Beginning Of The Year Tips by Eric Matzat

The Quick Note is BACK for Another Year

Welcome back, everyone! We are excited to partner with you for yet another wonderful school year. The Quick Note newsletter is back as well. For more than a decade, thousands of educators in the Palen Music Center footprint have received a weekly newsletter that we hope you find helpful and encouraging. The goal is to provide you with a short, timely article that will help you impact lives and make a difference.

A recent article called Beginning of the Year Tips was published on a blog called Band Directors Talk Shop. The article featured 60 tips to help you have a great start to your year. Although the article appeared on a band-specific blog, the content is equally helpful to our orchestra colleagues. I hand-selected ten tips that really resonated. You can click here to read the entire article.

BEGINNING OF THE YEAR TIPS

• Have your performance dates set, reserved and locked in place so that you can communicate that to your families in your hand book and not change them after school starts. This is the key to working well with busy families.
  
• Plan EVERYTHING out. Be so organized that you are able to be flexible when, inevitably, things don’t go according to plan.
  
• Don’t stop until what you want is perfect. If you let them get away with mediocrity at the beginning, you’re setting up that expectation for the rest of the year.
  
• Lay the foundation, and take as much time as it takes. The first few weeks of lessons are NOT to be rushed through. The first few weeks will make or break the whole year.
  
• DELEGATE! Do the things only you can do.
  
• Success for the whole year depends upon having everything up front so the students, AND PARENTS, know the expectations. Do not budge on your standards.
  
• Go home! Don’t spend every waking moment at the school.
  
• Don’t allow beginners to take home their instruments until good habits are established.
  
• Have the kids answer a Google survey where they enter their instrument brand, model and serial number. Then, you will have an instant spreadsheet of everyone’s instrument in case something gets lost or stolen, or an unlabeled instrument is found.
  
• Have fun 

Even though the list above is borrowed from the referenced article, I will add one more. Be sure to use your resources! One of those resources is your team here at Palen Music Center. We have walked in your shoes and know the challenges you face. Please let us know how we can best serve you and your families. You can always reach out to your PMC ed rep, your nearest PMC location, to AAron Bryan (abryan@palenmusic.com) or to me (ematzat@palenmusic.com). Together, we can do anything! We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and hope you have an incredible year!

Eric Matzat, President
Palen Music Center