Teaching LAMDA in Different Settings
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Our March Meet Up focused on teaching LAMDA in various settings, and we discussed different teaching environments and their challenges. We explored:
* Teaching Online via Zoom/Google Meet: which subjects work best
* The Challenges of Teaching in Students’ Homes: managing behaviour when the parent is in earshot!
* School-based Teaching and the various payment models: Admin vs Profit
* Profit Margins in Different Settings: don’t forget to factor in indirect costs
* A Cost-Profit Breakdown Calculator designed by me, just for Speech and Drama teachers
You can find out all the details by watching the video above OR by listening to the podcast on Spotify (just make sure you link your Substack email address to your Spotify account to get access to the entire episode, and all the previous ones too).
If you don’t have an hour spare to watch/listen… then here’s a summary of what we covered, and of course the very helpful spreadsheet - you fill in your income and costs per class, and the spreadsheet will calculate your profit per class and across the whole year. You can see in an instant what the loss/benefit will be if you add or take away a student, increase the teacher’s fee or increase the cost to parents. This is how I double check that every class I’m running stays in profit… and if it isn’t I can see what the easiest fix would be.
Teaching Online via Zoom/Google Meet:
Some subjects lend themselves more easily to online lessons: Verse and Prose, and Speaking in Public - there are no requirements about effective use of performance space. When teaching Acting/Devising online then make sure the student has a good set up, with a clearly marked performance space that fulfils the requirements of an ROA Exam. You can find these in this guide [https://www.lamda.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Version_9_ROA_Guide_for_Private_Centres_February_2026.pdf], which clearly explains the floor space required and how much of the student needs to be visible to the examiner for each exam (e.g. waist up, knees up, feet up). Of course you can teach online and still prepare students for live exams - in which case, my recommendation would definitely be to have the final three or four lessons in person.
Parents like not having to leave the house so it makes it easier for them, and it opens up new opportunities like teaching students in other countries. For example, teaching students in China means that you can work online in the morning with overseas students, and after-school doing live or Zoom lessons for UK students.
Costs are low, except for a pro Zoom account which is less than £20/month, and you can have students coming back to back without a gap in between for pick ups/drop offs etc - so it is a very economical way of teaching.
Teaching in Students’ Homes
The logistical challenge here is covering the costs of public transport/petrol/parking and travel time for what might be quite a short lesson, if it’s 1:1. This can be overcome by teaching for more hours by including siblings (e.g. three siblings for 30 minutes each gives you 1.5 hours teaching time), or charging parents for your travel time as well as your contact time. If you’re lucky you can also find several families within a very short distance of each other, giving you just a few minutes travel time between each one.
Another challenge is managing behaviour - this can be more difficult in a student’s home than in a school setting, especially when parents are present and allow behaviours that wouldn’t be tolerated in a classroom (e.g. eating during the lesson or jumping on the sofa).
School-based Teaching
There are two main models that I have come across here, and the one that works best depends largely on why the school is offering LAMDA classes to their students:
