Welcome to the family

Your rockstar's guide to excellence

Welcome to the family!

Thanks for choosing U-Rock Music School for your child/teen's learning adventures in rock & pop music. We want your rock stars to have fun & truly love learning music. Please call us anytime if you have any questions/concerns about lessons or the information below, we are always happy to hear from you.

Want to meet us before you start?

Just give us a call to book a date and we will be thrilled to show you around our three music studios and get an opportunity to meet our teachers in advance of lessons.

Please arrive and pick up ON TIME. Our entryway is small, and, unfortunately, we don’t have room to wait indoors. When it’s warm, our porch is sheltered and has room for physically distanced seating. We ask parents and other family members to please either drop off/pick up and go without coming inside, or simply wait outside. ONLY STUDENTS may enter the house. During winter months please take note that our street has only one side parking available – so be sure to find a safe & legal place to park if you do plan to wait while your star is attending lessons.
Please leave ALL footwear outside. When it gets colder, you can place your shoes/boots underthe little fireplace heater at the front door. Bring ALL of your personal items: coat/hat/gloves/backpack/instrument to your lesson studio with you.
STUDENTS: Please RING to enter. We are all teaching, so we’ll unlock the door remotely (it makes a funny mechanical sound). Please don’t wait for a reply – just open the door and come on in. If you see the student before you leave, just go on up, or down, to your teacher’s studio.
Please WASH & SANITIZE YOUR HANDS as soon as you come inside, the student bathroom is located on the right as you come in the front door. HAND SANITIZER & WIPES can also be found in all three teaching studios, as well as outside by
the front door, so be sure to use this when you leave your lessons too. THANK YOU
PLEASE: Never stop, or park your vehicle in front of, or in, any of our neighbours’ driveways – not even for 1 minute - while your child gets in or out. PLEASE help us keep our narrow street safe and free of congestion by dropping off your child by pulling into our driveway, then exit by driving around the block. Same scenario for pick up. Vehicles should NEVER park in, or across, the front of our driveway for the safety of students coming in and out.
ALWAYS CHOOSE SAFE PARKING SPOTS We ask that if you must wait on our street during your child’s lessons that you ALWAYS choose a safe, legal parking spot. We highly recommend not parking on the street, if you can avoid it.

THANK YOU! Your respect of our safety rules allows us to run our music school at home.

Piano students - bring your lesson books.
Guitar and ukulele students - bring your instrument, capo, picks and a notebook/binder.
Drummers - bring your own sticks and lesson notebooks.
Vocalists - bring a water bottle and a list of the songs you plan to work on at every lesson.
Everyone - Bring your homework & sheet music folder/binder to every lesson.

GROUP LESSON rockers (POP Patrol/The Roxies/The Crushers) don't need to bring anything, although water bottles are always recommended. A list of songs to learn for events and concerts will be sent to most group lesson students, so please check your email regularly.

CONTACTING YOUR CHILD’S TEACHER: Please text us if you need to communicate during lesson hours. We don’t answer the phone while we’re teaching. If your child is going to miss a lesson, or be late, please text us. Our cell phone/text numbers are at the bottom of this page. To reach any of our part-time teachers, please text Cathy.
ALWAYS check your email. We are really great at communicating, but we never relay important school updates/info by phone. So please make sure that ALL our emails to you are not going to your junk/spam mail folder by marking our school emails “safe” (info@u-rockschool.com, cathy@u-rockschool.com and brian@u-rockschool.com).
U-Rock’s Lesson Swap Group on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/125652361565419/
Our unique Facebook parent group enables all our families with occasional lesson time conflictsto trade lesson times with other families over the school year. To participate, just “like” our URock Music School Facebook page and then “request to join” the U-Rock Lesson Swap Group page. It’s that easy! We’ve had a 90% success rate with this group over the past 6 years. We are proud to be THEONLY music school to offer lesson swaps! Note: Private lessons only, not groups.
ONLINE LESSONS – as of March 23, 2020 we added online lessons to our teaching curriculum for the safety and convenience of all our U-Rock families. If at any time you prefer to switch to online lessons, please notify us in writing and include your SKYPE details so that we can add this info to your child’s account. This will prevent missing lessons for any health concerns and or in
the case of your child needing to self-isolate. SKYPE is the only virtual teaching platform we use.
FEELING SICK? PLEASE STAY HOME. It’s vitally important to us that no students ever attend lessons if they are showing ANY signs of illness. We will happily phone you via SKYPE for an online lesson instead, at your usual lesson time. Please TEXT OR EMAIL us no later than @2pm on the day of your rock star’s lessons so that we can add their virtual lesson to our daily schedule.

Your child's weekly lesson is the starting point of a journey that can last a lifetime. Here are some tips to help you set your rockstar up to succeed:

Encourage good practice routines. We usually recommend that children under 10 practice for 15 minutes daily. Pre-teens (age 11-12) and teens 13+ should practice at least 30 minutes EACH day, including weekends. Students will better remember to practice if they do it at the same time each day. Practice should include lots of repetition: encourage them to repeat songs and exercises until they get them right.
Remind them to practice daily. If your child is under 13, you’ll need to remind them to practice. Some days it will be a struggle, no question. By the time they are teens, they should be self-motivated. If teens aren’t practicing on their own, you may wish to try another instrument as no amount of coercing will help if they aren’t enjoying what they are learning. This is very important to us at U-Rock.
Learn with them. Our experience is that young kids learn best when their parents work with them. Keep them company while they practice (when you can), be present and encourage them to learn. Set a timer, offer small rewards for success, and praise them when they do well.
Expose them to LOTS of music. Help your child love music by playing it at home, in the car … basically, wherever you can. Some of our students’ most cherished memories are singing along with mom or dad in the car. The greater the variety of music they listen to, the better. It opens up all kinds of options for them to love.
Take advantage of performing opportunities. Performing builds confidence and self-esteem, which will serve them well in all parts of their lives. Children as young as six have performed at our concerts and open mic events and made their parents proud. We offer 6 live shows/concerts and open mics per school year – so your rock stars have LOTS of opportunities to shine, once they are ready.

Have a rockin' time at your lessons, we look forward to a fantastic musical adventure with all of you!

Thank you for respecting our school policies and please pass this info to all family members who drive your rock star to their lessons and/or attend our awesome events.

Our school motto is SHINE, and we know YOUR rock stars will do just that.

Please post the events calendar on page 1 on your fridge

Cathy & Brian
U-Rock Music School
216 Tempest Drive Stittsville K2S 0K4

School landline: 613-457-5064
Cathy’s cell for texts: 613-853-7748
Brian’s cell for texts: 613-899-5933
U-Rock Lesson Swap Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/125652361565419/