Our Swim School Story
Steph's Swim School began in 2012, based at Livingwell Leicester, with just 25 swimmers per week, Steph teaching 6 days per week and Charlotte assisting with the administration. A true family run swim school, with Steph and daughter Charlotte working into the evenings to ensure our families had all they needed.
In 2013, we added Livingwell East Midlands to our swim school family, where we welcomed our lovely teachers Rosie and Dave and an additional 75 swimmers per week, Now we have 100 swimmers and wonderful families!
In 2015, We began to teach from Westfield Junior School, Hinckley, where we taught a further 30 swimmers per week and welcomed Rachel onto the team. In 2016 Westfield closed their pool to create a new hall.
Shortly after in 2016, on the search for a replacement venue, we secured 5 days a week at Weavers Primary School, Earl Shilton and due to another pool closing, we welcomed a further 200 swimmers to our family, along with teachers Claire, Victoria, Madison and Kay. In 2017, Weavers pool was closed down due to significant repairs that needed making and a lack of funding.
2017 saw yet further searches for pool time to replace the loss of Weavers and we struck lucky, finding Westgate School in Leicester, Roundhill Academy, Thurmaston and Grace Dieu, Coalville. Across all 3 venues, we welcomed another 150 swimmers through our doors.
Unfortunately, due to rising costs, we left Roundhill and Westgate in 2018. Grace Dieu continued for a further year, in 2019- due to significant pool repairs, we finished our lessons at that venue.
Our shining moment as a swim school, will always remain in the December 2017-January 2018 period. We had to finish our lessons at our first home Livingwell, Leicester in December 2017. As 60% of our swim school were based at that pool, we could not just stand by and watch those swimmers relocate (swimmers that we had taught since being little people and now they're nearly teenagers!) So, we took a huge leap of faith and begun to explore the possibility of building our own pool- the pipe dream of virtually every swim school and swim teacher... We went for it with the gold star service and help from Simon and his team at Cresta Leisure (what an incredible team, they are still supporting us now!) and it is an absolute dream come true! We could not be prouder and more grateful to all the people who helped us get here.
Our pool was shipped from Italy in February and Simon and his team put the pool together within 2 very short, very exciting weeks!
In April 2018, we opened the doors of our Lutterworth pool, we welcome around 500 swimmers through our doors each week and its such an incredible feeling! We are also joined by teachers (there are a few!) Belle (Steph's daughter), Shona, Shei-Lin, Caroline, and our Aquatic helpers Ruby, Sarah and Megan as well as Katie, our fabulous customer care assistant. Other teachers that have featured at this venue are Caitlin, Megan B, Rhia and Lewis (Steph's son) on our reception team.
In October 2020, we sadly said See you soon (We never say goodbye!) to our lovely Megs and Victoria, who have been incredibly dedicated to the Swim School for a number of years and have given us support beyond "Just the job". They will always very much remain a big part of the Swim School and our journey and will be welcomed back at any time by the team and parents that love the bones of them both!
In August 2024 we opened our brand new second pool built within our premises on Gilmorton Road, Lutterworth. This pool now provides lessons for our Fishes and Penguins 1, 2 & 3 stages with our original first pool now providing lessons for our Parent & Baby and our Penguins 3 to 7 stages. This has now given us to opportunity to provide more lessons at convenient times for parents.