Keep up to speed with our programme

Here we will provide regular updates so that you can keep up to speed with our programme with the latest updates from our Swim School team!

University of Nottingham Swim School

Swimming lessons back to normal operations

Great news! The movable floor at the swimming pool is now fully fixed and operational. Swimming lessons will return to normal operation from Thursday 13th March 2025.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during these unexpected circumstances.

The Aquatics team are currently working on a project over the next 2 months to introduce a new swim lesson software management system that will allow access to pay for your lessons online, check your child's progress through an online portal and improve the overall operations of the Learn to Swim programme.

When we transfer to this new system, lessons will be moving to an ongoing programme rather than blocks of lessons, and swimmers will top up their payments online to remain on the programme. More information on the new system will be coming to you in the next 6-8 weeks which will answer all of your questions.

Please ensure that your email address and contact number for you/your child are up to date. This can be checked at Front of House or by emailing swimschool@nottingham.ac.uk.

Missed lessons

For 121/Private Bubble swimming lessons, as your courses run in 5 week blocks the lessons that you have missed have already been credited to your accounts to use towards re-booking the next course.

For group lessons, as we will be moving to the new software system towards the end of this course, your bookings will be extended by the number of weeks that you have missed:

  • Mondays, Tuesday, Saturdays & Sundays - 3 weeks
  • Thursdays - 2 weeks

Current booking details

This applies to customers who had lessons booked and paid for between Thursday 20th February - Wednesday 12th March 2025 that have been cancelled due to the mechanical issues with the movable floor. For new customers that have joined to start after this period, there will be no credit notes as no lessons have been cancelled.

The current course of lessons that you have paid for is due to finish week commencing 5th May 2025. The block of lessons that you booked and paid for runs every week except for:

  • Friday 18th April - Wednesday 23rd April 2025 during the Easter bank holiday
  • For Thursday morning adults there will be no lessons on 10th & 17th April 2025
  • No lessons on Monday Bank Holiday 5th May 2025

Lessons will be running as normal during the Easter School holidays period as previously booked and paid for.

For anyone that was booked onto the February half term programme, we are currently working through credit notes and refunds.

For Early years and higher stages, your courses will run as normal and there will be no extension to your course.

Assessments

I am aware that there may be concerns around assessments and impacts on swimmers being able to move up towards the end of this course. I want to assure you that we have plans in place to ensure that swimmers progress is not impacted and swimmers will still move to the next stage when they are ready.

With the move to the new system, the way we move swimmers up will be changing. We will be moving away from a final assessment week where swimmers move all at the same time to a new system that allows us to notify you/your child when a swimmer is ready to progress to the next stage. More details to follow when we introduce the new system.

The change to the new system will be introduced in a phased approach starting with the deep water higher stages that have continued to run whilst the floor has been broken. This will allow the lower stages to have the same amount of weeks that they would have had previously to work on their strokes and skills.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused during the lesson cancellations. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Jo Brown - Aquatics Officer

No lessons on the 29th March 2025

REMINDER that due to an external event on Saturday 29th March 2025, the following lessons will not be running:​

  • 12.00-16.00 1-2-1/Private Bubble lessons ​
  • 12.00 - Teenagers 1 ​
  • 12.30 - Stage 1​
  • 13.00 - Teenagers 3​
  • 13.30 - Teenagers 3​
  • 14.00 - Beginners​
  • 14.30 - Foundation ​
  • 15.00 - Stage 1 ​
  • 15.30 - Stage 2 ​​

All other lessons will be running as normal.

Updates to the programme

Over the last couple of years the University of Nottingham Aquatics team have introduced a number of changes to the programme to help improve the journey for swimmers and maximise a swimmers progress.

In 2022, we divided the existing Beginners group into two levels, Beginners and Foundation so lessons could be more focused on the swimmers needs based on water confidence and provide a faster progression through the stages. We also introduced Breaststroke clinics for Stage 3 - Stage 6 swimmers, to aid swimmers who were getting stuck within groups due to their Breaststroke.

In 2023, we reviewed the existing Stage 3 group, taking note that swimmers were spending longer in this stage due to the jump from swimming in shallow water to deep water and the difficulty of the criteria they were working towards. With this in mind we split Stage 3 into 2 levels - Stage 3 in shallow water which focuses on further developing their strokes and working towards 10m's in their strokes ready for deep water; and Stage 3 deep water which focuses on deep water confidence and recovering swimmers stroke technique once they move to deep water.

These developments have provided swimmers with a better progression through the stages and has raised the standard of stroke technique that the swimmers are developing.

Future updates

In December 2023, we successfully appointed a new full time Learn to Swim co-ordinator - Aimee Scadding to support with the running of the programme. Due to the success of the University of Nottingham Learn to swim scheme, the programme has grown and requires additional support.

The good news is we now have capacity to look at further developments and expansions. Our priorities are:

  • a new swim lesson management software system with more functionality which will allow online payments and home portal to see your child's progress
  • recruitment of more swim teachers to ensure that we can continue to maintain the programme and expand to offer more lessons

Parking

During March we will be hosting numerous events so please allow extra time for your journey and parking on the following dates:

  • Saturday 8th - Sunday 9th March 2025
  • Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd March 2025
  • Monday 24th - Tuesday 25th March 2025
  • Saturday 29th March - Sunday 30th March 2025
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