8 Things To Include In The Terms & Conditions For Your Yoga Training

Terms and conditions are essential to any business. They allow you to provide clarity to your students for any situation that may occur. They also offer transparency to what you expect of the student and what you do with their data. As every business is unique, it's not as simple as copying and pasting your T&C's. This is the reason we can only provide you with some points to include and not a template document.

Please read the following carefully to ensure you cover all the points below that we recommend. They are included to ensure you are fully covered for all eventuality during your Teacher Training Course. This should only be used as guidance when creating your own. We recommend asking a solicitor to review your terms and conditions to ensure they are sufficient.

Practice Experience

• How long should students have been practising yoga before embarking on your teacher training course? We generally recommend that this is two years of good practice.
• We recommend you include a student pre-assessment to ensure that they are at the level you require to attend the course.
• If they are not quite at the level you require, you may want to consider asking them to attend your classes.

Booking

• Do you require a deposit at the time of booking? Recommended to secure a place.
• How far in advance should the full payment be made before the course starts?
• How do you decide who is given a place? We do not recommend that it is decided on a first-come-first-served basis.
• Do you reserve the right to refuse a place to students who have not paid their deposit or full fees by the required date?

Fees

Included:

• Training and assessment by a qualified Yoga Alliance Professionals SYT
• Will you provide a full manual/course paperwork/books

Not included:

• Does the course cover the costs of travel, accommodation or food?
• Will you automatically insure all UK/EIRE trainees? (Speak to your account manager to automatically add this for just £25.00 per student)

Refund Policy

Payment Deposit Dates:

• When do you expect the first payment to be made?
• Will you have any special offers such as early bird or special discounts?
• Include a date final payment is due

A student leaving the course early:

• What circumstances can a student leave the course
• How much of the course will be refunded?

Procedure on how to make a cancellation:

• How would a student cancel their booking? Who would they address the cancellation to?
• Do you require any evidence as to why a student is cancelling?

During the Course:

• Minimum attendance rate that is required? We recommend 100%, but it is worth stating a possible percentage allowed for mitigating circumstances.
• What is the time limit once the course official finishes completing the course?
• Are there any additional charges for re-sitting any assignments?
• What are your expectations regarding the daily practice of students?
• Will you allow extensions for students if unable to complete the requirements due to unforeseen circumstances? If so, will you require evidence of this?

Cancellation of Course:

• How much notice do you intend to give students if you as the Trainer cancel the course?
• Will you include cancellation due to unforeseen situations for example COVID-19.
• What are the circumstance you as the trainer have the right to cancel or rearrange dates?

Complaint Procedure

• Please consider how many stages you will have within your complaints procedure.
• Will you allow the complainant to involve an advocate, friend or someone else to support them during ANY stage of the complaint?
• What effort will be made if an interpreter is required?

E.g.
Stage one - An informal chat on the day
Stage two - Written complaint? How long will it take to acknowledge the complaint? What information will the response contain? Can you guarantee that a complaint will remain anonymous?
Stage three - If it is not possible to prove a full answer within a certain amount of days, will you provide a letter outlining the reasons why and give a date by which a full answer is expected?

GDPR Policy

In accordance with the GDPR guidelines you should ensure that your students are aware that as a student of your course, their contact details (full names, email addresses and phone number) will be presented to Yoga Alliance Professionals.

This is to ensure our ability to offer them useful information throughout the course, the option for Trainee insurance and it allows them to be contacted after graduation to offer them membership and insurance.

The statement below should be included as stated below to ensure you meet the guidelines.

It is important that you inform them that they have the option to opt-out of this if they wish, but notice should be given to you the trainer. It is worth adding a GDPR acceptance tick box at the bottom of these terms.

E.g.
'As a student of ____ teacher training course, I consent to ____ passing my contact details (name, email and phone number) to your partners, Yoga Alliance Professionals. I am allowing them to contact me directly and invite me to register as a Trainee and Teacher and Graduate. I understand that I have the option of opting out of this registration process. ____ is satisfied that Yoga Alliance Professionals have the appropriate, adequate, technical and organisational measures to protect your data's security. They will never share your data with anybody else'.

Code of Conduct

Include your code of conduct in the terms and conditions document.

Your students should be asked to sign a Code of Conduct to start their training. In order to maintain high standards and to keep your good reputation, it is important your students reach a certain minimum standard. It is imperative this Code of Conduct is upheld on a continuous basis.

This Code of Conduct is a declaration of acceptable, ethical and professional behaviour. Please list all ethical goals that your students must uphold in order to continue with your training. Please see a few examples below. There is a separate template available for this;

Please confirm within your Code of Conduct that all students will comply with the requirements and that they accept that failure to do so will disqualify them from completing your course. It is recommended you allow students to sign this document and keep a copy on file.

Have a look at the template provided here >

Corporate Insurance

Scan a copy of your Corporate Insurance document. As a Trainer, you must have an insurance policy, regardless if you are a business or charity. If you do not currently have a policy, please speak with your account manager to receive a quote.