Nuffield Didsbury - Unfortunately, I have to comment on the lack of professionalism and lack of consistency with children’s swimming lessons.
Our daughter is quite nervous about putting her head under the water, so we find it quite important having consistency of swimming instructor and teaching styles. With this in mind - on not one, but two occasions - the instructor has been changed without prior communication. Not as a one off, but for many weeks or changed completely. This isn’t great, as we feel that it’s helpful to prepare our daughter for any changes in instructor, not just turn up to another teacher with whom she’s unfamiliar with no warning. This is just common courtesy in my opinion to let parents know and none of the parents (including us) were aware.
Not only this, the pool closed after our daughter’s first 12 lessons for almost two months. Again, we had little warning that this was coming. Presumably, Nuffield Didsbury had know that this was coming for some time but we were given limited notice and when notice was provided, I had recently bought another package of 12 lessons. I would not have done this if I had known there was going to be such a long break.
There’s also a no mobile phones policy in the pool area, however, I noticed that one swimming instructor was scrolling through Instagram, yet I was advised that they can have their phones to look through swim schedules. It’s one rule for one and one for another.
When provided feedback about the above issues, the dual site manager was only really interested in pointing out price discrepancies and when my own personal membership ended - with no apology whatsoever. For clarity, I’ve bought swimming lessons in blocks firstly at the desk for £195 and then paid whatever price it has told me to on the swim school app. This is an issue with how Nuffield Didsbury had registered my daughter and not my own. Any costs paid are out of my control and an administration error. To also note - when I ended my own membership, I was quite poorly and one of my grandparents had cancer and I had to take on caring responsibilities, otherwise, I would have stayed a member.
As a small positive, I would like to say that Andy is a fantastic instructor. The children really listen to him and you can tell that he’s really liked and respected by the children. His return is the only reason why we are sticking out with the lessons until our daughter is able to swim.
