Although I have most things sorted in regards to private teaching, one thing I am considering just now is how I would charge for travelling to a student's own home to teach instead of having them come to me. I think it's appropriate to charge extra, for effort, time taken etc. How do others work this out? Do you simply charge the time travelling to and from at your usual teaching rate, a percentage of that (half, two thirds etc.). I prefer people to come to me, but can understand some appreciate home visits.

I'm not a music teacher but a self-employed person and my time is worth the same whether I'm at home or travelling - I would work it out on a time for the round trip plus petrol basis. So that on a day where you're fully occupied teaching from home you should earn the same as a day you're fully occupied teaching in other people's houses.

If you were mending kettles for a living you'd expect to charge a lot more to go out to someone's home to mend one than if they were to just drop it off to you.

Absolutely! Moreover, the kettle-fixer would probably charge about £30 for the privilege of crossing your threshold, so don't be a bit embarrassed about charging for all obvious and hidden costs. Obviously if someone is disabled or has genuine difficulties about lack of transport in getting to you, you may wish to take this into consideration and be as easy as possible on them. However, as a general principle, we need to be prepared to charge a proper professional fee; otherwise, we won't be taken very seriously and we'll be taken advantage of! My twopennyworth for what it's worth.

LR

Initially I built up my practice pretty quickly by offering to travel to most pupes. I have never charged for this although now I work to a snug radius and keep my mileage down. Obviously most of my car expenses I can claim.

It's a matter of getting the balance right - yes, we should not sell ourselves short (my hourly rate is slightly above average for my area) but at the same time it would be poor business sense to price ourselves out of the market.

Good luck Neil.

Bag xx

For what it's worth, I have one pupil whom I travel to, and charge him £11 for half-an-hour (it's about a ten-minute drive). The ones I teach at home pay £9. But it sort of arose by accident - I didn't plan it very carefully!

I have just built up some teaching work and have half a dozen pupils that I teach at their homes. I charge £12 for hour an hour. If I taught at home I'd have to spend money decorating a room to a suitable standard and you're also supposed to have special insurance and things like that too, so I think the actual cost of teaching from home and visiting is probably the same. I supposed the major consideration is time.

It'd be good to hear what other people are doing. As I get more pupils and hopefully establish somewhere to teach from I might review my fees for new pupils.

For various personal reasons I've never been able to teach from home. There are a few private students to whom I travel to, while the remaining come to me at a teaching base I hire on an hourly basis.

My membership of the MU covers me for insurance - wherever I am - and it just makes things a whole lot easier than having people turning up at home. While I don't wish to brand any potential student as a mugger, rapist or burgler, inviting perfect strangers into your home (turning up for their first lesson) is something one doesn't take on lightly - particularly if you're a lone petite female. Call me a cynic if you like, but there are a lot of con-artists out there.

[quote name='AmandaL' post='406624' date='Oct 12 2006, 07:12 PM']
For various personal reasons I've never been able to teach from home. There are a few private students to whom I travel to, while the remaining come to me at a teaching base I hire on an hourly basis.

Thanks for that. Who you are inviting into your own house is indeed a consideration but I'm not so concerned on that count. I would try and have other family members in the house at someone's first lesson who wasn't really known to us though. Also I thought if we are teaching children we have to make sure someone else is in - child protection again. I would teach from home as much as possible, and realistically there is a limit to how far I would travel to someone. Not sure how far yet.

Thanks for the advice.

xx

As a parent of children having music lessons and a self employed person myself I am really surprised that a private music teacher would consider traveling to a pupils house "because the pupil finds it more convenient" without charging travelling time in full. I may be cynical but - of course it's more convenient for them. See how inconvenient it is for them to travel if the alternative is paying by the hour for you to sit in a traffic jam. You should definitely have a different rate for "at home" lessons, its an additional service.

If it is the teacher's preference or due to their circumstances then it's a different matter. I know of one very good pianist near me who gives lessons at pupils houses as she is a mature student in college accomodation without a piano(charges a pretty high rate though as it happens).

Have you considered what could happen if a child accused you of something (falsely) and you had to say there were no witnesses or anything like that. Some teachers even insist on parents sitting in with children up to 18 in some cases, for all these issues. Not saying any of yours would, but in general. Many organisations keep telling staff they must never be one to one with a child out of sight or earshot of anyone else.

Sorry if that worries you, just worth checking. Hopefully others have advice on this.

My teacher teaches people in their own homes and at a music centre - she works full time and on a self-employed basis - she's 17. Perhaps I need someone to sit in with me while she teaches...

I get most of my pupils from internet enquires so I'm always concerned about first lessons. I tend to get my husband to come with me for the first lesson and sit in the car just to be on the safe side. However I suppose if something terrible did happen to me he might not know until I didn't reappear after 45 minutes or so that there was something wrong. Having said that I do always speak to the parents/student on the phone first and have a chat about what the have learned so far and what books they use and so on and think I'd probably go with my gut instincts and not show up if something didn't feel right. I used to telephone assess medical insurance claims so you pick up signals when people are lying.