If you are thinking "I'm opening my academy, what advice should I follow?", start by defining what you will teach, to whom and in what format, and check that there is demand. Then, before your first student arrives, decide how the academy will run: rules, payments, communication and what each student can manage on their own. Whatever you settle at the start, you will not have to decide on the fly with every student.
Paperwork and licenses depend on your activity and your town, so confirm them with your local council and your advisor. This guide focuses on how to organize the academy so it works from day one.
1. What will you teach, and to whom?
Choose a specific subject, levels and age range before opening: "classes for everyone" is harder to organize and explain than a concrete offer. Start with one specialty, such as tutoring, languages, exam preparation, music or art, and define the levels, ages and schedules you can handle well.
Talk to potential students or families before investing. Ask what they need, which schedule suits them and what other options they are considering. Someone asking does not mean they will enroll: also note who confirms a place and under what conditions.
2. In-person, online or hybrid academy?
Choose the format you can sustain with your resources. An in-person academy needs suitable premises and enough local demand. An online academy needs remote teaching, the right tools and student support. A hybrid format means coordinating both.
If you start with only a few groups, work out how many hours you will spend teaching, preparing materials and answering questions. Your time is part of the budget too.
3. Which rules do I want to follow?
A new academy needs written rules for cancellations, make-up classes, withdrawals, public holidays and payments before the first student. The first students bring the first questions: what happens if I miss a class? Can I make it up? When do I pay? Is there class on the long weekend? If you have not decided, you end up answering each case differently, and that is hard to change later.
Before opening, write down:
- Cancellations: how much notice is needed for an absence.
- Make-up classes: which absences can be made up, in which classes and until when.
- Withdrawals and pauses: how much notice is needed and from when you stop charging.
- Public holidays and vacations: which days there is no class and whether those classes are made up.
- Payments: when and how students pay, and what happens if a payment is late.
For the trickiest part, you can start from this make-up class policy guide for academies.
4. What do I want students to manage themselves?
Students should be able to check their schedule, report an absence and book a make-up class without messaging you. Every schedule question, absence and booking that goes through you is time you do not spend teaching or growing the academy. The more students can handle on their own, the less depends on you.
From the start, make sure every student can check their up-to-date schedule, report an absence within the deadline, book a make-up class in the allowed slots and get a notification when something changes in their classes. With written rules for absences, make-up classes and payments, students know what they can do and you do not have to review every case.
5. Can you run an academy through WhatsApp?
Not as a management tool. WhatsApp is fine for communicating, flagging something important and keeping a personal touch with your students. The problem starts when it is also used to move schedules, report absences, take attendance or chase payments: information ends up scattered across chats and only you know where everything is.
Separate the uses from day one. Changes, attendance and payments go somewhere they are recorded; WhatsApp is for talking to people. If this is already happening, here are some ideas to reduce WhatsApp messages from students.
6. What should a student's first week look like?
In their first week, a student should know where to see their schedule, which rules apply and what they can do on their own. That experience starts before the first class, and in those days students learn whether they can manage alone or have to message you for everything.
Review the full journey:
- how they enroll and what they receive when they do;
- where they see their classes and schedule;
- which rules they know and where they can check them again;
- how they communicate with the academy, and for what;
- what they can manage on their own.
Online enrollment for academies helps that journey start in order: the student enters their details and their record is created without you copying anything by hand.
7. How should you organize payments, discounts and class packs from the start?
Decide your fees, class packs and discounts before charging your first student, and apply them the same way to everyone. It looks simple at first: a sibling discount, half a month for someone who starts mid-month, a class pack for someone who cannot come every week. A few months later, every student has their own special case and you no longer remember why each one pays what they pay.
Set out how monthly fees and enrollment fees work, class packs and their expiry, discounts for siblings or multiple classes, mid-month sign-ups and fee changes. If you decide once, it applies equally to everyone, and the exceptions you make will be few and you will know why you made them.
8. Which data should you record from day one?
Record group occupancy, withdrawals, attendance, expected income and students per teacher from day one. To decide whether to open a new group, change a schedule or hire another teacher, you need data. If you do not collect it from the start, you will have to rebuild it later from messages and loose spreadsheets.
| Data | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Group occupancy | Knowing which time slots fill up and which have room |
| Withdrawals | Seeing in which groups or at what time of year you lose students |
| Attendance | Spotting who stops coming before they withdraw |
| Expected income | Knowing what you will collect and what is pending |
| Students per teacher | Balancing the workload and planning hires |
9. Which management program should you choose?
Choose a program that works just as well with 10 students as with 150, so you do not have to switch systems once the academy is running. When you start, it is tempting to piece things together with Excel, WhatsApp and Google Calendar. It holds up with ten students, but with fifty the numbers stop adding up, and within a year you will have to rebuild everything mid-course. If you are weighing it up, compare these alternatives to Excel for academies first.
Clasbi is management software for academies and sports centers that brings schedules, attendance, make-up classes, communications and payments together in one place. Your rules are always applied the same way, and each student checks their classes, reports absences and books make-up classes from their portal. Before choosing any tool, test a real case: an enrollment, an absence with a make-up class, a schedule change and a payment.
If you are preparing your opening, try Clasbi for free and start with organized management from day one. For the rest of your preparations, see the guide on what to prepare before opening an academy.
