Make-up lessons: how to write a cancellation policy that ends the arguments

Few things cause friction between music teachers and families as reliably as a missed lesson. The child is ill, a school trip clashes with the guitar slot, the family leaves for the holidays a week early. Does the lesson get made up? Does it just vanish? Does anyone still pay for it?

The good news: a clear policy plus tidy record-keeping makes about 95% of these arguments disappear. Not because you become strict, but because there's nothing left to interpret. This guide walks through how to design a make-up policy that's fair to both sides, easy to explain, and — crucially — simple to actually run week after week.

Start from a principle, not a list of exceptions

Most messy policies grow one exception at a time. A parent asks for a favour, you say yes, and now that's the precedent. Six months later you can't remember what you promised whom, and you feel like the bad guy whenever you say no.

Flip it around. Decide the principle first: you are selling a reserved slot of your time, not a lesson delivered on demand. When a student books a weekly slot, you turn away other students to hold it. That framing is the honest basis for everything that follows, and most parents accept it instantly once you say it out loud — it's exactly how they'd expect a personal trainer or a tutor to work.

From that principle, three fair questions fall out: how much notice do you need, what happens when notice is given, and what happens when it isn't.

The three questions your policy must answer

1. What counts as enough notice? Pick a cutoff and name it in hours, not vague words like "in good time". Twenty-four hours is the common choice; forty-eight gives you a realistic chance of filling the slot from a waiting list. The number matters less than the fact that it's written down and identical for everyone.

2. What happens with proper notice? This is where you offer a make-up. The cleanest model is a credit: a cancelled-on-time lesson becomes a credit the student can redeem later, rather than you scrambling to find a specific replacement date on the spot. Credits are easier to track than promises of "we'll fit it in somewhere".

3. What happens with late notice or a no-show? Be honest and firm: the slot was reserved, so it's chargeable, and no make-up is owed. You can still add a goodwill exception (see below), but the default has to protect your time or the whole policy is decorative.

Three make-up models that actually work

The notice model (the classic). Cancel with enough notice, get a credit; cancel late, lose the slot. Simple to explain, predictable, fair both ways. Best if you keep a waiting list you can pull from at short notice.

The allowance model. Each student gets a fixed number of make-ups per term — say two — no questions asked, regardless of reason. Anything beyond that is forfeited. This caps your exposure, rewards nobody for chronic last-minute cancelling, and is the easiest of all to administer because you're just counting to two.

The credit account with an expiry. Eligible cancellations become credits that must be redeemed within a window — three months, say — in holiday weeks or open slots. This is the most flexible and the most transparent for families, but by far the hardest to run by hand: who has how many credits, when do they expire, which make-up cancelled out which absence? More on that below.

Build in goodwill on purpose

The point of a policy isn't to squeeze every last no-show. Most teachers offer a make-up when a child is genuinely ill, even when they'd be within their rights to charge — it's good for the relationship and good for word-of-mouth referrals. That's fine. The trick is to make goodwill a deliberate exception you grant, not a loophole you forgot to close. Your policy can say, in plain language: "Late cancellations are normally chargeable; I may offer a make-up at my discretion for illness or emergencies." That keeps the default protective and the kindness genuinely yours to give.

What to put in the written policy

Whichever model you choose, get these in writing before the first lesson — ideally in your terms, or at least in a short welcome email the family confirms:

1. The notice cutoff and exactly how to cancel (one channel — see the next point).
2. What happens with proper notice (credit, make-up, replacement).
3. What happens with late notice or a no-show (chargeable, no make-up owed by default).
4. Expiry — how long a credit stays valid.
5. Your own cancellations — if you cancel, the student always gets a make-up or credit, no exceptions. This is what makes the whole thing feel fair rather than one-sided.
6. Holidays and term breaks — which weeks are off and whether they're already priced in, so nobody counts them as "missed" lessons.

Cancellations need one channel

A policy dies the moment cancellations arrive by five different routes — a text here, a voice note there, a comment after last week's lesson. You end up arbitrating what was said and when, which is exactly the argument you were trying to avoid. Pick one channel for cancellations and put it in the policy. Doing this inside a proper student system, rather than in a personal chat thread, also keeps that record out of your private messages — which matters for handling student data properly.

Without a system, every model turns to chaos

Here's the thing almost nobody admits: make-up policies rarely fail because of the model. They fail because of the bookkeeping. On paper, in a spreadsheet, or in your head, it falls apart after three months — nobody can remember whether Anna's March cancellation was inside the notice window, or whether that extra lesson in April was the make-up or just a normal lesson she paid for.

This is exactly what a make-up account is built to fix. In taktjam you set your policy once, and every cancellation is logged against it automatically — credit, expiry or make-up date included, with a complete per-student history. Families can see where they stand in their own practice space, so the "but I'm sure there was a lesson still owing" conversation simply stops happening. You spend your energy teaching, not reconstructing who owes whom what.

Common questions

Do I have to make up a lesson when a child was ill? That's your call, not an obligation. Most teachers offer goodwill make-ups for illness because the relationship is worth more than one slot — just make sure your policy names it as a discretionary exception, not a rule.

Can I charge for a forfeited lesson? Yes, if your policy set that out clearly in advance and the family agreed to it. That's the whole reason to write it down before problems arise, not after.

What about lessons I cancel myself? Always offer a make-up or a credit. A policy that protects only your time and never the student's won't survive contact with a single frustrated parent — and it shouldn't.

A good make-up policy isn't about being tough. It's about removing ambiguity so that both you and the family always know the answer before anyone has to ask.