What to do with students who seem to have no ambition to improve, learn and practice? For many of these students, lessons are always at the same level with little progress. For a teacher, it can get frustrating as we naturally want to see our students improve; otherwise what is the point of teaching lessons?!

What I have learnt over the years is that some students and parents are simply happy with doing a lesson once a week for a weekly musical dose. How I see it is that anything is better than nothing and, with these individuals, I have lowered my expectations and simply let the child enjoy playing music for the half hour with me. I try and fit in something new every time, but most often this is not at a harder level, simply something new for them to learn. For example, memorising a few notes and how they look on the stave lines, or learning a memorable song that they can enjoy playing even if they only do it once a week with me.

The only rule I have with all students is no technology rule! Having phones or tablets in the same room where you are doing the lesson is just too distracting.