Question related to the business end of a training school - ie Churn rate

[magores]

It's a long question. Sorry about that, but I hope you can bear with me. I am very interested in your insight/experience.

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Quick background

--I'm a teacher at a training school in Beijing.

--I teach mainly young kids. My busiest days are Saturday and Sunday.

--Been doing it for 2 years, and still like it (overall)

My question is for people that have experience in a similar situation (or even those with experience teaching older students.)

My school charges by the number of class sessions. For example, 12 sessions = 120RMB (fake numbers). 1 calendar year has around 44 maximum possible sessions.

Most children will stay with a class for the duration of the classroom material, which can range from 24-36+ sessions, depending on the material. A few have even been with us for the 2 years I've been there. And a number have left, and then come back for one reason or another.

My bosses are somewhat concerned about the number of children that leave class at the 12/24/36 mark. They have the expectation that a single child will stay with a given class for 3 years or more. I think this is unrealistic.

I think that if you give a 5 year old child the choice of English class on weekends, or no class, they will, of course, choose no class.

So....

My question is:

What kind of drop-out rate did you experience?

Thanks,

[nomad]

Put this on Dave's ESL Cafe-China thread, you might get more infor about drop out rates.