Make-up lessons are where a generous teacher quietly gives away a day a term. Not through any single decision — each one is reasonable on its own — but because there is no rule, so every cancellation becomes a small negotiation, and the answer is nearly always yes.
The fix is not to become strict. It is to decide once, in advance, so that you are applying a policy rather than making a judgement while someone is apologising to you.
What a make-up actually costs you
A make-up is not a free favour, and it helps to see why before you decide how generous to be.
- It uses a slot you could have sold. If your diary is full, the make-up displaces a paying lesson or an evening off. If it is not full, it costs you less — which is exactly why teachers with gaps can afford to be generous and teachers with waiting lists cannot.
- It is almost always outside your normal hours. Your regular slots are taken by regular students, so make-ups land on a Sunday, or at 8pm, or in a half-term week.
- It carries admin. Offering three times, being turned down twice, rescheduling once: that is four messages for one lesson you have already been paid for.
- It compounds. Twenty students missing two lessons a year each, all owed a make-up, is forty extra lessons to find slots for. That is more than a fortnight of teaching.
None of this means you should refuse. It means an unlimited make-up policy is a real cost, and it should be a choice rather than a default.
Decide the rule once, in advance
A workable rule has four parts, and it is worth writing all four down even if some feel obvious:
- Who gets one. The usual line: a make-up is owed when the absence was excused, and not when it was a late cancellation. Anything else means the notice period has no teeth.
- How many. A cap matters more than the rate. "Up to two a term" is generous and finite; "whenever you need one" is generous and infinite.
- When they expire. The end of the term they were earned in. Without an expiry the debt rolls forward for ever and you will still be offering one in July for a lesson missed in October.
- Who does the offering. You offer a slot; they take it or they don't. You are not obliged to keep offering until one is convenient.
Put it where it will be read: in your terms, and on the invoice. The Music lesson cancellation policy template (UK) has wording that covers all four in a few lines, and the Music teacher terms and conditions template puts it in a fuller set of terms.
What counts as excused
Most disputes are not about whether a make-up is owed, but about whether the absence was excused, so be specific. A rule most families accept without argument:
- Excused: illness, and school commitments the family could not move — an exam, a trip, a compulsory rehearsal. Notified as soon as they knew, which for illness usually means the morning of the lesson.
- Not excused: holidays booked in term time, birthday parties, clashes with other clubs, and forgetting. These are choices, and the slot was held.
- Always excused, and not their fault: anything you cancel. If you are ill or away, the lesson is not charged and a make-up or a credit is owed, no notice required.
The last one is worth stating out loud in your policy. It costs you nothing to promise, because you were going to do it anyway, and it makes the rest of the rules read as fair rather than one-sided.
Resist inventing new categories in the moment. If something genuinely does not fit, give the make-up as a one-off and say that is what you are doing — an explicit exception protects the rule in a way that a quiet one does not.
Finding the slot without giving up your evening
The scheduling is usually worse than the teaching. Three things make it manageable:
- Keep a deliberate gap. One slot a week, or one longer session near the end of term, set aside for make-ups. Whatever is unused is your evening back, and you are never hunting for space.
- Offer times, do not ask for them. "I have Thursday 5pm or Saturday 10am on the 14th" ends in one message. "When are you free?" begins a conversation.
- Group them. If three students are owed a lesson near the end of term, a shared session can suit everyone, particularly for theory or aural work.
And once a slot has been offered and declined twice, say plainly that you will try again next term if there is room, but the make-up expires with the term. That is not harsh; it is the rule they already agreed to.
Make-ups that never get taken
Unexpired make-ups are the part that turns into a problem, because they are invisible. They do not appear on an invoice and nobody writes them down, so the only record is the parent's memory — and their memory is reliably more generous than yours.
Expire them at the end of the term, say so when the make-up is first owed rather than when it is claimed, and remind people once with a couple of weeks to go: "you have one make-up outstanding and the term ends on the 12th — would either of these work?" Most get taken at that point, which is the entire aim.
If you are moving to termly billing, this is one of the quiet advantages: a term is a natural boundary for the make-ups as well as the money. See Should music teachers charge termly or per lesson? for whether that suits your studio.
Keeping track without a notebook
The reason make-up policies fail is almost never the policy. It is that nobody is keeping the ledger. Six weeks in, you cannot remember whether that Tuesday absence was flu or a family trip, and in the absence of a record you give the benefit of the doubt.
My Studio Tracker keeps it for you. When you record a cancellation it compares the notice against the period you set and shows what follows — forfeit, or excused with a make-up owed — before you confirm, so the decision is made by the rule rather than by how the week has gone. Make-ups owed are listed against the student until a lesson is booked for them, your dashboard shows the ones still outstanding, and the policy wording prints on every term invoice so nobody is surprised by it.
What that changes in practice is the conversation: you are no longer remembering, you are reading.