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- Professional business practice for dance studios
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In This Article
Follow statutory and legal requirements
- Register your business name.
- Get insurances including public liability cover, professional indemnity, personal, property and workers compensation.
- Use staff and business contracts.
- Pay fair wages (and on time), observe Fair Work conditions, manage income and/or business tax, group tax and superannuation. Attach a code of ethics and expected business behaviours to staff contracts, so everyone is clear about how you want the business to work.
- Observe music and choreographic copyright and other intellectual property and licensing fees.
- Ensure your staff have the relevant state or territory Working with Children Check and know the local mandatory reporting requirements. Plan for a child safe environment.
Follow the code of ethics for dance teachers
Talk to staff, parents and participants in a professional and accountable manner
Offer problem-solving strategies for conflict resolution
- Use suggested methods for conflict resolution in the dance teaching environment.
- Recognise a problem, discuss the issues and suggest problem-solving strategies.
- If needed, employ a mediator.
Observe privacy and intellectual property laws
- Follow Australian privacy laws and principles
- Keep parent-teacher interviews private
- Get written permission to release reports, examination results or other information
- Get written permission from students or parents/carers to use photographs or recordings (notice boards, publications, web pages, etc.)
- Have clear contracts when commissioning choreography.
- Be aware of protocols around cultural dance forms.
- Include artistic contributors in programs, documents, promotional digital and printed material
Publicity and advertising
Advertise your services and achievements accurately
- Only use promotional material that contains factual statements which you can verify.
- Don’t mislead with or exaggerate your achievements.
- Avoid misleading terms such as ‘Principal Instructor’ when there is only one instructor.
Business or teaching names
- Don’t choose business or teaching names which are misleading or which may conflict with existing dance studios, organisations, businesses or companies
- Avoid names which may imply representation or accreditation which cannot be supported by funding or status (e.g. by including a city name, ‘Australian….’ or ‘National….)
Show professional integrity
- Don’t criticise or make comparisons with other studios/schools.
- Give a fair and balanced assessment of the benefits of other dance styles based on factual information.
- Be impartial and honest towards examiners and competition judges.
- If you are an examiner or competition judge, give an unbiased and honest assessment.
- Make sure your resume accurately presents experience, training and academic credentials.
- Avoid using ethnicity to suggest you have experience or knowledge.
Use professional standards to attract new students
- Professional also means understanding the pedagogy of teaching. An understanding of dance technique does not guarantee a supportive teacher.
- Don’t ‘poach’ students from other schools or a previous employer.
- Avoid, scheduling events/performances at the same time as other institutions or studios.
- If you are a competition judge or examiner, don’t use your position to entice students to join your school/studio.