The After School Program;

This is the marketing brainchild of Master Stephen Oliver of Mile High Karate in Denver Co. I have tried this myself here in Canada, but was not very successful with it. That does not mean that it will not work for you. Getting into the school system here in Ontario Canada is not easy. The public board has a ban on any martial arts activity in their schools including demonstrations. It is still possible to get in if the principal will allow it, but it takes a lot of work.

The idea behind this is to first get into the chosen school to teach the gym classes for a day, or however long it will take to see each student. Once you are in the school teaching the gym classes you do a modified version of an intro class, showing the teaching that you can control the kids, and teach them something of value. They need to be moving, sweating and having fun.

The next step is to talk the principal into allowing you to teach classes in the school, two times per week for one month. The school will charge the parents a fee for their child to participate and keep all the money. This makes the school very happy as it is an easy fundraiser for them! And let's face it, the schools need the money! The time between this session and the gym classes needs to be small so the kids won't loose interest in doing karate!

You go in to the school, teach a modified version of what you are doing in class, giving the children homework that must be completed each class (this makes the parents and teachers happy). We gave all the kids a white belt to wear and are striped for each module completed.

Once the program is finished you bring all the children and parents to your school for a graduation ceremony. Now if all of the above is done well (and this is a very condensed version) you are looking at a potential boom in enrollment that month.

This program is best accomplished if you have a good number of staff available. Presentation is everything and the parents need to see a change in their child in the program before they will enroll.

This is a great idea that me did not fit, but that doesn't mean it would not work for you!

You can take a look at Master Oliver's Website here.