How to find the right Swim School for your child
Below is our quick guide for finding the right swim school for your child. There are many more questions that you might like to ask a swim school but we feel these will guide you in the right direction. Wherever you choose you want your child to feel happy, safe and confident.
Finding your confidence in the water
Ask friends for recommendations – word of mouth is still powerful and you are more likely to find a good swim school from a recommendation than a google search
Find out what their class sizes are and if the teacher will be in the pool with the swimmers or teaching from the side. If you know that your child is nervous around water, then it may be better for them to begin with the teacher in the water with them at least until their confidence grows.
Ask about the facilities and parking and find out if they are accessible to you
What does their social media and online presence look like? How does the swim school present itself outwardly? This will give you some really good clues as to the size of the organisation (bigger isn’t always better!), if they present as professional and are good at communicating with customers, and how they deal with comments and complaints on social media.
Can the swim school meet our needs? Ask what qualifications the staff hold. The industry has specialist training and additional qualifications that swim teachers can undertake; knowing that staff hold these can add extra reassurance over “of course we can meet your needs, we’ve had a swimmer with X needs before”.
Wherever you choose, it may take a few lessons to settle your child in and for the teacher to build a rapport, unless somewhere is unsafe be prepared to try more than one lesson before deciding.
Have you listened to our podcast with Jess from Autism Swim? She had some really helpful things to say about finding the right swim school for a neurodivergent child.
Still have questions? Reach out to us hello@swirlglobal.com and see if we can help you.
Steph x