Neptune’s Learn to Swim are our Swim School Member of the Month

Each month, we highlight the work of Swim School members from around the country and what makes their Swim School successful. Here is the story of August’s Swim School Member of the Month, Neptune’s Learn to Swim in Kidderminster.

Neptune’s Learn to Swim started in September 2000 and, from the beginning, it has been very much a family-run business.

Tracy Darkes and her son, Reiss (pictured below), are at the helm of everything.

The business began by offering 30-minute lessons and had only two swimmers per week.

They have since expanded over the years and now offer 35 hours worth of lessons to more than 550 swimmers each week.

Tracy and her team pride themselves on knowing every child and their parents and carers.

Staff members are extremely committed to providing high-quality lessons and are always looking for new and innovative ways to make their lessons more fun, whilst still structured.

Neptune’s hold an annual gala for the swimmers on their programme as an end-of-year incentive to encourage the children to keep swimming.

They also offer a club wide ‘Swimmer of the Month’ award where the chosen swimmer gets to keep a trophy to further motivate and encourage other learners.

Over the years, Neptune’s has built up a fantastic customer base from all over the local area, mainly through word of mouth recommendations.

Creating happy, strong and competent swimmers

The Swim England Learn to Swim Programme is followed across all of Neptune’s lessons, with the mantra that they believe children being happy, confident and enjoying being in the water is far more important than “moving up a group”.

Neptune’s has always tried to avoid pushing children from ‘badge to badge’ and ensure that swimmers are strong and confident before moving them on to the next stage of the Learn to Swim Programme.

The team has worked tirelessly over the years to create networks with their local area and local swimming clubs.

So when a child expresses an interest in competitive swimming and they are ready, the team try to find them a suitable club.

Tracy said: “We recently set up our own academy, giving our more able swimmers who do not want to compete an opportunity to swim for fitness, or to learn lifesaving skills through the RLSS Rookie Lifeguard Award.

“Our academy also provide one-to-one sessions for both adult beginners and children who might not suit group lessons.

“We aim to provide swimmers of all abilities a safe, effective and rewarding place to swim.

“Being in business for this long hasn’t been easy, but seeing our swimmers still achieving and enjoying their lessons after all this time makes it all worth it.”

For more information about Neptune’s Learn to Swim, you can contact Tracy or Reiss at [email protected] or by calling 07905 000408.

For more information about Swim England Swim School Membership, visit our page on the Teaching Hub.