February Focus
Monday, February 1, 2021 by Joanne Trewick | Uncategorized
FEBRUARY PRACTICE INCENTIVE
Runs Feb 1st to Feb 28th
Who?
All students but two categories: primary school and high school. This is a completely optional incentive program.
Why?
Our studio focus for February is “Effective Practice” we will be building strategies in lessons to get the most out of practice time. This incentive is a fun way to get everybody in our studio into good habits from the start of the year - playing their instruments at home regularly so we can make exciting progress.
Moving into March our studio focus will be “Creativity.”
How?
Send me a short video of your student playing their instrument at home each day.
(I realise that long videos are hard to send and I’m going to be getting soooo many so I will be deleting as soon as the video has been recorded on my chart. So lighting/angle/backdrop/mistakes etc etc are all of no consequence. A short snippet video is sufficient, the whole practice session does not need to be recorded. And there is no need for the video to be kept on your device once sent, just delete to free up storage space.
***UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL ANY OF THESE PRACTICE VIDEOS SENT TO ME, BE SHARED ANYWHERE, THEY WILL BE DELETED***
What?
Every practice video received equals one ticket in the prize draw.
Practice diary record brought to lesson correctly filled out is two tickets in the prize draw.
A perfect week (minimum of five practice sessions in a Monday to Sunday week, notified by texted video) is an extra 5 tickets in the draw.
Any student who records four “perfect weeks” (see above) for the whole month of February will receive recognition at our Term 1 Student Showcase as a February Focus Champion.
Prizes?
Two prize draws. Both drawn Feb 28
Primary School students draw for $50 cash.
High school students draw for $100 cash.
A credit of the same amount to your family account can be requested instead of cash if you prefer that.
When?
Any videos sent to me between Feb 1 and 3pm on Feb 28 will count. The draw will be done and videoed live sometime in the evening after 3pm on Feb 28.
Details:
Since I only require a short snippet video, I am relying on the honesty of students and their families that a full run through of the tasks in the practice diary has been attempted, to count as a practice, not just the 5 seconds that the student was on camera. I do realise that some days no matter how good the intention, not all tasks get completed. That is OK. The intent of this incentive is that students form a habit of being at their instrument daily and having their practice diary open and interacting with instructions in there daily. That will look different for different students on different days.
What does count as a practice session: An honest attempt to work through the pieces or tasks written in the diary, for beginner students this might only be to play each of their pieces a couple of times each. Older students will have more specific tasks and goals.
What doesn’t count as a practice session: Noodling around with no intent other than to make sound so that mum thinks you have practiced ;) or playing a piece over and over with the same errors and no attempt at improvement. Also, playing a piece three times does not mean three practices, if your child worked on one piece five times over in the morning before going to school and then sat down in the evening and worked on that piece again for another 10 minutes - that is two practice sessions.
If you don’t have an instrument at home then videos of the student working on their pieces, using fingers on a table etc. are acceptable.
Multi instrumentalists can send videos of practice on any of their instruments to count for the challenge.
I hope that you enjoy participating in this practice incentive. Have fun. Any questions need to be directed to me by replying to this email. My phone number for texting videos (but not questions) is 0417913296, please put the students name at the top of the text for easy reference. Thanks
