Tag: communication

Studio Business, Technology

4 Tips For Using Gmail for Studio Emails

Joy Morin

Do you use Gmail for email? Today, I’m sharing a few tips that might prove useful for your studio emails. We’ll talk about how to maintain email lists, use BCC, add an email signature (or two!), and create a simple-but-awesome template for your studio emails. Let’s streamline our emails and make our studio communication look great!

Some of these tips might still apply even if you don’t use Gmail, but you’ll have to search out the how-to instructions yourself. A quick Google search will hopefully help you out.

Without further ado…here’s my four tips for using Gmail for your studio emails!

1. Maintain a Student Email List in Google Contacts

In your Google Contacts, you can maintain a email list for your current students, which makes it easy to quickly send out announcements or reminders.

How to set this up? Visit contacts.google.com and click on “Create label.” Call it “Piano Students – Active” and then, if you like, make another for “Piano Students – Inactive.” Then, start adding your students’ email addresses to the list.

When students begin or stop lessons, be sure to return to contacts.google.com to update your lists to keep things current.

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improving as a teacher

6 Ways to Stay Connected with Parents

Joy Morin

Sometimes it’s difficult to stay in contact with the parents and keep them informed about the students’ progress.  Here are some ways to improve the lines of communication:

  1. Newsletters.  Create a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter, and send it out via email or snail mail.  In it, congratulate student accomplishments (participation in competitions or other music events) and make announcements regarding future events.
  2. Studio website.  Start a studio website, which you can regularly update with news and announcements.  If you choose to have a blog on your website, parents can subscribe to email updates and receive an email version of each post you create.  
  3. Hold a Parent-Teacher Meeting.  Once or twice a year, you way wish to hold an informal meeting where all the parents (at least one parent per student) come to discuss anything and everything related to the piano studio.  You can make announcements concerning future events, and discuss past ones.  It’s a great way to get feedback from the parents concerning the way you are running your studio, and to get suggestions concerning how to run things next year.  Serve dessert and coffee to put everyone at ease, and keep it under an hour or so.  
  4. Personal calls or emails.  Once in a while, it may be appropriate to call or email a parent directly concerning a student’s progress.  I think this is especially important for when you are convinced that the student is not progressing as well as s/he could be.  Letting the parent know about your concern opens the door for their cooperation with you in further action.
  5. Progress Reports.  At the end of the school year, it is advisable to create and fill out a progress report for each student.  It not only helps you wrap things up, but helps communicate to the parent concerning what kind of progress the student has made under your instruction over the past year.  
  6. Evaluations.  At the end of each school year, it is also a good idea to create a Studio Evaluation form for the parents to fill out, concerning what they liked/disliked about lessons and studio events over the past year.  Getting feedback from the parents is extremely helpful for planning the following year’s events.  

How do you maintain the ways of communication with parents?  Let us know by commenting below.