The short answer
Ask how an academy handles the bad day before you enrol, not after. A lesson lost to the academy's side should be made up at no cost; a lesson lost at the family's end is the family's. Both answers should be in writing, and so should who may watch a class and how the fee is taken.
The connection drops
Our side
If the fault is ours -- the teacher's connection, our platform, our equipment -- the lesson is made up at no extra cost. You do not have to argue for it.
Your side
A lesson lost to the family's own connection is not made up. That is the honest answer, and an academy that promises otherwise is quietly pricing it in somewhere else.
Either way, message the teacher in your family group rather than waiting. Five minutes of a half-hour lesson is worth rescuing.
The camera
Whether your child's camera is on is your decision, not a rule. For a younger child we usually ask parents to turn it on, because a teacher who can see the child can tell the difference between not knowing and not paying attention. For a child who is shy about it, the lesson runs perfectly well without.
Nobody is asked to justify the choice, and it can change from one week to the next.
Is the lesson recorded?
Not as a matter of course. Lessons are not recorded by default, for the same reason a classroom is not filmed: it is a child at a table in their own house.
Two exceptions, both of them ours to explain rather than yours to discover. A family may ask for a lesson to be recorded, and it is. And if the quality of a teacher's lessons looks to be slipping, the academy records a class and reviews it, which is how a problem gets found before a parent has to report it.
What takes the place of a recording is simpler and better: a parent may join any lesson, unannounced, on the family's own link. Nothing is arranged in advance and nobody is told.
The teacher does not appear
- A class we fail to provide is made up at no cost, or refunded.
- You are told by the supervisor in your family group, not left to chase it.
- A cover teacher is not put in front of your child without asking you first.
- If it keeps happening, you may ask for a different teacher without giving a reason.
The money
Fees are taken through Stripe, monthly and in advance, in your own currency. No registration fee, no contract, no minimum term, and no card is taken for the trial classes.
The whole price list is on the fee page before anyone asks for a phone number, which is the part worth checking at any academy: a price you have to request is a price that can be set after they have met you.