Recruiting Round-up

Every year I add new ideas to my regular recruiting routine (search for my other posts about recruiting for other great ideas) and consistently have enjoyed an increase in students.  It is important to stay on top of current trends and use those things in your recruiting program.  I keep thinking I've reached my max number of students, but my numbers keep going up!  Last year I had to cut 30 students out of my beginning strings class because I didn't have enough room in my schedule to teach them all.  This year over 160 signed up for beginning strings (making my total student load 330!) and I'm not planning on cutting any because the school will hire a second orchestra teacher help teach some of the classes.

 I'm ecstatic that over 27% of our student population is in orchestra.  It feels like orchestra is taking over the school!  That is what inspired me to create new recruiting materials featuring a zombie orchestra theme:

BROCHURE:

 SIGN-UP FORM:

I also had these postcards printed at vistaprint.com.  You can buy the image at my TpT store.

While elementary school kids were out of the classroom watching my recruiting assembly performed by my group of 100+ beginners, I had a group of my older students place one of these postcards on every student's desk.  Many of the postcards had a personal note on the back from a student in my program saying how much they love orchestra.  (My 8th graders enjoyed that assignment.)  I only wish I would have seen their reactions to see their room had been taken over by zombie orchestra signs.  :)

The Greatest Showman is a very popular movie in my area, so I had a high school student come with us and she played an AMAZING variation of 'Rewrite the Stars' on an electric violin with a back-up track.  Kids were mesmerized and many sang along.  I had introduced my student as they next famous YouTube star...like Lindsey Stirling and Rob Landes (who had just performed at one of my concerts).  Many elementary students got her autograph afterwards.

We left these posters at each school...and the image is available at my TpT site:

In years past I purchased fortune cookies and painstakingly removed every fortune and replaced them with my own pro-orchestra fortunes.  This year I simplified by purchasing these fortune cookie erasers at OrientalTrading.com:  Fortune Cookie Erasers

Student helpers easily replaced all the fortunes with things like, 'You belong in orchestra'   'Life is better in orchestra'  'Orchestra is for you!'   At the end of our recruiting concert, we invite students to come try our instruments for a couple of minutes and afterwards they get the eraser.  I heard one kid say, "That was fun!  I'm totally going to join orchestra.  Plus my fortune cookie told me to."  It was hilarious.

Another fun addition this year was a bubble machine! We always play 'Appalachian Hymn' by Soon Hee Newbold as students enter the assembly.  This year be had a pro bubble machine pumping out bubbles galore as students took their seats.  It was fun and added an exciting unexpected twist.