Digital Planning Tools for Music Teachers
If you’re here, it’s probably because you’re either a new teacher freaking out about the amount of classes on their schedule, or a veteran who is thinking “there has to be another way”.
I’ve been in the “there has to be another way” phase for awhile and, lucky for you, because I most likely have undiagnosed ADHD and hyperfixations based in resource making, your wish is my command.
Here are some of the most useful planning tools I use or have used in my career as a middle and high school choir/general music teacher.
This was a big one. I needed a quick way to come up with an easy long range plan that helped me organize general music plans. When I started to use it for my choir skill work, it was an absolute game changer!
Who doesn’t love free? Here is my trello template for a 3 day rotation schedule. Trello has added a feature called “powerups”, which let’s you LINK GOOGLE DRIVE FILES right into your “cards”! This planner is great for people who don’t mind not planning far head (it’s for one week at a time). Trello also has a free app, which makes on the go planning a piece of cake.
For my Google Spreadsheet nerds, I present to you my pride and joy. A full 52 weeks of plans that are hyperlinked to a master calendar. I’m a BIG proponant of digitizing as much as possible for Google Drive. This template allows me to hyperlink EVERYTHING (agenda slides, sight reading, skillwork) so that I can pull it up easily for class.
Note - This is my honest review. I do not have a partnership with My Music Staff. Although, I would love to!
Before I get to the pros and cons, let me give you the summary of how I got to this point with my scheduling software. I used to use SquareScheduling for my private studio, which I loved. However, they have kept increasing the price and I couldn’t stomach paying $20 a month for limited features. Enter, My Music Staff. Now, this website isn’t much cheaper ($15 a month), HOWEVER for what we do the features it includes are WELL worth it.
Pros
Payment tracker: You have the ability to take online payments AND parents can schedule auto pay. I take payments at lessons and sometimes my parents will give my $40 cash so that I can carry over money for their next lesson. The software will automatically mark the carry over.
Repertoire tracking: I love this feature. You can track where they’re at with repertoire, which means it will automatically save all past rep. In addition to that, you can upload files/pdfs that are viewable only to them.
Lesson notes: My students frequently forget their lesson notebooks. There is a spot on every lesson slot where you can type notes that the students AND the parents can view (you can choose).
Make up slots: Students can sign up for open slots easily through their own portal accounts.
Cons
No mobile app: This is a big one for me, to be honest. I was so used to being able to schedule, re-schedule, and cancel lessons on my Acuity app before. I really hope that they release one down the line.
Can be a little intimidating to set up if you haven’t used scheduling software before: There are a LOT of options and some of them take some work arounds to get to. It took me a bit to figure a few of them out. On the plus side, once your stuff is set up, it gets a lot easier.
Conclusion
So far, I haven’t found any online system that beats this, for this price. I’ll keep my eyes peeled, though. I wish they release a scheduling only tier that was cheaper to be more accesible for more studios, but for the features that are there, $15 a month is reasonable if you have a decent sized studio. I limit mine to 10 a week and I find it useful.