Solo ADI to multi-instructor school: what changes

For a busy solo instructor there comes a point where the diary is full, the waiting list is real, and the obvious next step is a second instructor. Whether to do it is a money question. This post is about what changes operationally once you do, because most of it needs deciding before the new instructor’s first lesson, not after.

What stops being yours alone

When you teach alone, every record has one user. With a second instructor:

• The diary has two people in it, and clashes between them need catching.
• Learner records need rules. Does the new instructor see your learners? Your notes from before they joined?
• Payments stop being your money and become the school’s takings, some of which is owed to someone else.
• Progress records have to be shared, so a learner covered by the other instructor does not start from scratch.
• The name on the car, the website and the reminders is now the school’s, not yours.

Decide these five things first

In order of what goes wrong if you skip it.

1. Who sees what. A sensible default is that each instructor sees their own learners and the shared diary, and you see everything. If you want everyone to see everyone, decide that on purpose.

2. How the instructor is paid. The common arrangements are a fixed hourly rate, where the school keeps the rest of the lesson price; a share of what each lesson takes; or a franchise, where the instructor keeps their lesson fees and pays the school a weekly fee. Write the terms down before the first lesson.

3. Where the money lands. Keep one account for the school. Every learner pays the school, and the school pays the instructor. Separate accounts per instructor feel simpler until the first refund, transfer or dispute that crosses between them.

4. How the diary works. Decide who can book into whose diary, and what happens to a slot when a learner cancels. If you run a waiting list, a cancelled slot should go to whoever is free, not just to the instructor who lost it.

5. Progress continuity. The new instructor needs to read the progress history of any learner they pick up. You should not be the bottleneck for “how were they getting on with roundabouts?”

Employment status

This is not legal advice. Most instructors who join a school do so as self-employed, either as franchisees or as contractors paid per lesson. Taking someone on as an employee brings PAYE, employer National Insurance, holiday pay and sick pay, which changes the sums considerably.

What you call the arrangement does not decide it. HMRC looks at how the work is actually done: who controls when and how the instructor works, whether they can send someone else, and whether they are in business on their own account. HMRC’s Check employment status for tax tool walks through those questions, and an accountant can tell you how your arrangement reads.

Whatever the answer, put the agreement in writing, even between friends. You both want the same answer when a learner stops paying halfway through a block.

The bigger change

The biggest change is that you stop being the person who teaches every lesson and become the person who runs the school. Scheduling, chasing payments, handling complaints and supporting another instructor is a job in itself, and nobody pays you an hourly rate for it. Price the second instructor’s arrangement so it covers that time.

Where Passdesk fits

Passdesk’s Instructor plan is for one instructor. Pro covers you plus three instructors, and on Pro and Team you can add one more instructor at a time for a monthly seat fee. Office staff are free on every plan. Pricing has the current figures.

Inside the school workspace, the diary shows every instructor, staff permissions are set per person, learner payments land in the school’s own Stripe account, and each instructor’s earnings are worked out from the hourly rate you set. On Team, Passdesk can also bill franchise fees to franchised instructors. If you are moving from a calendar and a spreadsheet, the switching checklist covers the order to do it in. Do it before the new instructor starts.