Running Parent-Teacher Conferences as a Private Studio Teacher

This article about holding parent teacher conferences was originally published as an episode of the Time to Practice podcast. It has been edited a bit for ease of reading. You can listen to this episode through the link below.

To listen to the full episode, you can find the Time to Practice Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also listen directly from the link below: 

My goal is to share with you a little bit about why I hold parent-teacher conferences, how I go about them, and also a few things that I’ve learned that help make the most of our time meeting with the families in our program in this format, so that you can get the most out of your time when you hold parent-teacher conferences.
 

Why hold parent-teacher conferences?

Before I ever held these conferences in my own studio I heard about them for a long time and thought I would add them into my program at some point in the future. I think I was a little bit nervous about holding them as a teacher if I’m honest.

Maybe I thought I was going to get complaints from families or criticism, which is not at all what happened when I held them. It’s only been positive. It was Alice Joy Lewis, who was one the pioneering Suzuki Violin Teacher Trainers in the U.S. She was really influential to me in many ways, even though I didn’t do my own violin teacher-training training with her. I attended a workshop with Alice Joy Lewis at the SAWS (Suzuki Association of Washington State) annual weekend workshop a number of years ago. Her talk really convinced me to go home and give this a try and I’m so glad I did.

Time to talk honestly without the student present

I think it’s really helpful to have an outlet for teachers and families of the students we teach and talk candidly about how to support the student effectively. If the student isn’t there then we can talk honestly without feeling like we’re embarrassing the student.

I like to meet with teens separately and have my own conference with them in their lesson, but it’s still valuable to meet with their parents. I like to both share and hear about what is going well and where we might want to offer more support for the student. When students are coming to lessons without the student feeling self-conscious about that or feel that we’re criticizing them, when as a teacher I am looking for ways to support them.

I always come to each session with a list of what I think is going well and where I’ve seen growth, as well as any areas I think could use more attention or support.

Some students, and the families supporting them, can work out how to structure practice and how to practice and others need more specific coaching and time spent helping them with that in their lessons. It’s often in parent-teacher conferences that I can get a sense of exactly how to help and come up with a plan to do that.

Also, it’s much easier to have future conversations with families when any struggles come up because we’ve had these conversations and established trust with the families we work with. I think families don’t always realize how much we care about their students as individuals or how much we think about how to help them outside of their lesson time.

Possible formats for Parent-Teacher Conferences

*Replace a week of lessons with conferences. Parents or caregivers come at the regular lesson time and meet with the teacher instead of the regular lesson. I have many colleagues who love this method of holding these sessions.

*Spread out out a few conferences each week for a six to eight week period. This is how I structure my conferences because I already miss a few weeks of lessons each year due to travel etc. I offer a few lunch-hour, morning, evening, and even weekend times as my schedule allows each week. I always give families the option to come during their lesson time if that works best.

*As needed: I think it helps to let families know that in between our yearly conference, if they ever feel a conference is needed we can turn a regular scheduled lesson into a conference by arrangement and with some advance notice.

There are certainly other options that could work for your program. I’d love to hear what you do in your program!

Some things I’ve learned help make the most of Parent-Teacher Conferences

*Meeting face to face – it helps to see one another when we’re talking and I offer both in-person and online conferences, however, I think it’s important to see one another whenever possible.

*Send questions to be answered in advance: I have some questions I have families answer before we meet. I have based them off the questions I got from Alice Joy Lewis, but change them yearly and often add questions to prompt discussion on certain topics. This gives families a chance to think about what we will talk about and helps us use our time well to discuss how things are going in the areas of practice time, listening, motivation, practice assignments and more.

*Have a system to follow up on any items you need to after you meet. I take notes for myself and if there is anything I need to do afterwards I have an action item list for myself. If there is anything I want to do different in lessons based on our meeting I will create a list for myself that I look at before lessons for a few weeks, so that I can make a new habit for myself.

Every time I hold conferences I’m reminded how important they are and how grateful I am for the insights I gain.

It is so valuable to have an honest conversation and to hear things come up that needed to be said, but hadn’t been shared yet. Families know that I’m really interested in hearing what’s going on.

I can’t encourage you enough to give this a try. This article is coming out in the spring and it could be a great time to think of when and how you will incorporate conferences into your program for the following school year!

Links in this Episode

Sign up to attend Christine’s session for teachers on Friday, April 11th at 9am pacific all about holding parent-teacher conferences in your program HERE

You can read this episode in article format HERE

Find Christine’s Books on Bookshop.org HERE 

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