Terms and conditions for a dance school

A dance school needs terms that answer the questions parents actually ask: what the monthly fee covers, what happens when a child stops going in February, who pays for the costume, and what you owe when a teacher is ill and the class is cancelled. I draft enrolment terms for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days, with a covering note explaining every commercial choice I have made.

Who this is for

Ballet, street, tap, theatre, contemporary and adult dance schools in England and Wales, whether you run one weekly class in a church hall or a full timetable in your own studio. Your paying customers are mostly parents and adult students, who are consumers. Schools, nurseries and holiday clubs that book you in are business customers, and different parts of the terms apply to them.

What matters in a dance school's terms

Who you are contracting with, and how the fees run

The parent signs, the child dances, and the fee is usually paid monthly by standing order or termly in advance. Your terms should name the parent or guardian as the customer, make them responsible for the fees whatever the child decides in week three, and set out notice to leave: how much notice, in what form, and what happens to fees already paid. Parents and adult students are consumers under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, so the protections they cannot sign away have to be built in rather than drafted around.

Enrolment online and the fourteen-day cancellation right

Enrolment taken online, by phone or by email, or signed up at the parent's home, falls within the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The parent has fourteen days to cancel from the date of the contract. If classes start inside that period at the parent's express request and they then cancel, they pay a proportionate amount for the classes taken. If there was no express request, they pay nothing at all. Where the cancellation information is never given, the period extends by up to twelve months, which is a long time to carry an open right to a refund.

Missed classes, closures and class viability

Parents will ask for money back for a missed class, chicken pox or a half term you never promised to cover. The terms should say what the fee buys: a place in a named class for a defined term, not a set number of attendances, with catch-ups at your discretion. Deal separately with closures you cause, such as a teacher off sick, a hall lost at short notice or a class that drops below viable numbers. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, keeping prepayments without a matching obligation on you, or varying the class one-sidedly, risks being unfair and not binding.

Exams, festivals, costumes and show tickets

Exam entries, festival fees, costumes, shoes and show tickets are where complaints start, because the parent assumed the monthly fee covered them. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans drip pricing, so a headline price shown to consumers must include all mandatory charges. Your terms should list the extras, say when each becomes payable and make clear that an exam entry or a costume ordered to a child's measurements cannot be unwound once committed. Goods made to the consumer's specification or clearly personalised sit outside the cancellation right in the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

Health, injury, contact and collection

Dance carries injury risk and teaching involves hands-on correction. The terms should require parents to disclose medical conditions and injuries, set expectations on footwear and hair, and state that teaching may include physical adjustment unless the parent tells you otherwise. Set out drop-off and collection clearly: when your responsibility for a child starts and ends, who may collect, and what happens when collection is late. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 prevents you excluding liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence and limiting liability for a service to less than the price, so the terms must work alongside your insurance.

Photographs, show footage and social media

Consent for photographs and video should be recorded at enrolment, handled separately for children, and capable of being withdrawn. The terms should also control filming by parents in class and at the show, and say what you may do with footage you commission or sell. Where a freelance photographer or videographer records your show, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 leaves the copyright in what they produce with them unless it is assigned to you in writing, which matters when you want to use last year's show reel to recruit next year's intake.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

We invoice a primary school for weekly sessions. Do our parent terms cover that?

Those bookings need business-facing wording, because a school is not a consumer. It should deal with invoicing and payment dates, term dates and cancellation of a block booking. On late payment you can claim statutory interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, which schools and academy trusts tend to take seriously.

Can we keep the term's fees if a parent withdraws a child in the middle of term?

That depends on how the notice clause is drafted. A term that simply keeps prepayments with no matching obligation on you sits on the grey list of potentially unfair terms. A defined notice period, with fees payable for the notice and the place held open during it, is far easier to defend and easier to explain to a parent.

Do these terms cover the freelance teachers who take our classes?

They do not. Customer terms face parents and students. Teachers you engage need their own agreement dealing with self-employed status, substitution, rates and what they may and may not do with your students if they leave. HMRC's Check Employment Status for Tax tool is the reference point, and I draft those agreements separately.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Consultancy and contractor agreements, £595
• Employment contracts and handbooks, £595
• Terms and conditions for a yoga or pilates studio
• Terms and conditions for a personal trainer

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.