Free PDF · For Parents · 12 Pages
The 4-Week Piano Practice Plan for Parents.
A structured routine for children aged 6 to 12, built around 15 to 20 minutes a day. Includes a printable fridge tracker and the five reasons children quit piano.
One email field, one click. The PDF lands in your inbox. 0.6 MB · A4 · Print or read on a tablet.
What is inside
Twelve pages, four weeks, one habit.
Most parents looking for a piano practice plan are handed a blank template and told to fill it in. That is not a plan. A real plan tells you, on Monday of week one, that your child plays the C major five-finger pattern with the right hand, slowly, four times. Then a piece for six minutes. Then they mark the day on the tracker.
This guide gives you that level of prescription for every day of four weeks. Each week has a quiet theme. Week one is about turning up. Week two is about the wall most families hit (and how to walk through it). Week three is about playing something that sounds like music. Week four is about doing it without you nagging.
The structure
- Week 1 — Foundation. Hand position, posture, one five-finger pattern, one piece. Fifteen minutes a day. The aim is consistency, not progress.
- Week 2 — The wall. The week most families want to quit. We name what is happening and prescribe the response.
- Week 3 — Music. The plan introduces something your child can play that sounds, to them, like a real piece. Motivation up, resistance down.
- Week 4 — Autonomy. The fridge tracker comes off the fridge and onto your child’s wall. They run the routine themselves.
You also get
- A printable fridge tracker your child can mark up
- The five reasons children actually quit piano, with the parent-level fix for each
- A short script for the practice conversation that does not start an argument
- A page on what to do if your child has missed a week, a month, or longer
From the PDF
The five reasons children quit piano (none of them are laziness).
01
The bench is the wrong height.
A child whose feet do not reach a stable surface and whose elbows sit below the keyboard is fighting physics every time they practise. The fix is a folded towel under the feet and an adjustable bench. Five-minute change, six-month improvement.
02
The music is the wrong difficulty.
If a child can already play their piece, they are bored. If they cannot play it, they are stuck. The plan lives in the narrow band between those two states. A good teacher gives the right next piece every fortnight; the plan gives you the questions to ask them if your child seems to be in either of those failure modes.
03
The time of day is wrong.
A tired six-year-old after a full school day will not practise well. A six-year-old who has had a snack and ten minutes of decompression will. The plan suggests three time windows that work for most families and one that almost never does.
04
The goal is too distant.
Children do not, as a rule, care about Grade 5 in three years’ time. They care about Friday. The plan replaces distant goals with weekly ones: by Friday you can play this section with two hands together, slowly, without stopping. That is a goal a child can see.
05
The parent is involved in the wrong way.
Helping a child with their piano practice is different from doing it for them, and different again from sitting next to them correcting every wrong note. The plan distinguishes the three roles, and tells you which one to play this week.
How to use it
Print page seven, stick it on the fridge, start Monday.
The plan was designed to be used without ceremony. Page seven is the four-week tracker, sized to A4. Print it once, attach it to the fridge with a magnet, and hand your child the pen. They mark a small cross each day they practise. The cross goes on the fridge whether the practice went brilliantly or badly. The whole point is the tracker, not the quality of any one session.
Behind the tracker, pages two to six are the weekly briefs for you. Read each on the Sunday before that week starts. Five minutes. They tell you what is going to happen during the week, what your child is going to find hard, and what you should and should not do about it.
Pages eight to twelve are the parent reference: the five reasons children quit, the practice conversation script, the missed-time recovery plan, and a short note on choosing a piano (an upright digital is fine for the first three years; please do not buy an acoustic for a six-year-old until you know they want it).
Who wrote this
Written by a conservatoire-trained piano teacher, for the parents he meets every week.
Norbert Steczkowski runs Piano with Norbert in Harrow, London. The plan is the reference he writes for every new family whose child has just started lessons. Over 90 per cent of our students pass ABRSM, Trinity and RSL exams with merit or distinction.
Read more about our teachers →Common questions
Things parents ask before downloading
What age is this practice plan for?
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How long should my child practise each day?
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What if my child does not want to practise?
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Do I need to be musical to help my child use this plan?
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Will this replace lessons?
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What if my child is preparing for an ABRSM or Trinity exam?
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More free resources
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Reference · 43 pages
The Complete Piano Scales Guide
Every major and minor scale, ABRSM-aligned fingerings, two-octave keyboard diagrams. The reference your child will use through every grade.
Read more →Beginner Notes · 8 pages
5 Things to Know Before Starting Piano
The pre-lesson briefing for parents who have never played an instrument themselves. Honest, practical, eight pages.
Read more →Want help applying this?
A £10 trial lesson is the fastest way.
Bring the plan to a £10 trial and we will walk through it with your child at the studio. Thirty minutes, no pressure, an honest read of where they are.