Teachers and tutors: bookings around school holidays

Treat each school term as a block in your calendar: book regular students' weekly lessons up to the last week before the break, open holiday courses or one-off sessions during the holidays, and rebook the weekly slots for the next term before the break starts. Families then know exactly when lessons stop and restart, your regular students keep their usual time, and the holidays become a chance to offer intensive sessions instead of an empty fortnight.

Weekly lessons work because they repeat. Holidays interrupt that: families travel, students forget, and when term restarts, some regular slots have been taken by others or simply never rebooked. Planning the holidays in your calendar before they arrive keeps the rhythm and saves the first week back from a round of messages asking when lessons start again.

On Book, slots repeat each week on the weekdays you choose until an end date. Set that end date to the last lesson day before the holidays, so no lessons appear during the break by mistake. If you booked regular students yourself into their weekly slots, check your bookings list for the holiday weeks and move or cancel anything that falls inside them.

The last lesson before the break is the best moment to confirm the next term. Ask each regular student whether they keep the same time, then create the slots for the new term and book them in yourself straight away. First and last name are required, email and phone optional; enter the parent's or student's email so they receive a confirmation with a calendar file for each lesson. With one place per slot, a booked weekly lesson is full and no longer shown on your page, so it stays theirs.

Once regular students are rebooked, the slots left over can go on your public page for new students. Opening them a week or two before term restarts gives families time to book, and gives you a clear view of how full the new term will be.

Holidays are a good time for formats that don't fit a school week: revision mornings before exams, an intensive week of music or drawing, a short course for beginners. Create each as its own service with a clear description, and give group sessions a capacity. On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page, and each slot has its own number of places.

Durations, places and prices are examples: set your own. A course over several days is booked day by day, since each slot sits within one day; say in the description whether students should book every day of the course.

Not every family follows the same calendar: some leave early, some return late, some students are at schools with different term dates. Ask at the last lesson which weeks they'll miss, and move those lessons rather than leaving empty slots. A short catch-up lesson after the holidays, booked yourself from your calendar, can replace a missed week.

When exams fall just before a holiday, the last weeks of term fill with extra requests. Keep a few slots free in those weeks for revision sessions, open them in a separate service so they don't eat into regular lessons, and say in the description which exams they're for. After the exams, regular students can pause or switch to a lighter rhythm for the rest of the term, and you rebook them when the new term starts.

If you take time off at a different moment from school holidays, don't open slots for those weeks, and say in your service descriptions when you're away so families aren't surprised. If a student booked a lesson during your time off, move it from your bookings list and tell them yourself, since Book doesn't email clients about changes and they can't reschedule online.

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