It’s Group Class Week, which has altered the studio schedule. In lieu of regular piano lessons, the students attend a group class this week. I tried something different this year by spreading the four group classes over three days. I used to run them on a Friday/Saturday of one weekend. I found that I spent the whole week conserving energy for those two days and needed (but couldn’t have) another week to recover. Thankfully, my brother is available to help out with the beginner classes tomorrow and I have hired two of my older students as teaching assistants to give them some experience.
There are a few bugs to work out since a new system and it’s the first group class for the year, but the first one last night went all right. My intermediate students performed for each other, improvised and figured out what do in a 10-minute practice session if that’s all the time they have (see my earlier entry on this for more info).
With the studio running at full capacity, I’m constantly thinking of ways to make the group class schedule work more effectively. I’m already thinking about how to structure it next year, believe it or not.
It hasn’t been a week off, as my heading implies. I am still teaching theory lessons this week and doing “make-up” lessons. There was the Alberta Registered Music Teachers’ Association (ARMTA Calgary) meeting on Monday. Maestro helped me with the filing and bookkeeping. Now it’s off to do some administrative work (receipts to couples whose weddings I played at, finding a venue for the winter and spring student recitals, preparing for the lessons and group classes today)
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