A term at a tutoring school feels like a continuous blur from the inside. From the outside it is remarkably predictable. The same problems appear in the same weeks every term: rosters that are wrong on day one, the student who stops coming in week three, the renewal conversation that happens far too late.
Because the problems are predictable, so are the fixes. What most schools lack is not knowledge of what to do but a calendar that says when. This guide is that calendar, built for a 16-week term with classes once or twice a week. Shorter or longer terms can be stretched or compressed; the order matters more than the exact week numbers.
The whole term on one page
| Week | Focus | The one thing that must happen |
|---|---|---|
| -2 | Readiness | Timetable, rooms and teachers locked |
| -1 | Readiness | Every family knows day, time, room and what they owe |
| 1 | Arrival | Every absence followed up the same day |
| 2 | Placement | Level changes made now, not in week 6 |
| 3 | Early warning | First attendance review: who has missed two? |
| 4 | First month | 30-day check-in with every new family |
| 5 | Payments | Overdue invoices from week 1 resolved |
| 6 | Teaching | Lesson observations start |
| 7 | Parents | Mid-term update sent to every family |
| 8 | Next term | Marketing for next term starts |
| 9 | Class health | Review every group against break-even size |
| 10 | Renewals | Ask families about next term, record the answer |
| 11 | Teachers | Next-term availability confirmed |
| 12 | Next term | Draft timetable built from real intentions |
| 13 | Reports | End-of-term reports written |
| 14 | Renewals | Personal conversations with undecided families |
| 15 | Close | Re-enrollment deadline, invoices for next term |
| 16 | Review | Numbers for the term, one change for next term |
The rest of this guide explains each phase and what to check.
Weeks -2 and -1: readiness
The first class is not where a term starts. It starts two weeks earlier, when the timetable becomes real.
Week -2: lock the timetable. Every group has a day, time, room and teacher. Every teacher has confirmed their hours in writing. Rooms are checked for clashes, including the one-to-one lessons that tend to be squeezed in late. If a group is below the size where it covers its costs, decide now whether it runs, merges or waits. Deciding in week three means disappointing a family that has already arranged its week around you.
Week -1: tell every family everything. Day, time, room, teacher, start date, what they owe and how to pay. One message, not five. The families who are confused on day one are almost always the ones who received information in pieces.
Two weeks before term has a fuller checklist for this stretch.
Weeks 1 and 2: arrival and placement
Every absence gets a same-day message. In the first two weeks an absence is information, not just a missed lesson. The family may have the wrong day, the child may be ill, or they may have quietly decided this is not for them. Only one of those can be fixed after a week of silence.
Placement changes happen in week 2. If a student is clearly in the wrong level, move them now. Every week you wait makes the move feel more like a judgment and less like an adjustment. What placement tests are for explains why the test is only the beginning of placement.
What to check at the end of week 2: rosters match who actually attends, every student has an invoice, and no group is running with a single student by accident.
Weeks 3 to 5: the first month
This is where terms are quietly won or lost. Students rarely announce that they are leaving. They miss one lesson, then another, and by week six they are gone.
Week 3: the first attendance review. Pull the list of students who have missed two or more lessons. For each one, someone should know why. Reading an attendance report covers which numbers to look at and which to ignore.
Week 4: the 30-day check-in. A short, personal message or call to every new family: how is it going, is the level right, is there anything we should know. Not a survey. Families answer people, not forms.
Week 5: payments. Any invoice from week 1 that is still unpaid should be resolved now. The longer an invoice sits, the more awkward the conversation becomes, and the more likely it is that the family has decided not to continue and has not said so. Collecting tuition without nagging has a reminder schedule that keeps this from turning into a confrontation.
Weeks 6 to 9: the middle of term
The middle of term is when the building runs itself and the owner is tempted to look elsewhere. It is also when next term starts being decided.
Week 6: observations. Sit in on lessons, starting with new teachers and groups where attendance has dipped. The aim is one useful piece of feedback per teacher, not an inspection. A lesson observation that actually helps describes a format teachers do not dread.
Week 7: the mid-term update. Every family gets a short, specific note about their child: one thing going well, one thing being worked on. A family that has heard something concrete in the middle of term is far easier to talk to about renewal at the end of it. How often to talk to parents covers the wider rhythm.
Week 8: start marketing for next term. Enquiries take weeks to become students. If next term's marketing starts when this term ends, the first enquiries arrive after the timetable is already set, and they either get squeezed in or turned away.
Week 9: class health. Look at every group against its break-even size. Groups that are too small need a decision before families are asked about next term: merge, reprice, or accept that this group is carried by others. What one class hour really costs explains how to find that break-even number.
Weeks 10 to 12: next term takes shape
Week 10: ask about next term. A simple question to every family: are you planning to continue? Record the answer: yes, no, or not sure. This is not the renewal conversation itself. It is the information you need to plan the next timetable and to know who needs a real conversation.
It feels early. It is not. Families who are going to leave have often decided by now; asking gives you a few weeks to understand why, and sometimes to change their mind.
Week 11: teacher availability. Confirm which teachers are continuing and what hours they can offer. Teachers leaving is much easier to handle in week 11 than in week 17.
Week 12: draft the next timetable from the real intentions collected in week 10, not from this term's timetable copied forward. If eight of a group's ten families are continuing, the group runs. If three are, it probably merges, and those families should hear that from you before they hear it from the new timetable.
Weeks 13 to 16: closing the term
Week 13: end-of-term reports. Write them now, not in the last week, so there is time to send them before the renewal conversations rather than after. A report that arrives after the family has already decided to leave is a document, not a conversation.
Week 14: talk to the undecided. Every family that answered "not sure" in week 10 gets a personal conversation. A "not sure" answer often has a specific reason behind it: schedule, price, a sibling starting elsewhere, a child who is bored. The reason is usually fixable if you hear it now and rarely fixable if you hear it in the first week of the next term.
Week 15: deadline and invoices. Re-enrollment closes, and next term's invoices go out. A clear deadline is kinder than an open-ended one: families appreciate knowing when a decision is needed.
Week 16: review. Four numbers, compared with last term: students at the start and end of term, attendance rate, renewals as a share of students, and money collected against money invoiced. Then pick one thing to change next term. Not five. One change that actually happens beats five that are written down.
The weekly half hour that holds it together
The calendar above is the term's skeleton. What keeps it working is a short weekly routine, ideally at the same time every week:
- Who was absent twice or more this week, and does someone know why?
- Which invoices are more than a week overdue?
- Which enquiries from last week have not been called back?
- Which groups are below break-even size?
- What is this week's calendar item, and who owns it?
Thirty minutes, five questions. Five numbers to look at every Monday morning covers a version of this built around a dashboard.
Adapting the calendar
Rolling enrollment instead of terms. If students join any week, the term calendar still applies per student: the week-1 absence follow-up, the week-4 check-in and the week-10 "are you continuing?" question simply run on each student's own start date.
Shorter terms. For an 8-week course, compress but keep the order: readiness, arrival, first check-in, mid-point update, next-term question, reports, close.
Several branches. Keep one calendar for the whole school and have each branch report against the same weeks. Branches that drift onto their own rhythm are the hardest to compare, and the easiest to miss problems in.
Most of this calendar depends on knowing, at a glance, who is absent, who has not paid and who has not been called back. When attendance, invoices and enquiries live in one system, the weekly half hour is spent deciding what to do rather than assembling the lists. That is the part Schoolory is built for.