The first exception
becomes the rule.
A parent emails on Tuesday evening: their daughter is unwell and will miss Wednesday's class; can she come on Saturday instead? The kind answer is yes. The consequence of the kind answer, given without a policy, is that Saturday's group now has an extra student, the Saturday teacher was not asked, the next parent who asks will be told yes because the first one was, and within a term the school is running an informal make-up system that nobody designed, nobody can explain and everybody expects.
The policy is not there to be unkind. It is there so that the kind answer is the same for everyone, so that teachers know what they are expected to accommodate, and so that the school can say yes to the things it can afford and no to the things it cannot, without the answer depending on who asked and how tired the owner was. Write it before enrolment opens, attach it to the enrolment, and apply it from week one. The exceptions you choose to make afterwards are then gifts, not precedents.
Seven things
every policy has to say.
Notice. How far ahead a student must cancel for the cancellation to count: twenty-four hours is the common line for one-to-one, and for group classes the question is usually moot because the class runs regardless. State it in hours, not in "reasonable notice".
What a make-up is. For a group class, a make-up is joining another group at the same level within a defined period, where a place exists; it is not a private lesson. For one-to-one, it is rescheduling the session. Say which, and say that make-ups depend on availability, because they do.
Whether make-ups expire. They should, and the term end is the natural line. A make-up that can be claimed next year is a liability you are carrying into next year, and a family that has banked six of them will claim them all in the last week of term, into slots that do not exist.
No-shows. A missed session without notice is charged, for one-to-one, and simply missed, for a group. Say so plainly. The word "charged" in the policy prevents most no-shows on its own.
Teacher absence. What the school does when it is the school that cannot deliver: cover by another teacher, or postponement with a make-up session added to the end of term, and how families are told. Families accept either if they are told which it will be before it happens.
Events that are nobody's fault. Weather that closes the building, a transport strike, a power or connection failure in an online class. Define them, and define the remedy — usually a rescheduled session or a move online for the day — so that the decision is not made on the morning in question.
Withdrawal and refunds. What a family gets back if they leave mid-term: typically pro rata to a cut-off date early in the term, and nothing after it. This is the element most constrained by consumer law, which differs by country and treats contracts with consumers, and especially distance sales, with specific rules on cancellation rights. Have the refund clause checked where you operate; the rest of the policy is operational and yours to set.
Two products,
two policies.
The most common mistake is one policy for both formats. In a group class the school's costs are fixed by the slot: the teacher and the room are paid whether one student is absent or not, and a single absence changes nothing for the class. In one-to-one the entire session is the one student, and a cancellation on the day is an hour of a teacher's time that cannot be sold to anyone else. The policies have to be different because the economics are.
Write the two side by side and give families the one that applies to what they bought. A parent with a child in a group class and an adult in one-to-one has two policies, and that is fine; what is not fine is a group family expecting one-to-one flexibility because the policy did not distinguish.
Teacher absence is planned in September,
not on the morning.
Teachers get ill, have interviews, attend funerals and, occasionally, do not turn up. A school with a cover plan handles all of these in a message; a school without one handles them in a panic and usually in a cancelled class. The plan has three parts. A cover list: which teachers can cover which levels, collected with the availability grid at the start of term. A rule: whether a covered class is taught by the cover teacher or postponed and added at the end of term, decided per level in advance, because a covered A1 kids class is fine and a covered C1 exam class two weeks before the exam is not. And a channel: who tells the families, by what means, and how early — the same morning, before the students leave home, through the platform's notifications or a message list that already exists.
Postponed sessions are added to the end of the term, in the same slot, and the term end date moves by a week. Say this in the policy, so that the family who booked a holiday for the week after term knows the risk before they book it. A make-up session for the school's own absence is never charged and never expires within the term; that is the difference between the school's obligation and the student's.
At enrolment, in writing,
and where the timetable lives.
The policy is announced at the moment the money is taken, because that is the moment a family is paying attention and the moment a contract is formed. It is a short page, linked from the enrolment form, referenced in the confirmation, and visible in the same place the family sees the timetable — on SprintUp, the student portal shows a student's classes, and the policy belongs alongside them so that a parent looking for Wednesday's class finds the cancellation rule in the same view. A policy that lives in a PDF sent once in September does not exist by November.
Apply it in week one, politely and every time, because the first exception becomes the rule. When you do choose to make an exception — and a good school makes some, for a bereavement or a hospital stay — say that it is one, in writing, so that it is understood as a kindness rather than a precedent.
A template
to adapt, not adopt.
These are operational templates, not legal advice. The refund and withdrawal wording in particular must be checked against consumer law where you operate, which sets minimum rights for consumers that a policy cannot remove. Everything else — notice, make-ups, expiry, no-shows, cover — is yours to decide, and the only mistake is not deciding it before the first booking.