, I asked for payment because that's a bare minimum, but it didn't feel good asking for money for teaching piano because I enjoyed it so much, and of course, still enjoy it so much. And it was very much this, oh, I'm here for you as my student, but in an apologetic way, which is why I automatically refunded or rescheduled every lesson that any student missed. There was no really no respect for my own time or the value of my time because I didn't have that mindset that I was a professional piano teacher. And I think you'll understand, whatever stage you're at at the moment, I think you'll understand the damage that that previous mindset can have where you don't believe that you're a professional. There's so much damage that it can do without you even realizing if you don't think of yourself as a professional, no one else is going to think of you as a professional, and therefore you aren't going to be treated as a professional. So it's almost inviting that interaction with students and parents that say, My time isn't worth anything. I do this because I love it, it's just a hobby on the side. If you miss the lesson, that's fine, we can reschedule because I don't mind, you know, giving away loads more of my time. And I'm saying this from the perspective of having experienced it myself and then transitioning to the professional mindset. So I'm saying it with love because it was a very natural place for me to be as a people pleaser. And I want to help you if you are in that stage to be able to shift into the professional mindset because everything improves what you do. Your self-belief, your confidence not just in areas of music teaching, but in all areas of your life. All of this improves. And when you have that confidence in yourself and your decisions, that's what your students see and feel. That's what your music families experience from you as a teacher. The confidence and professionalism that reassures them they've picked the right teacher. It has a knock-on effect. It reduces the number of questions of parents who might want to check up on how their child is doing with progress and they want to make sure things are going along smoothly as they should be, because they have more trust in you as a teacher. This is a broad generalization of what I've experienced, but I have no doubt it will be the same for you when you make this switch if you haven't already. And if you are there in this professional mindset, you will understand what I'm talking about. When you treat yourself as a professional, you naturally have that confidence and feel more confident in all decisions that you make. You're no longer apologizing for being anything less than anyone would expect, your own expectations for yourself are elevated. You also get fewer requests for reschedules, especially once you can start reinforcing your boundaries. If you don't want to reschedule lessons, you stand by your boundaries and you find it easier. The thing about this mindset is even though that very first time when you draw the line in the sand and you say, from this point on, I'm not refunding any lessons anymore, or I'm not rescheduling lessons anymore, that's the hardest bit doing that first step. And after that, your confidence grows because you tested the water and you put your boundary in place and everyone didn't leave. Because that's the underlying fear, isn't it? That we put our boundaries in place and all our students are going to leave and they don't. But you need to experience it to get that bolstering effect that makes you realise, oh, that's right, I can be a professional, I am a professional, and it builds itself and you get more and more confident so that you become the teacher that you always wanted to be, not living in fear of rejection or living in fear of losing your students, and you can concentrate more on the bit you love, which is the music teaching. Now I think the next most important thing to talk about is to really define what professionalism is and also what it isn't. In a technical aspect, being a professional is doing something and being paid for it. But we're going far beyond that because we are all paid for our music lessons. I hope. And if you're not being paid for your music lessons, please send me a message. We need to have a chat. So the first myth that I would like to dispel is that professionalism is not all about qualifications, it's not all about letters after your name, years of experience, it's actually about how you conduct yourself and the standards you hold yourself to. Now, all of those things are good things, having some qualifications, having letters after your name, having experience, all of that goes to making you a better teacher, but it's not what makes you a professional. You could have been teaching for years and years and years, but if you stay in the mindset of I just teach some lessons to some kids after school and not I'm a professional music teacher, then you could have many years of experience making you a great teacher, but you don't have that professional mindset, so there is still something holding you back from experiencing what comes with that mindset. This matters a lot, I believe, for music teachers specifically. Look at how many of us come to music teaching in informal ways. Lots of us start out as part-time. We're generally self-taught in the business side of things, which could be a little bit or none at all, and we're all floundering and asking for help. And asking for help is a good thing, but we don't come ready-made with business acumen. And lots of us actually don't come with a formal teaching qualification. And for us here in the UK, that's a well-known fact that music education is not regulated in the same ways as, say, accountancy. But it doesn't mean that you can't be a professional if you don't have a teaching qualification. There are a lot of really good courses out there, one being the piano teachers course, and they run several different courses. I did the SET PTC course a few years ago, and it enormously expanded my awareness of what else there is that I would like to and need to know about in terms of my teaching and my own professional development and personal development as a musician, but it just improved so many aspects of my teaching. So we'll talk more about continuous professional development in a bit, but you don't need a formal teaching qualification to be a professional teacher. This stereotype that we have, particularly in the UK, lots of people see teaching piano as this side hobby, something I like to do in my spare time. It actually says more about public perception of self-employment than it does about the reality of actually running a music studio. And when I use the term music studio, I am talking about teaching from my home and it's just me. I don't have a bunch of teachers that I'm employing. But that's what it is. It is a piano teaching studio because this is the place where my students come and I teach them. So don't be afraid to call it that. Thinking back to that first gumtree ad where I called myself a piano teacher in training, that felt very safe to me because I wasn't proclaiming to be anything that I wasn't. I really was a piano teacher in training, and the training that I was doing was teaching because you learn as you teach, especially in the beginning. My identity switched from that very beginning stage to a fully established professional, and it really was this mindset change first before it was a practical one. So this nature of professional identity is a self-fulfilling one. You get treated as a professional once you believe and behave as one, not the other way around. And that can be hard to get your head around to start with, but believe me, it's it's well worth it putting the time in to consider how you view yourself. There's a lot of stuff available in podcasts and books about your own identity. And I'm reading a book at the moment by James Clare called Atomic Habits. It's a wonderful book. It's about how to build new habits and how to stop bad ones. And he makes a point that if you say to yourself, in the context of our music teaching, if you say to yourself, I teach piano lessons after work, versus I am a piano teacher, they're two very different identities, and just saying them out loud impacts how your brain accepts the information. It's a very strange phenomenon and something I never used to understand. But this is where those affirmations come from. If you've come across this and you thought, well, that's a load of rubbish, it's alright. I thought that too. And I don't walk around the house telling myself great things about myself, but there is a lot to be said for telling yourself, either out loud, out loud is good because if you say it with your own voice and your brain hears it, it makes it real. It's a very strange thing. It's like setting goals years ahead, and you say, I am going to host a recital. That was one of my goals a few years back. I'm going to fill my studio with my ideal students, you know, all these sorts of things. And it happened. And I guarantee if I hadn't taken on board those ideas, none of that would have happened. Give it some thought. Next time you come across someone talking about affirmations. So I should probably touch on this here. I, for a very long time, had the belief that you needed a music degree to be a music teacher. It's not true. Uh, I've done a couple of posts on it and it did raise some eyebrows because some people were worried that I meant, oh, it doesn't matter how much you know about your instrument, but clearly it does. For piano at least, I know that as a minimum you need to have at least grade 8 practical and grade 5 theory, and that's where I sit. I didn't do a music degree, I did a biology degree, which doesn't really help me with my music teaching other than analytical sides of things. However, for such a long time I thought, well, you need to have a music degree if you're going to be a music teacher of any kind. Over the last five years or so, I have met so many music teachers from all different backgrounds, quite a few who have music degrees, but who have openly said to me, having that degree does not help me with my music teaching, which really flips that idea on its head. And if you are one of those people who believes you need the qualifications in order to allow yourself to be called a music teacher or allow yourself to think that you're a music teacher, it's a myth. It's just not true. There is so much more to teaching than knowing about music. You have so many other skills that you probably don't realise you already have. In terms of communication and connecting and understanding what the person in front of you has taken on board or what maybe they haven't understood, and finding another way to explain that concept or skill or idea. There is so much more to teaching. If you have been feeling the need to go back to university and get a music degree before you can be a music teacher, please be aware you don't need one. And if you want to get one, that's fine, but it won't necessarily set you up as a music teacher. There's a whole lot of other stuff that you will learn as you go, learning on the job. Now I just want to touch on continuous professional development, CPD. This is an area that used to frighten me because for several reasons, because I used to think when people would talk about CPD, the only experience I'd had in terms of CPD up until I started teaching. Well, no, as I was beginning my early teaching in my corporate job, we went on training days and you know it was immersive and it was a whole day, and we'd be learning about this and learning about that. But because of the nature of the topic, I wasn't enthralled by it, so I saw CPD as training days that you had to get through. Did they really help in the long run? I'm not sure. Of course they did, but that was me as a 22-23-year-old thinking I don't want to be in this unfamiliar place learning about these things with all these unfamiliar people. I think that was my social anxiety showing back then. My perception of CPD has massively switched around because I have engaged in so much continuous professional development over the last six or seven years as a piano teacher. And because this is a job that I have a lot of passion for, I love the training days. I love the courses. Everything that I have invested in has not only been massively enjoyable and informative, but it has progressed my teaching and my awareness of the world of teaching in a very profound way. My original views of professional development were you've got to pay for things with the limited amount of income you're making from these lessons. So I'm not going to get involved in those things because I'm trying to build up my income, and why would I waste my money on that? That's not how I feel now, of course. But it's a very common mindset, I believe, that. Especially in the early days, you haven't got a lot of money to invest in professional development. But that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of different ways you can continue to develop professionally by engaging with other music teachers. So the easiest one is on social media in groups that are safe. There's quite a few unsafe groups, and from that it's because they are so large and so public that you get some trolls and you get some people with very strong opinions that is not helpful to anyone's development. I'm talking about the smaller groups, the purpose-built groups that are moderated carefully, and they're private groups, so you have to answer questions to join. I run one of these groups, my Facebook group is called Piano Teachers Tips and Support. And it's just a safe place to ask all the questions that you feel silly asking, knowing that you're not going to be berated or belittled by anyone in the group. There is the Curious Piano Teachers, which is very close to my heart. This is a membership run by Sally Cathcart and Sharon Mark Taggart, and it's a wonderful community. This is actually where I have gained a lot of my confidence being supported by this wonderful group of piano teachers. Obviously, if you're not a piano teacher, it's not going to be as relevant. However, if you are, it's a great place to start. And there's a whole handful of other groups online that will allow you to start learning outside of your own bubble because nearly all of us teach the way we were taught. And that's fine if all your students are like you, but I can guarantee you all your students are not like you. So when you come up against different learning styles, different experiences, different motivations, that's where we have to pivot and twist and turn to find things that fit our students, and that's where speaking to other music teachers gives you this wealth of information, gives you a starting point to figure out and learn how to teach all these different types of people. Once you get your head around the idea of continuous professional development and take it on as I'm always learning, I'm learning more about my profession because I care about it and I want to keep growing. That is the mindset that separates those professionals from those who are just hobbyists. One point I would like to make is about exams. Now putting your students through exams is not what makes you a professional music teacher. They are completely separate topics. Exams are there, in my opinion, to validate the skills that already exist, not as pieces of paper to churn out to show parents to prove that their child is winning at life. We can talk more about that, I'm sure we will, on other episodes, but it can be one of those traps that teachers fall into, especially before you have really embodied your own professional identity. Parents may well ask for when can they do their first exam? Or if they're not your ideal students and you have some pushy families, they might pressure you into putting students forward for exams before they're ready. And that's the kind of situation, just because your students have taken exams and hopefully passed, it's not a sign of professionalism because you may well still be the teacher who is bending over backwards, refunding, rescheduling all the lessons that are missed, and not treating yourself as a professional, yet you have students who have passed exams. It's just a separate topic entirely. If exams are not a big part of how you teach, there's no need for you to feel that you're falling short of professionalism. The policies and systems that you have in your studio are just as much a marker of professionalism as anything else. So beyond feeling like a professional, believing that you're a professional, you have outward signals that can help confirm your belief as a professional music teacher. So when a student decides they don't want to have lessons anymore, they want to stop for any reason, because I have all my policies in place, what happens is the student, if they're an adult or the parent, will send me an email probably. Sometimes it's a message, but most of the time it's an email, which again is a more professional way of communicating about things like starting or stopping lessons. They will email me and giving confirmation of the one month's notice, which is the notice period I have in our contract agreement, and I will send them a reply, obviously, express my sadness or whatever's relevant to the situation. It's not always sadness if it's you know they've finished and they're moving away. Obviously, there is sadness still, but it's not that they are giving up on piano. So I'll respond with something relevant to the situation, and I will always confirm that they've given them one month's notice. I'll confirm the final day of lessons, and I will calculate the number of lessons that they've had available and what has been paid on account so far, so that they will then have a final invoice to pay before finishing. Which gives a winding up period to the lessons coming to an end rather than just an abrupt end that you receive an email or or a text saying, I'm not coming back, and then you never see them again. That is what used to happen before I had my policies in place. If someone wanted to stop lessons, there was not a mutual respect going on in that sense. It was a much more casual setup, I suppose, or from their perspective, there wasn't a requirement to let me know with any kind of notice, or they forgot about the notice period because they had a policy agreement and I didn't reinforce it enough. The difference between those two experiences is quite big. I mean, when a student leaves me now, it's not a knee-jerk reaction, it's a calm, thought-out thing, and I can plan some things for the final lessons. We part ways knowing that I'm still a piano teacher, and if they ever change their mind and would like to come back, they're always welcome. That's always the way things finish. But being ghosted, I suppose, when you get people who just don't come back after the summer, it's not a nice feeling. If it's ever happened to you, I'm sorry that you've experienced that. It's not uncommon, it's quite undermining, it kind of feels like you've just been used and discarded when they needed a teacher and now they don't need a teacher anymore, which is so far from being treated with respect and how a clear-ending process feels now. This is the way a professional business runs. Everything is communicated, expectations are aligned, there's no scary surprises. So that's how my policies work and help to reinforce my professional identity. Another part is the piano planners that I created for my students. So if you aren't already aware, I've got three different types of piano planners. There's the academic year piano planner, which I designed for children, and then there's two versions of a planner called the weekly detail version or the weekly overview version of planners designed for adults. And the main difference being the kids' one is based on term times and it's got lots of reassuring little statements on each page, and it's designed for children rather than adults. I provide all of my students with these planners free of charge because I want them to have that engagement with their practice, and it's quite a good way of not just keeping track of practice but setting goals and maintaining enthusiasm and motivation. We can also track the repertoire that they've completed. There's a whole bunch of theory pages in the back that are really useful. So being able to provide this for my students gives me a big boost in my sense of professionalism because it's a physical object that they can hold and use and see every day that is designed purely to help them with their piano learning journey. Now I'm not saying you have to go out and design piano planners for all of your students because this was a project that I did over a summer a couple of years ago. I love creating, I've realized how much I love creating over the last few years, so I really enjoy doing this, but it was to solve a problem that I was experiencing in my studio, which was a lack of engagement with practice, and it went far beyond that in the designing of the planners because it covered a lot of other things that I wanted to have some physical book to kind of keep a track of for all of my students. So, from parent perspectives, it's quite a good thing to show that I'm not someone who just turns up and teaches. I've thought things through, I care about the journey their child is on in terms of learning to play the piano, and that we're not just blindly ploughing through books and hoping for the best. There are goals in sight, and that's a really good way of showing to your piano parents or music parents for whatever instrument you teach that it is more than just let's hear what you've practiced. So you don't have to use a planner, but you could encourage them to set goals that you keep track of, or if they have a little notebook, you could write the goals in their notebook so that they have something to keep in mind maybe per term, working towards this specific goal. Whether they have trouble with certain rhythms or they need to overcome the dotted crotchet quaver rhythm counting scenario, or they want to learn a particular piece by the end of the term, or they want to be able to perform a piece in their school assembly. You know, these goals are very useful things, and it's a very easy and small gesture that you can include in your lessons that communicates to music parents that you care more beyond just the lesson. I mean, they probably already know that, but it just goes one step further to showing that you take this job seriously, that you are a professional. Moving on to this view of professionalism fully from the family's point of view, there are lots of things that you can do to help your music families know that you are a professional. Lots of little signals, so it doesn't have to be one enormous gesture. You may not hold recitals in your studio yet or don't plan to, but for me, this is an area that has helped reinforce my idea of being a professional. So running an official recital, I do a summer recital every year, and I also, for the last two recitals, have started collecting feedback via forms that I hand out to everybody. So feedback forms signal quite a few different things. One is it does make it more official. Another is it says I care what you all think, what you experienced at the recital, I would like to make it better, and I need your feedback to know what I can improve or what you enjoyed and what we can do more of. I got lots of wonderful feedback from the last recital with families reflecting on how wonderful it is to see the children's progress year on year and for them to have the chance to perform and all come together and witness it. By collecting this feedback, not only is it a really good self-confidence boost that you're doing the right thing, it really shows that you care what they think, not just that I did a recital for the sake of doing a recital. And of course, no one would do a recital just to say, I've done one, because there's so much work that goes into it, and when you experience your first recital, if you haven't already, your student recitals, it's the most wonderful day. Yes, there's stress and anxiety involved, but seeing your students perform it's one of the things that is the highlight of my year. So if you haven't done that yet or you aren't sure how to get started, I do have some free materials that you can get hold of on my website. But more about that later. Another area that I use to reinforce the professional identity is I do always send end of term and start of term emails out to all of my students and parents. Really to just keep everyone in the loop. I update them on what's happening that term or what has finished. Whether or not they really read them all, it doesn't really matter because I'm putting the information out there for all of my student families, and it's a way of showing that this is a real teaching studio. We've got this many students, students have been doing festival performances, this many performed in the recital, some of them have done exams, some of them have managed to accomplish some of their biggest goals this term, things like that. And it's a good place to be able to visit any policies if you have been having some pushback. It's quite a good way of reminding everybody how things work if they're not all on the same page yet. Music festivals is another one. We've got the Portsmouth Festival for Performing Arts, previously known as the Portsmouth Music Festival. A couple of years ago I started entering my students in this festival, and this is quite a big one. This is another visible marker to families that your studio is operating at a professional level. Even though it's no different from preparing a student for performing in your recital or for performing in a school assembly, it's preparing them for a performance of some kind. This is just in a venue that is done with adjudication. So they get more value from it because they get to hear others of similar ages and abilities play their music and possibly add things to the list that they really want to learn, but also to understand where they can progress to. So it's a very useful situation that does far more than say, I'm a professional music teacher, it's this is where you can go, and that helps families understand where their child can progress to as well, which is infinitely useful. Your student family's sense of your professionalism is not a big label that says I'm a professional, it's all these small visible moments that they get this understanding from, not from a certificate on the wall that says I have a music degree or I have this teaching qualification. Those things don't mean much at all to parents and families. What they see is the real progress that their child makes and the engagement that they have with learning their instrument. There's a number of small everyday habits and systems that I have that also put forward this professional approach to running my studio. So the first one is that all of my piano lessons are scheduled in my Google Calendar, and for me I colour code them so they're all put in in lavender colour and I change them to blueberry if the student cancelled, or I change them to graphite, which is the dark grey colour, if I cancelled. That way I can see cancellation patterns across my studio at a glance. The knock-on professional touch this creates is that when I update a calendar event, so for example, if a student misses the lesson for whatever reason, I will change the colour to blueberry, but also change the event headline, I'll put cancelled in brackets at the end of it. So it will say Henry's piano lesson and then I'll put cancelled in brackets at the end. So they then get an email update which confirms the acknowledgement that that lesson has been cancelled and marked as cancelled so that it's logged for everyone to be on the same page with. When I get WhatsApp messages or texts from parents or adults, I keep my responses short and professional. And this took some work for me in the beginning to not over-explain, especially as most of the replies to these sorts of messages are reinforcing my policies. So I don't get very many of these now, if at all, because everyone's on the same page. But in the earlier days of reinforcing my boundaries, of not rescheduling missed lessons and not carrying lessons over to the next term when I used to build terminally, it would be a message such as so-and-so can't come to their lesson because they have a school trip, and they'd either leave it at that or they'd ask, can we reschedule for later in the week, or can they have a double lesson the next week? And it's very tempting to one, read that message and have a horrible twisting feeling in your stomach as you think of how to reply with a response that's professional but doesn't over-explain. So if they have asked, can we reschedule to the next week? I have got it down to quite a simple, straightforward message, something like, Hi, X, thank you for letting me know why won't be at their lesson this week. It will be counted as a missed lesson. I look forward to seeing them next week. Which is very clear and states the facts, and there's no apology, there's also no over-explaining. So what you don't want to do is to fall into the trap of, oh, I'm really sorry they can't make their lesson this week because they're on a school trip. I realise that's not your fault. So you shouldn't have to pay for a lesson that you've missed because of something that was out of your control. So would you like to come for a double lesson next week, or I can refund you, or I can take it off the next invoice? None of that because all that does is communicates loudly and clearly that you don't value your time, that your time is expendable, and that it just opens the door to all sorts of things that will suck up your time and reduce your income. I go into that into a lot more detail in other episodes, but being able to respond succinctly and professionally to messages like that, maintain the level of professional perception in your studio. Now, continuous professional development. I've mentioned this already. It's something that if you can build it into your year as a habit, not just a one-off, not I did a course five years ago and that's enough for now. And it doesn't have to be investing a lot of money. So you can maintain it in an almost free sense by getting involved with teaching groups, either having meetups, just chatting to other music teachers of your own instrument. You naturally talk about your students anonymously, of course, but things that you've come across, problems that you've either struggled with or come up with solutions for, it's a very natural thing. So just hanging out with other music teachers is sort of the minimal level of continuous professional development that I would recommend, but is still a very valuable one. So you can attend events like conferences. So EPTA UK holds their conference once a year in Birmingham most years. It happens like late August or September. I went to my first EPTA conference last year, and it was great because so many of the people that I had met through the piano teachers course and the curious piano teachers were there as well, as well as a lot of other people who I got to know, and it was just great because you're experiencing learning new things for your profession at the same time as meeting new people who are all pretty much in the same boat as you. So it's a great way to interact. Now, I'm saying this as someone with OSHA anxiety, especially with large groups of people, a much better one-on-one, but there is so much value in being able to make connections, even simple connections, with other music teachers. I'm not saying you have to go to these events and do networking and anything like that. We are far, far, far from the corporate life and we don't need to involve any of that. But just involving yourself in some conversations or starting up a conversation with another music teacher, it will always be beneficial to both of you. I've already mentioned the piano teachers course that I invested in. That was a 10-month course, the CERT PTC. That one had been on my radar for a number of years, but I had never decided to actually go ahead and sign up for it because I mean it's about £3,000 just short of that, but you do get some discounts if you're part of the Curious Piano Teachers and things can offer you discounts for it. But when you consider the amount of face-to-face time you get with the tutors and what the qualification gives you in terms of value to your teaching, it is well worth the money. And because it spans across these 10 months, you actually generate some really lovely friendships with the people on the course. So it's it's a great way to kick start your teaching if you have been feeling a bit stuck in a rut or you're not sure where to go next or you don't know what you don't know. That's something that we all experience. The Piano Teachers Course UK, the courses that they run are always well worth the money. So they're worth checking out if you would like to invest in something a bit more substantial. So when you invest in your own professional development, you're reinforcing the idea that you're running a profession worth investing in. It's not just, oh I know everything I need to know and I'm just gonna teach, and that's that. Because I mean you probably wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you think like that. Because that would very quickly get boring. And music teaching should be anything but boring, because the second that you are bored during teaching is the second that you need to either stop teaching or need to reevaluate how you teach and find something that sparks your passion for it again. And I guarantee you, speaking to other music teachers is the quickest way to do that. I mentioned this earlier that because I don't have a music degree, that for me was a big barrier to become. Becoming a professional piano teacher, saying I can't really call myself a piano teacher who is a professional teacher because I don't have a music degree. I'm sure I'm not the only one who believes this. So it's one of those things that we could think about in terms of professionalism being about the way you conduct yourself and the standards you hold yourself to, not the certificates you have on the wall. I'm sure there are plenty of highly qualified teachers who run deeply unprofessional studios and vice versa. So it's not determined by the certificates you have, it's how you actually run your own studio. Another objection I have heard from piano teachers is that it feels arrogant or big-headed to call myself a professional. And if that's how you've been feeling every time I've used that word, which is a lot in this episode, I want to reassure you that it's not that you're boasting when you call yourself a professional. You're naming what you are accurately. And when you have this mindset shift to becoming a professional music teacher, it's the families in your studio who benefit when you believe enough to act on it. When you believe that you're a professional music teacher, as I said in the beginning, your whole perception of yourself and your beliefs, everything changes and everything is improved. And you benefit from it, but so do your students and so do your students' families. They all benefit from you being a more confident teacher, a more professional teacher from the outside, but also from the inside. Now, this particular objection that I'm going to talk about now is one that I was stuck in for a long time. So I taught part-time from the beginning and only switched to full-time in 2019. And up until I was teaching full-time, I really didn't count myself as a professional. Which kind of explains why I didn't really hold up any of my policies and I had all of those early non-professional mindsets of being apologetic for taking money from people for teaching them this wonderful instrument that you love so much. I really didn't feel like a professional for the whole time I was teaching part-time. But when I look back, I realize I actually already was one. I just wasn't treating myself as a professional. I was giving away my time by rescheduling any lesson that was cancelled. I wasn't really charging enough. I didn't show anyone that I was a professional because I didn't have things in place like invoicing. I used to write in a little receipt book with carbon copy paper that I would just scribble out, you know, the the name, the date, one piano lesson at whatever I was charging. What was it, £15? And then I'd tear it off and hand it to the student, and they'd pay me on the day, on the day of the lesson. So it was a completely different way of existing as a piano teacher. And again, I wasn't existing as a piano teacher, I was a person who was teaching piano lessons after work. And it wasn't until I made the switch to full-time teaching that was the moment I really let myself say, I am a piano teacher. So when people ask, Oh, what do you do? It felt weird the first few times I said it, first few times I said, I'm a piano teacher. And I used to say it kind of apologetically, I'm a piano teacher, with a bit of a shrug. But once that shift had happened, I was, and still I am proud to be a piano teacher. Because when you are introducing yourself to new people and they understand what your job is, it's quite a relief. I mean, the number of times I've been introduced to people and they tell me what they do, and I have no clue what that means in any tangible way, and they know that I have no clue what that means, but it's not an interesting enough topic for them to want to describe what it is they do. Whereas when you say I'm a piano teacher or I'm a violin teacher or a harp teacher or whatever you teach, it's very clear what that job is, and maybe not all the ins and outs of what running a studio is, but it's an easy thing to hold on to in a conversation, and being proud of being a music teacher is a really lovely feeling. I love being able to say I'm a piano teacher because it's not something I ever thought would be my full profession, and of course it is, and I love it. On to another objection that I have heard from piano teachers particularly is that systems and policies feel too formal for what is essentially a friendly personal relationship with families. Now, yes, we are friendly and personal with our students and their families, but that doesn't mean that you can't be professional at the same time. Warmth and professionalism are not opposites. Things like when I get my recital feedback and end-of-term emails show that you can actually hold both of these things at once. You can be warm and professional, it's not one or the other. And having systems and policies isn't going to turn families away. It's going to reassure them that you are a professional. If you consider things flipped around and you're looking for either a teacher for yourself for something that you're not accomplished in, or if you have children, you're looking for a teacher for an instrument for your child. If they don't actually have any policies, that probably would start ringing alarm bells, even if you weren't conscious of it, because every service and business that you interact with these days has some kind of terms and conditions form to sign. And if that doesn't exist, it communicates an absence of professionalism rather than the other way around. So if you do feel that it feels a bit too stuffy to have systems and policies, think about the alternative. And I think you'll agree that it is better to have these policies to be respected as a professional and know that you can still have these lovely, warm friendships with your students and families. It's not one or the other. So as we usually do, when we come to the end of an episode, I would like to give you one small thing to take away and do so that you can start making a change to this particular idea of seeing yourself as a professional. So I was trying to think what one particular thing could be that would help most people, and I think the simplest one is the affirmation style activity. Even if you feel silly, just make sure no one else is around. And what I'd like you to do is to say out loud whatever your instrument is, so I'm going to use piano because that's what I am. I am a piano teacher. And if that is the first time you've said it out loud, it's going to feel weird. Or whatever you teach, if you teach harp, I am a harp teacher. If that feels comfortable, you could move it on to I am a professional harp teacher. And saying it out loud does have a significant impact on your sense of professional identity. Even though it won't feel like it, if you do that when you wake up every day, I am a professional piano teacher. You just say it to yourself and then you get on with your day. It infiltrates your own sense of identity and over time you believe what you're saying. So if you don't feel like a professional yet, if you still introduce yourself as someone who teaches piano lessons on the side or in your spare time, this is the sort of thing that's going to help you shift over to really seeing yourself as the professional that you already are, and it will help your teaching and your families in many ways. Please do visit the show notes for more information and for links to resources that I've mentioned during the episode. And thank you very much for listening. I hope this episode has helped you consider something that may have been in the back of your mind, or maybe you hadn't realized that you didn't really think of yourself as a professional, so that it can help you on the way to becoming the professional that you are. See you next time.