Helping You Navigate Your Swimming Journey!
We know you might have questions about our lessons, teaching approach, and what to expect at Stollies Swim Academy. That’s why we’ve put together this handy FAQ section to give you all the details you need! Whether you’re wondering about booking, lesson structure, or what to bring, you’ll find the answers here. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to contact us—we’re happy to help!
You can email us at [email protected] with your child’s details and your preferences or you can click the link on the website.
A maximum of two children per one staff member for 221 classes or we also offer 121 lessons
A maximum of 6 parents to 1 teacher for our parent and child lessons and a ration of 8 swimmers to 2 teachers for our squad lessons.
Each lesson is 30 minutes long apart from our Squad lessons which are 45 minutes long.
We do indeed, we offer 121 SEND lessons, these lessons are personalised to your child’s needs.
From 2.5 years when your child is with a teacher, they will need appropriate swim wear, a towel and a pair of goggles, a hat will be supplied on their first lesson.
For parent and child lessons we ask that children are double layered with a swim nappy and then suitable swimwear on top, they will need a towel and any comforter they may need once they are out of the water, a changing mat is supplied on site.
At Stollies we don’t use any buoyancy aids instead our teachers are trained to be in the water with the children, to support them manually so that they don’t rely on swimming aids, children learn much faster with this approach to learning.
At Stollies we have created a bespoke award scheme that is a mixture of learning to swim each stroke, building stamina with swim distances and installing safety elements into each award which is vital for giving children the knowledge and skills to be safe in and around water from such a young age.
All our staff at Stollies are “STA” or “Swim England” qualified and hold an up-to-date DBS.
Each venue differs slightly- please see below.
At Hitchin parents can watch from a viewing room above the pool
At Steeple Morden parents can watch on poolside every week.
At The Pool House, there are floor to ceiling windows you can watch every week from outside, we also have a watching week rota where parents can watch from inside.
Your child doesn’t need to have any experience at all, our first award is all about building up their water confidence, our trained teachers will access your child on their first lesson to see what award they should be put on?
The price of the lessons differs depending on the time your child swims and the class size they are in, this can all be discussed with you once we have your enquiry information. Here is our general pricing structure:
- Peak 121- £125 per month, per child
- Peak 221- £75 per month per child.
- Off peak 121- £115 per month per child.
- Off peak 221- £70 per month per child.
- SEND lessons- £105 per month per child.
- Parent and Child lessons – £55 per month per child.
The upfront fee secures your space and is held on your account and acts as a swim out period when you decide to leave.
We have 3 venues:
Hitchin is 10m x 4m
The pool house 10m x 4m
Steeple Morden is 12m x 5m
All our pool venues have a maximum of 4 teachers and 8 children in at one and our Steeple Morden venue has a maximum of 4 teachers and 8 children in at one time.
We aim to keep all our pools between 30-32c
At Stollies we have a parent portal, through this you can track your child’s progress and also cancel your child’s upcoming lesson if needed, if the lesson is cancelled 24 hours before your account will automatically be credited with a ‘pending’ catch-up lesson that will activate once you have missed the lesson. Please note the catch-up lessons hold no monetary value but are a gesture of goodwill.
If on the rare occasion we have a pool or staff issue and we must cancel your lesson, your account will be credited with a make-up, our customer care team will do their upmost to find another class you can get booked onto.
You can email [email protected] and our customer care team will gladly help you move into a different space subject to availability.
We run for 42 weeks of the year, we close 2 weeks at Easter, 6 weeks at summer and 2 weeks at Christmas, we still run on bank holidays and run additional crash courses over the summer holidays that can be booked at an additional cost.
Each of our sites have onsite parking, a parking map will be sent to you with your welcome pack for the venue you are swimming at.