Yearly Review!

Now that the last day of teaching is done for the school year (for me at least - hope yours is coming really soon if it’s not already past!), I’m getting ready to do my annual review!

I choose do my annual review in the summer, to coincide with the regular school year and concert season so I can use what summer down-time I have to rest, reset, and most importantly plan for the next school year and concert season.

Do you do an annual review for yourself? No, I’m not just talking about metrics that your supervisor or principal might want. I’m talking about digging into strengths, weaknesses, strategic things that either worked great or failed miserably. The metrics are important too - financial, attendance, maybe also average grades or number of sign-ups for next year and instrumentation, but I’m going to focus this newsletter on the non-number reflections that have been the most helpful for me every year.

I’ve listed my prompts below as a bulleted list, but it’s by no means exhaustive. You’ll see some repetition - I’m always trying to learn from my experiences of the past year. You’ll also see some places where I’m going to reflect on ongoing work to get my thoughts organized and really clear action items in place. This allows me to make the most of my summer - take plenty of relaxation time and slowly work down the highest priorities on the task list.

After I reflect on the year, I’ll make goals for next school year/season and share them with you!

Here’s a breakdown of what I’m looking at:

• Goals that I set at the beginning of the season - did I reach them? Should I keep working towards them? Have they become irrelevant?

• Private Lesson work

  • Numbers

  • What went really well this year

  • What went poorly this year

  • New ideas I want to try to incorporate into my studio for next year

• Online Course Development

  • Numbers

  • What is going well

  • What are my ongoing action items

  • What have I learned that still needs to be implemented?

  • Fall Launch planning/logistics

  • Winter launch planning/logistics

• Freelance work

  • Numbers

  • What were my strengths

  • What were my weaknesses

  • What do I want to do differently next season?

• Self-produced recitals/performances

  • Numbers

  • Strengths

  • Weaknesses

  • Priorities for next season

  • What did I learn, and what will I do differently next season?

  • Ongoing projects that need immediate action?

So, do you do an annual review at the end of each school year? Does yours look like mine? I’d love to know what questions you consider, so comment below and let me know.

Alli