Short version: no. A family that paid for ten lessons should get ten lessons. A closed day should push the missed lesson to the next week the class runs, not quietly use it up. For term billing, the price should be worked out from the lessons that will actually happen once holidays are taken out.
The situation
A studio sells private lessons in blocks of ten, paid up front. A student’s block started in late May and runs on Mondays. In most states the King’s Birthday public holiday falls on the second Monday of June, and the studio is closed.
Handled by hand, this goes one of two ways. Either someone remembers to add a lesson at the end of the block, or nobody does, and the family gets nine lessons for the price of ten and eventually notices. Multiply by every Monday student, every holiday and every one-off closure, and it becomes a steady source of awkward conversations.
The principle
The block is a promise of a number of lessons, not a promise of particular dates. When a date can’t happen because the studio is closed, the lesson moves to the next date the class would normally run. The block ends a week later than it would have, and the count is unchanged.
The same principle protects the teacher’s schedule. The lesson doesn’t turn into a make-up that has to be squeezed in somewhere. It simply continues on the regular weekly slot.
How Encore does it
Set your region in Settings → Holidays & terms and public holidays load automatically each year. You can add school-holiday ranges, and close one-off days, such as a concert day or a teacher being away, for the whole studio. The quickest way to close a day is to tap its header on the calendar.
When Encore works out a student’s lesson dates, closed days are skipped. A lesson that would have fallen on the holiday is placed on the next date the class runs instead, so a paid block always delivers the number of lessons that were paid for. On the calendar a closed day shows as a hatched column, so nobody books into it by mistake.
Not every class should stop for every holiday. Each class has two switches:
| Setting | Default | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on public holidays | Off | Turn on for a class that deliberately runs on holidays, such as an intensive. |
| Runs through school holidays | On | Turn off for classes that follow the school calendar. |
A studio-wide closed day applies to every class, whatever those switches say.
Term billing
Some studios bill by term instead of by block. The fair price for a term is the lessons that will actually run in it, and that depends on the holidays. Encore prices a term invoice as the per-lesson rate × the number of lessons in that term, counting the class’s weekday across the term’s dates and leaving out the closed ones. A term with a public holiday on a Monday has one fewer Monday lesson, and Monday students are charged for one fewer lesson.
If you would rather charge the same amount every term, set a flat term fee on the program and Encore uses that instead.
What to tell families
“Holidays don’t cost you a lesson.” It is a simple promise, and easy to keep when your scheduling tool keeps it for you.