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Welcome,

Thank you for your interest in teaching positions with our school. This page will give you an idea of our philosophy of teaching and our ideas on how our school can best meet the needs of our students and teachers.

If you are interested in applying for a teaching position after reading this sheet or viewing our website please fax, email or mail your resume to:

Fax: (604) 574-0456 Attention: Teaching positions

Email: jobs@musicanddance.org

Academy of Music and Dance
#353 – 19567 Fraser Hwy
Surrey, BC V3S 9A4

No Phone Calls Please. Only suitable applicants will be contacted for an interview.

School Background

The Academy of Music and Dance is a privately owned school that was founded in 1995. We have 3 locations one in Surrey, one in Langley and one in White Rock.

To see maps of our locations and directions from Vancouver click here.

We are BC’s largest music and dance teaching school with approximately 2400 students attending weekly classes between our 3 locations. We cater mainly to children. About 90% of our students are between 3 and 16 years old. We welcome adult students but our suburban market area has resulted in a student base of mainly children.

We realize that most of our students will not become professional musicians or dancers. We strive to provide a fun but educational environment with well organized administration and first rate equipment and facilities.

Why teach with us?

There are several places you can teach music or dance around the Vancouver area. Why should you consider teaching with us? Click on the position you would like further information on.

| Music Teaching Positions | Dance Teaching Positions |

Music Teaching Positions

As music teacher you can either teach privately in your house or in students homes, or you can teach in a music store or school - both have upsides and downsides. If you teach in your home or students homes, the upside is you can keep all of the money you charge to the student. Since you have no expenses like rent, a receptionist or yellow pages advertising you do not have to pay out a percentage to overhead costs. There are also downsides of teaching in your home or your student’s homes. It can be hard to keep your schedule constantly full with new students. Getting a full schedule can be difficult and expensive if you have to run classified ads or small newspaper ads. Even if you are a good, well-liked teacher, it can take a long time for referrals and word of mouth to fill your schedule. If you are driving to student’s houses you also have to factor in the driving time between students which limits the amount of teaching you can actually do.

The other downside of teaching on your own can be the difficulty in enforcing your attendance and payment policies. No one likes being a collection agent. It can be difficult to concentrate on your teaching while trying to keep track of who owes money and to make sure you are paid.

If you are teaching on your own, it can also be difficult to enforce your teaching policies and have your time respected. For example, if a student tells you they are going to Disney World for the next two weeks, it can be difficult to still make them pay for their lesson time. Many students will refuse to pay for those missed lessons because they will think: “I’m not getting my lesson so why should pay?”

Chances are you can’t book another student in that lesson time for just 2 weeks, so if you don’t charge the student in Disney World, you have just lost 2 weeks of pay. If that scenario happens a couple of times per month it can greatly reduce your earnings.

Now let’s look at teaching at a music school. The downside is you don’t get paid as much per student. Teaching rates that in-home teachers and music schools charge are usually pretty similar. So the pay per student to the teacher is lower because of rent, yellow pages, receptionists and other expenses. The upside can be having a consistently full schedule of students each day. Being paid a little less per student but having 10 or 11 students in a day will mean you earn more overall.

Another upside to teaching at our music school is that you do not have any collections hassles. You only have to focus on the teaching. Also our music school provides a professional educational environment that is stimulating to the students. It is also free from distractions found in a home such as ringing phones or doorbells, tvs and noisy family members.

Those are the general differences between teaching on your own and teaching in a music school or store.

Here are reasons why music teachers choose to teach at our school over all other choices:

1. A constant flow of new students to keep schedules as full as possible

Over the course of the year, students can move or quit. This can leave a teacher with gaps or holes in their schedule. Most student register and start lessons in September. Most music schools only advertise in late August and September for new students.

At our school we spend a lot of money on advertising and marketing year round to keep our teacher’s schedules as full as possible. Each year we spend over $60,000 on advertising in newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail, community publications and other media to constantly attract new students. We are continually registering new students for our private music lessons even during typically slower registration months like May o June.

2. Extras are taken care of – your only responsibility is to teach

At all of our locations we have full time front desk administrators to handle all of the “details” of teaching. From scheduling to collecting fees or arranging an accompanist for recitals, these details are handled by our administrators not the teacher. This means the teacher is free to focus on teaching and not get bogged down by administration.

3. Your time is respected and you are paid whether or not students show up

Teachers are paid for lessons whether students attend or not. If a student misses classes for school trips or holidays, the teacher is still paid. The only time a student is given an extra make up lesson is if the student is sick and they can only have 2 make-up lessons per year for sickness. If a student does not pay for their lessons or has an uncollectible debt, the teacher is still paid. Our priority for our teachers is to make sure that your time is not abused and your teaching day can be as productive as possible.

Dance Teaching Positions

As a dance teacher you have several different studios you can choose to teach in. If you have freedom to express your artistic style through your teaching, the main difference will be how the organization of the studio affects your satisfaction and ability to focus on your teaching.

Here are reasons why dance teachers choose to teach at our schools:

1. Small class sizes

We limit class sizes to make classes easier to control and monitor for teachers and to give more personalized attention to students. Our classes for ages 3-5 are limited to a maximum of 6 students per class. Our classes for ages 6 and up are limited to a maximum of 12 students per class.

2. Full time administrative support

In many studios there is no receptionist on duty. This means that the teachers are faced with administration details when they should be concentrating on teaching. We have full time front desk administrative staff during class times to handle routine questions and details that arise.

3. Floating Marley dance floors in all studios

We use professional floating Marley dance floors in all of our studios. Our dance floors rest on a system of 700 high density foam blocks. This dance floor helps prevent injuries and fatigue. A good quality floor is a consideration if you are going to be teaching for a few hours each day. A supportive quality floor allows you to protect your most important assets – your body and your ability to teach.

4. Extras are taken care of

We try to take care of all of the extra details throughout the year. Teachers are not required to collect any fees or do any costume measuring. We have a full time costume seamstress that measures and sews recital costumes to teachers’ specifications. We also take care of all the organization of yearly recitals. We try to have everything well organized so the teachers are free to concentrate on teaching and nothing else.

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