Swim Avis 

A lovely place.
My child always look forward to his classes and it's the best part of his day.
Good communication between tutors and parents (which I am ).

"I deeply regret signing up here. The staff pressured me to join, promising total flexibility for my toddler’s lessons despite me being clear that my schedule changes weekly. As soon as I signed the contract and finished two lessons, the 'flexibility' disappeared. I was told I couldn't change days and was then forced to pay a month's notice fee just to leave.
The lack of integrity is shocking, but the lack of communication is worse—no one has bothered to respond to my formal complaint. Avoid this company if you value honesty and customer service. They will say anything to get you to sign up, but won't stand by their word."

Fantastic experience at their Castleford branch. The classes are very small and the teachers are in the water. Much better than most places

Classes are fantastic. Teacher Millie is fab

Overall my son has had positive swimming lessons. Having started at swim 1, hes now progressed to swim 4 and enjoys it. The swim teacher we have currently, Natalie i think her name is, has had a positive impact on my son. He was happy to move up a level on the conditions that he had the same teacher. I do feel the time it takes to move from one level to the next does take a long time but then im not sure if its due to them covering more in each stage. I do feel it is rather pricey, its the most expensive in my area but im happy to pay as long as he progresses.
The only negative is the lack of communication. Moving from stage 1 to 2 was horrendous resulting in being moved 3 times to different classes due to their being too many children in each class. However when hanging the class online it allowed me to move him. This meant he had 3 different swim teachers, no consistency and did knock his confidence. However overall a positive experience. The chance to win a freebie would be amazing and help my little dude.

Have been at Swim for several years and the quality of the teaching is now very poor. Staff turnover is also very high so my daughter never has the same teacher resulting in lack of progression. I would absolutely not recommend this swim school. Very poor.

Unprofessional teachers. No introduction no communication no emotions and look very moody. My 5 year old dont want to learn anymore shes terrified. As a beginner she wasn't shown how to be confident in the water just asked to do tasks like shes been there for months. 10mins into the lesson she cried to get out and didnt go back. Cancelled my membership the same day I made it.

Based on my experience, I would not recommend signing up.

While the lessons themselves were okay, the cancellation process was extremely disappointing. Lessons that had already been paid for were removed and not delivered, and despite multiple attempts to resolve this, no refund or solution was offered.

I have since seen other reviews describing similar experiences around cancellations and refunds.

For me, this completely outweighed the positives.

More expensive than most places but certainly worth it. Small class sizes and a premium feel.

While we enrolled our son with the expectation of a structured learning environment, the experience has been defined by administrative chaos and a lack of professional accountability. Specifically, we are citing the following issues:

Scheduling Instability: Classes are frequently cancelled at the last minute, or worse, cancelled without any prior communication, leading to wasted travel time and child disappointment.

Ad-hoc Changes: Lessons are routinely moved to different days or shifted to different times within the same day on an ad-hoc basis, making it impossible to maintain a routine.

Lack of Instructional Continuity: There is a constant rotation of teachers. This lack of consistency prevents Benjamin from building rapport with an instructor and hinders his technical progress.

Failure to Track Progress: Benjamin’s progress hasn't been updated in months. We have no insight into his development or what requirements he needs to meet to move to the next stage.

Collective Concern and Next Steps Please be advised that I have been in active communication with several other parents whose children attend your sessions. It is clear that our experience is not an isolated case; there is a shared consensus that the current service is substandard.

Rude on the phone when queried about why we have to request a refund for cancelled sessions. Poor communication about cancelled lessons. Expensive for what it is. Instructors are okay, it’s a shame the admin side lets them down. Felt like there’s no real structure to classes so hard to track how well your child is doing.

Lessons cancelled at last minute. Turns out WE have to go online and complete a form to request a refund. The cancellation email makes no mention of this. Most people would assume a cancellation made by the provider would be automatically refunded.

The amount of sessions that have been cancelled for the baby and mother session is appalling. And sometimes two hours before a session.

Oh and make sure you read the terms and conditions. if they cancel, YOU have to fill out a form and ask them for a refund. If this isn't done within 30 days you lose out. By far the most bizarre t&c.

Millie @swim Cheadle Hulme was fantastic with our son, she understood his disability and spoke to him in a way he could understand. He has progressed lovely through swim 7 and all thanks to Millie’s teaching style. I would definitely recommend Millie to any parent on their swimming journey.

We have been with swim for a number of years but have found the quality of lessons to no longer be of standard. Our daughter progressed well enough in Swim 1, but since going to Swim 2 her progress stalled. The lessons at times have had more than 6 kids in there (sometimes 7-8) and also some lessons have started 5 minutes late and a lesson recently even ended a couple of minutes early (despite starting late and being oversubscribed). Our daughter made more progress with her us in a weekend in Centre Parks than she has in months at swim. The oversubscribed lessons and late starts/early finishes were the final straw and the service is no longer worth the rather expensive monthly fee.

My sons attended Swim in Oldham and I couldn’t recommend it at all. There was one good teacher who sadly left and the only reason we stuck it out as long as we did.

The lessons are expensive. The teachers change so often that it’s hard for your child to progress. The progress is then very slow. There was a lot of inconsistencies with the teaching. I felt a lot of the lesson wasn’t spent actually swimming and they rarely did a length of the pool.

Staff told me that my son was ready to move up in the next couple of weeks, waited weeks and weeks for somebody to do the assessment only to be told he wasn’t ready to move up. Caused lots of disappointment for my son, and surely the teacher should have been helping to make sure he passed the assessment.

Even after expressing concerns to the management on several occasions there was no improvement. I’m
Sad to think of how much money I’ve wasted considering one of my sons is still unable to swim independently despite all the lessons 😩
I would avoid attending lessons at swim.

My son is 6. He attends the Oldbury centre which I cancelled yesterday. My advise to other parents is do not take your child here. The teachers are constantly changed that we have gone through 5 teachers in 12 months and no progress in his ability to swim. When my son started his lessons with Swim! he was happy to be in the pool but now he hates it, which is disappointing. The last straw was when he had a new teacher who paid more attention to the capable child and my son was paid little attention to the point he actually ended up sinking and being helped by another teacher!!! And there I was thinking they are meant to be developing confidence but unfortunately we had an opposite experience.

I suffered a Christine burn and my 4 month old daughter came out in a rash. I raised this and was told that we could cancel without paying anything else. However they went and took a direct debit out as even though we required medical assistance from 111, we were not entitled to a refund

Our 5-year-old daughter started swimming lessons at this place in Oldham two months ago, and we set up a direct debit as required. Towards the end of the second month, she started getting really upset and said she didn’t want to go anymore, she was crying and clearly not enjoying it.

We spoke with her to try and understand why she didn’t want to go, and through tears she simply said, “I don’t like it.” It was obvious she was distressed, so we decided it was best not to continue.

We cancelled the direct debit five days before the next payment was due and let them know she wouldn’t be coming back. But we were told the payment would still be taken because we were supposed to give 30 days’ notice.

We spoke to the manager and explained everything – how are you meant to give a month’s notice when your child suddenly becomes upset and refuses to go back? It didn’t feel fair at all to be charged for a full month of lessons she wouldn’t even be attending.

The manager even said we’d need a ‘valid reason’ to be considered for a refund – but surely a young child being distressed and in tears is a valid enough reason? There was no empathy or understanding, and they didn’t want to know.

Even if our daughter wants to try swimming again in future, we won’t be returning to this place in Oldham. Poor customer service and an inflexible, unsympathetic approach. Really disappointing.

Terrible experience and still ongoing at Chatham location.
First visit, there was zero staff around to welcome or explain what to do or where to go.
Had to wait 2 months for a correct colour swim hat.
Floors are constantly filthy, after 3 months they finally provided shoe covers, but fail to enforce them.
Never any staff on front desk.
Toilets filthy and constantly have run out of toilet roll.
Hair dryers hardly ever in service. Usually half broken with long queue to use them.
Ceiling tiles all missing for weeks with cables and extractor fans all exposed in roof.
Once passing to level 3 the new teacher seemed disinterested and barely paid any attention to daughter who attending.
Asked to cancel membership on front desk and was told 30 days notice, despite the poor service they refused to budge on this.
Management not willing to accept the cancellation.
Would not recommend swim to anyone.