Social Enterprise that is providing access to warm water pools for the community's benefit.

Summer Swim School

Covid-19 Update for Swimmers

Dear parents and carers

I am writing to update everyone on our proposed plans to reopen swimming lessons here at Neptune. I must stress that at time of writing, we have not been given any further updates from the government with proposed dates however, following our recent survey and prolonged talks with our staff, we have been able to put a formal plan together. 

Background

We recently ran a survey for our customers and received responses from a large proportion of our swim school. Of those responses, 65% of customers indicated that they would prefer us to run lessons over the summer holiday (2020 only). We have spent the last few weeks working on ways we could bring a fully functioning swim school back and in simple terms, we can’t. Firstly, we will have to reduce the number of swimmers we can have in the pool at any one time together with supplying additional members of staff to facilitate stricter cleaning procedures. 35% of the swim school survey submissions have also said they did not want to return to lessons until September. When taking into consideration all these factors, the only feasible outcome would be to increase our fees by a considerable amount. This is something we do not want to do! Due to this, we have devised the following plan to give our customers a few options for their swimmer/s going forward. 

Solutions

For those swimmers who would like to swim over the summer holiday period, we will be offering a Summer Swim Program (2020 only). There are 2 parts to this program: 

  • Summer Swim School;
  • Crash courses.

Summer Swim School

This program will run at the same time and day each week throughout the summer holidays. This will give swimmers the ability to have a weekly swimming lesson just like during normal term time. Unfortunately, we are restricted on which venues, days and times we can hire facilities so this may mean your swimmer will need to change their day/time for the Summer Swim School. They will be able to return to their pre-existing slot in September. 


Summer Swim School lessons will run out of:


  • Starfish Hydrotherapy Pool, Chippenham;
  • First Step, Corsham;
  • Wyvern Hydrotherapy Pool, Weymouth;
  • Ashwicke Hall, Colerne.

 

Unfortunately Stonar School has informed us they will not be opening until September.


We are continuing to develop the timetable for the summer along with our teaching teams, this will be circulated to you all as soon as possible. Presently, we are only able to offer our Summer Swim School to swimmers who are in the Ducklings class and above. We are currently in discussions with our parent and baby teachers as to how we can offer the swimmer program to our baby swimmers. We will update you on this as soon as possible. Unfortunately, at this point we will not be able to accept any new swimmers onto the summer holiday lessons. These are purely for existing customers only.

Crash Courses

We are also looking to run a range of one week, intensive Crash Course lessons. These will be run over either a 4 or 5 day block and will enable swimmers to have one lesson per day. These Crash Courses will run from Starfish Hydro Pool and Ashwicke Hall School only. These lessons are suitable for Ducklings upwards and have always proven popular when we have run them in the past. 

Other rules we will be putting in place

It goes without saying that returning to “Life as normal” is near impossible at the moment and this couldn’t be more true for swimming pools. Social distancing, lots of touch points and extra cleaning are some of the big barriers we’re facing with returning to the pool. With this in mind, the structure of our swimming lessons will have to change. Many hours of research, planning and discussions with governing bodies have enabled us to reach the following decisions. 

During the summer months, class sizes at Neptune will be lowered from 6 children, to a maximum of 4 children per class. We all know that social distancing with children is extremely tricky, so this will enable us to provide our swimmers with more space within the teaching areas.

Our lessons will now run for 25 minutes. The drop in time allows us time to fully clean equipment between lessons, allow us extra time to get swimmers out of the pool safely whilst social distancing and will aim to reduce crowding on the poolside. 

We love welcoming our parents and carers to watch their swimmers progress. Our teachers build good relationships with our swimmers and their grown ups and it’s very much part of Neptune’s ethos. Unfortunately, like many things at the moment, this will need to change (hopefully only for a short period of time). We will be asking that only one grown up per family accompanies their swimmer/s to the pool. This will help us to reduce the number of people on poolside and aid with social distancing, especially at our smaller venues. We have also been advised that our teachers must reduce the amount of face to face time with customers. Can we respectfully ask that if you wish to ask your teacher any questions or have any comments that you send a message via the portal and they will respond to you as soon as they can.

Possibly the biggest change that we are asking is, wherever possible, swimmers should attend their lessons “beach ready”. This means swimming kit on, loose clothing over the top with easily removable footwear such as crocs or sandals. This will allow swimmers to simply remove their top layer on the poolside and be ready to enter the pool. Having the swimmers “beach ready” will greatly reduce the amount of people in the changing areas. The changing rooms will then be used for wet swimmers only. We appreciate this isn’t always going to be possible especially for swimmers who arrive straight from school. You will of course have access to the changing facilities however, the more customers that are able to arrive “beach ready” the better! 

There will be further details about new rules and procedures which swimmers and the swim school have to adhere to shortly inline with our governing body recommendations. We hope that many of these procedures are merely temporary and we can begin to move away from the stricter guidelines soon. 

Fees

As we are yet to receive the go ahead from the government, we are unable to give full details on the fees for both the Summer Swim School or the Crash Courses. This is purely because we do not know what date we will be able to open. 

If you wish to retain your space on the swim school but do not wish to return to swimming until September, your £2 payments will continue upto and including the 1st August payment. Following the August Direct Debit, the amount will return to normal in readiness to restart our classes in September. 

Fees for September onwards are currently under review and we will inform customers as soon as possible.

We appreciate that it can be difficult for customers to make an informed decision on whether they wish to swim during the summer when we are unable to give a firm price. We are doing all we can to keep our prices as affordable as possible. The prices will reflect any monies that we were paid during April when there were no swimming lessons.

What will happen next?

As with many industries in the country, we are playing a waiting game. The government has given an estimated date for leisure facilities to be able to re-open on the 4th July. This is subject to change. Neptune also has to work in conjunction with the pools we hire to negotiate a reopening date for our lessons. These talks are well underway and we are currently producing our Covid-19 Policies and risk assessments. What we would like now, is for our customers to let us know their preference moving forward from the options listed below:

Your swimmer/s would like a place on the Summer Swim School as long as the day/time/venues are suitable;
Your swimmer/s would be interested in attending a Crash Course as long as the date and venue are suitable; 
Your swimmer/s does not wish to return to lessons until September.

To indicate your preference please follow the link to an online response form. It’s very quick to complete and it will give Steph all the information she needs to create the programmes for both the Crash Courses and the Summer Swim School. If your swimmer is interested in doing both, please complete the form twice with each preference selected.
Summer Swim School Interest Form
Once we have further instructions from the government, our National Governing Bodies and the pools we wish to hire, we will contact all customers who have opted to swim on the Summer Swim School or Crash Courses with the classes we can offer you. You will then be able to confirm and your booking will be complete. If your swimmer/s will not be starting lessons again until September, lessons will resume from Monday 7th September. 

We would like to extend our huge thanks to all our valued customers for their patience and kind words of support over the last three months. These are unprecedented times of uncertainty and we are all desperate to be able to provide swimming lessons for all our swimmers who no doubt are missing being in the pool too. If you don’t already, please keep an eye on our Facebook page as we are still posting updates and some fun things from our staff. 

Steph Westbrook
Director of Aquatics 

F&Q's

  • Is it safe for my child to swim if they are not back at school?

    Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Neptune has sought advice from many advisory boards as to whether swimming is a safe activity to resume. Although we have yet to have the official word from the government regarding open dates, science has always supported that COVID-19 becomes ineffective in chlorine, therefore non transmittable. With social distancing and effective cleaning of equipment and the surrounding areas, it is safe for the public to resume swimming. 


  • Can I bring siblings to lessons if I have no option for child care?

    Yes parents and carers can bring siblings to lessons as normal however, we politely request that they remain with you at all times and adhere to social distancing the best we can.

  • Will my child be able to use the toilet if needed?

    Yes all toilets at our facilities are operational. We ask that where in place, swimmers follow any one way flow systems to access the toilets. As with normal lessons, please encourage your child to use the toilet before lessons, ideally at home. 

  • Will my child have the same class teacher as before?

    During the Summer Swim School and Crash Courses it may not be possible for your child to have the same teacher as they do during term time. This is due to us working with a skeletal staffing team. We will aim to send out short biographies and photos of our teachers just in case it’s someone you don’t know. As with normal term time lessons, a lead teacher will be teaching everyday if you have any questions.

  • Will my child earn any badges during the Summer Swim School?

    Yes they certainly can! Our teachers will have access to their tablets during lessons and will be completing their grading as normal. We do ask that you remain patient with this, as our teachers are having to adapt to some huge changes in their job roles so grading may take a little longer than expected. We can’t wait to get some more of our Superstar Swimmer Certificates awarded!

  • Will teachers have masks and gloves when working with my child?

    No. Our governing bodies have made it clear that teachers do not need to use any form of PPE whilst delivering lessons. You will find that the teacher may support your child in different ways to what we did before. This will be less tactile and utilise equipment as a social distancing aid. An example of this would be the swimmer holding one end of a float with their arms extended and the teacher holding the other end with their arms extended. This is still offering support in a physical manner, but far less tactile.

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