Starting out teaching singing

It took me 15 years to get to where I am now: having three teachers work for me, owning a property which has a separate studio at it to teach from, a lovely, loyal community of students and audience members and a steady income from my work. You might be wondering about starting out teaching singing. Let me tell you my story.

Working backwards, having anybody working for me wasn't the long term plan ever. I wasn't ever sure how I could scale my business, as it were, but I'd equally not thought about it properly either. It came out of necessity. And I'm really pleased about that actually, because nothing was forced or rushed.

The necessity was that my two children were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes just over 2 years ago. I had just come off maternity leave from having my second child and everything had to stop again whilst we got our heads around having two children with this sometimes complicated disease - which I also happen to have.

Once we got into the swing of things a little bit, I managed to get back to some form of work. We'd just built the studio (with money left over from the move into this property in the first place), and I was set to get cracking on a more professional looking and feeling business - not just teaching out of my parent's front room. But soon, the heaviness of dealing with two diabetic children's dinner times and bedtimes - the key time I was in the studio working - was taking it's toll on my husband and I needed to be more present. So I asked a trusted colleague at the dance school I work for if she'd be up for taking on some hours for me.

Enter Alice. And I presumed we'd stop there. Just us two sharing the space during the week and the school still having a waiting list.

But then Alice mentioned that another of her friends had wondered if I'd got any hours for her as well... Why hadn't I thought of that?! Why wouldn't I want to get rid of my waiting list and start bringing more students through the door?!

So I employed Elodie and in the same process asked Jack to come aboard as well, and now there are three!

But I've jumped ahead.

I started out going to other people's houses to teach them. One or two private students amongst my dance teaching, which was the main focus of my income for quite a few years.

I then got into drama school at Guildford School of Acting and would teach my new found skills and understanding in the holidays back home.

Once I'd finished at GSA, I retained a few students and worked in dance schools across Kent, teaching mainly group singing. This evolved into private lessons at Phoenix Performing Arts in Canterbury, as well as some more private students who I'd teach in my parent's front room - not massively professional, but a big time saver in terms of not travelling between houses any more!

Then enter Covid. And I all of a sudden was able to have a 9-5 job. With children not in school and able to choose their timetables, I was able to be online on Zoom at more sociable times than before and I suddenly had my evenings free!

Then I went on maternity leave with baby number 2 and you know the rest.

So building a school takes a minute. I don't think it has to take 15 years, but I do really like that I've grown my school organically and slowly. It's meant I've got a loyal group of people around me and it also means it feels like a real community. And I really like that.