We hope you are keeping safe and well in these unprecedented times of Covid 19! We miss seeing you all and the happy, smiling faces of your children as they take their first progressive steps towards becoming accomplished Swimmers!
In what has undoubtedly been a very challenging year for us all, one glimmer of light for us as a business is that Horsham Swim School has been awarded the ‘Parent and Child Swim School of the Year Award.’ This is a highly commendable accolade that we are immensely proud of and is a great recognition of the hard work that we put into running the Swim School and the outstanding quality of our teachers and specially designed pre-school swimming programme.
We are writing to you with news of some exciting developments at Horsham Swim School which are outlined below:
- Total Swimming pool refurbishment during lockdown
- New pool is maximum depth of 1.2 metres allowing more overall usable pool space
- Two additional showers added
- Four new individual changing rooms added making a total of eight.
- New additional second toilet installed
- Hot tub removed from pool area to provide increased baby changing space on pool side
- Maximum size of parent in the water classes increased from six to eight
- Afterschool lessons will be two classes at once in the pool
- After school lessons will be maximum of four in a class
- All lesson prices will now include badges, certificates and stickers. No extras to pay.
2020 has been a really tough year for everybody including Horsham Swim School. Despite the Swimming Pool being one of the safest places to be, the government branded pools a leisure activity and ordered us to close for 22 weeks of our 44 week swimming year. This has led to a huge backlog of customers needing to learn to swim.
Whilst Horsham Swim School did reopen in September, we opened with reduced numbers and increased social distancing. This meant that we could only fit in 66% of customers that were swimming the term before, thus adding to the backlog of customers wishing to learn to swim with us.
I am delighted to inform you that we are making major investments to the Pool at Morriswood that will enable us to teach more children to swim each week with increased social distancing. These changes are designed to give you added peace of mind and optimum Covid Security.
Our plan is to level the Swimming Pool floor to a depth of 90cm at the shallow end down to 1.2 metres at the deep end. This will allow us to use all of the available pool for parent and child lessons as parents will be able to touch the floor. The shallow end is going to be custom designed at 90cm which is the ideal depth for three and four-year olds to swim independently. Ultimately, we are going back to the drawing board to redesign and reconstruct the pool to be the perfect depth for our customer’s swimming needs.
The Benefits for You
More environmentally friendly swimming pool
By reducing the volume of water held in the pool by 60,000 litres, this will mean less water to heat and less chemicals to use so the refurbishment project also has lots of environmental benefits. The turnover time that it takes our already excellent filtration system to filter the water will reduce, and our already near perfect water quality should also improve.
The Swimming Pool has also been insulated to current building regulation standards which should also again help with heat retention, thermal efficiency and heat loss reduction.
Increased social distancing in parent and child daytime classes
Using the whole pool length for classes will enable us to increase the number of customers in the pool at once and we are proposing a maximum of eight persons in a parent and child class. Limiting to eight allows us to have up to eight square meters of water around each person and as you can see from the diagram at least 2.3 meters from every other customer. The diagram shows all parents down one end of the pool but equally its possible to spread out even further and use the whole pool now. There of course is a balance between having a sociable class and also having time for the teacher to focus on your child. Swim England recommend that lessons should be no larger than 12 children. Its our intention never to go over eight students in any pre-school class this is in line with or less than our competitors.
Increased social distancing for parent and child classes
There will be a stainless-steel bar all the way around the pool now, this again gives us plenty of choices on how we can layout our daytime parent and child lessons.
Increased safety in the water
90cm is an ideal depth for a children’s learning pool and 1.2 metres is the perfect depth for a parent and child pool. Not only is this better for teaching lessons overall, this also increases the safety aspect of all lessons as children are able to touch the Pool floor. This can also help with water confidence.
After school lessons just four in a class
Reducing the depth of our Pool and being able to use the whole Pool now enables us to run either bigger classes or multiple classes as once. Public leisure centres teach up to 12 children in a class and lessons held in Primary schools often have up to 12 children in them. One of the key differences between a Private Swim school and a Public Swim school is the class sizes. I’m sure you will be pleased to know that we have NO intention of increasing our staffing ratios and we will aim for 4:1 or 3:1 staff ratio for our evening lessons.
When we reopen on 4th January, we will have four students in an evening after school class with one level 2 Swimming Instructor. The difference that we will be making is that we will have two lessons in the pool at once: one in the deeper (1.2 metre) end, and one in the shallow end.
For strong LTS 2, LTS 3 and LTS 4 classes, the pool will have lane swimming using half the width of the pool in 2.25 metre lanes. Again, there will be four pupils maximum in one lane upon opening in January.
Some evening lessons will have six students in them, and eventually post Covid 19 ,we will most likely increase evening lessons to six in a class, however a teaching assistant will be added to every class if we increase numbers, which actually means that the staff ratio will reduce from 4:1 to 3:1 which are the best teaching ratios in the area. As previously mentioned, Public pools have a staff ratio of 12:1, and we are looking at providing class leading swimming lessons with either a 3:1 or 4:1 staff ratio for the beginner level classes which is arguably significantly safer.
More showers, more changing rooms and more toilets
As part of our extensive refurbishment during lockdown 2, we are having two new showers installed in additional to the existing shower so we will have three in total on pool side. A second toilet will be installed along with an additional four changing rooms, thus making the total number of individual changing rooms eight on pool side for your added comfort. We plan to also increase the size of our car park during the spring/summer to make it easier to park.
More space on pool side for baby changing
As part of our overall refurbishment plans, we are removing the Hot tub from the Swimming pool area, this allows for increased social distancing on pool side and a larger floor area for increased baby changing space.
COVID 19 safety measures at Horsham Swim School
Factual evidence suggests that Chlorine kills COVID 19 on contact so the Pool is arguably one of the safest places to be! To maximise Covid Security we do, however, politely request that only one parent accompanies one child to lessons and that there are no spectators this term please. We will view this policy as the R number drops and the vaccine is rolled out and we will and try to re-introduce spectators as soon as possible as we appreciate how rewarding it is to see the excellent progress that your children will be making in their lessons.
Hand Sanitiser and face masks indoors when not participating in lessons are compulsory please. Those parents going into the water do not need to wear a mask, as those participating in sports are excluded. We ask that you please wipe baby changing mats down with detox spray provided before and after use.
On the 16th October 2020, the “Word Health Organization” publically stated that COVID19 cannot transmit in swimming pool water
Prices for 2021
Our weekday lessons will be £13.49 weekdays and £14.99 on weekends. When compared to Music/Golf lessons/Drama/Singing lessons this cost is great value for money, learning a life skill that can save your child’s life!
Our fully structured Parent and Child classes are around 15 % to 20% cheaper than comparable Parent and Child Swim schools. Water babies and Puddle ducks for example charge £16.50 per hour so our prices are extremely competitive with the added advantage of free parking!
We have historically charged £3.50 extra for badges and awards. We will now be including these in with the cost of the lesson so every ten weeks for pre-school lessons your child should receive a sew on badge, sticker and certificate. With after school levels, children need to “pass” certain criteria to receive an award as they are awards not rewards, but we will endeavour to give your child some form of certificate once a term whenever possible to recognise their achievements.
We hope you are feeling confident enough to join us again in January. All children are already booked in for our Autumn term will automatically be rebooked for the Spring term January to April but if you weren’t swimming with us last term or you have siblings that you would like to book on please get in touch as we are now taking bookings for our January term.
With Warmest Wishes
Tony Hogben