Find locations that have restarted swimming lessons

A Home Portal account is created when you join online is automatically activated when you make your first booking.

You can log into your Home Portal account by visiting the Better Lessons and Courses website here and logging in with your your email address or barcode and password.

If you have forgotten your password, click the Forgotten your password? link on the Better Lessons and Courses website and you will receive a password reset email to your registered email address.

During times of high volume, you may experience issues logging into your Home Portal account. Please continue to revisit Home Portal and try again, if the system is busy you will be entered into a queueing system which will display your waiting time until you can access the site.

Log in to your Home Portal account and select the "move" option, choose your new lesson and confirm, you will receive an email confirming your booking change.

For the safety of our swim school participants, we have to make a number of changes to our lessons to ensure that we can deliver a Covid-secure service in line with Government guidance. We also want to ensure that our lessons are programmed and structured with our pupils (and parents) in mind.

Children have missed nearly 6 months worth of lessons this year and skills in the pool will have regressed during this period. Our swimming teacher teams will be completing initial assessments to ensure that we can support and develop the skills which need the most focus during the first 4-6 weeks of lessons. All pupils will be assessed against their progress based upon their ability to demonstrate water confidence and achievements against the ability group criteria.

Team Teaching is the approach used where multiple Swimming Teachers work with a class to ensure that all pupils’ needs are met. Rather than one teacher being responsible for one class, teams are led by our Lead Swimming Teachers to ensure that each lesson is flexible and adaptable to what each child needs to develop. This approach helps us increase overall active learning. Pupils will work with the same team of teachers for their class, but may have different teachers working with their group depending on what has been planned by the Lead Swimming Teacher.

Active Learning Time is the measurement we use to assess how much movement and engagement takes place in each lesson. Active learning includes: every time a pupil is moving, swimming and receiving feedback or support. The more active pupils are the more they should progress.

The average ratio for Foundation classes will be 1 Swimming Teacher to 8 pupils. In Development classes this will be 1 to 10. Academy classes 1 to 20.

Progress will be tracked against what children are learning each week by the Lead Swimming Teacher and Teaching Team. The focus during the first 4-6 weeks of lessons restarting is to ensure all children re-learn the basic skills to feel safe and confident in the new normal for swimming lessons. During the first 4-6 weeks, Lead Swimming Teachers will ensure that pupils are working towards the correct awards and are in the correct class for their ability. Pupils will achieve individual awards with each level.

Due to Covid-secure measures, we will not be able to issue physical badges and certificates. You will still see your child’s progress on Home Portal. We are working to develop a digital certificate system to replace physical certificates at this time. More details will be announced in due course.

This is a company policy, as well as being used to reward and recognise the individual's achievements from one ability group to the next.

Swimming is such an essential life saving life skill and drowning is still one of the most common causes in accidental death in children. As well as being an important life skill, swimming is also one of the most healthy and fun activities, improving strength, stamina, flexibility and posture - keeping your child active and happy at the same time.

Creating Covid-secure swimming lessons is a complex and challenging task. We want to make sure that we get the process right for the majority of our customers first before we bring back more of our swimming lesson programmes. We are constantly reviewing our programming and will keep all customers updated on when additional lessons will be brought back.

We have a number of options to help you through this difficult time, please complete a Swim School Cancellation enquiry here to discuss further.

To reactivate your child's lessons, you will need to re-join again. We are accepting new joiners for Better Swim School at participating locations. Click here to find your nearest pool and enrol your child into swimming lessons.

• Each location will need to make an assessment based on whether they can facilitate safe activities and lessons within their facilities. Where they choose for lessons or services to remain suspended, please respect this decision.
• Where lessons are running again, we have communicated via email to inform parents / guardians that lessons will be resuming.
• To find out if your local pool has restarted swimming lessons, enter your location into the green box at the top of this page and click on the checkbox 'Only show locations with current availability'. 
• For the safety of customers and staff and to ensure we can maintain current safety measures, the initial re-start of swimming lessons applies to group lessons for children over 5 years old only.
• Lesson programming for 1-to-1 lessons, pre-school, parent & baby, and adult lessons are currently under review and remain suspended.

• If a location is open and re-starting swimming lessons, we have communicated via email to inform swimming lesson members when their membership freeze will be removed and when lesson payments will restart.
• If a location remains closed in the short-term, members will be advised via email, and lesson payments will remain frozen until we are ready to welcome you back.
• If a location remains closed long-term, members will be advised via email with the opportunity to move to an alternative location nearby.

All customers should arrive 10 minutes before the start time of their lesson in the centre specific Swimming Lesson Waiting Zone. The queue supervisor and centre staff will be on hand to support during the first few weeks to show where this area is and explain the customer journey process.

We ask that all children arrive to the centre with their swimwear underneath clothing such as a tracksuit or onesie (something easy to remove). Once customers are at the Swimming Lesson Drop Off Zone, we will ask all children to ensure they have their swimsuit or trunks, swimming cap and goggles. If for any reason you cannot get your child pool ready before getting to the centre we will have limited areas for them to change.

• To ensure that all parents and/or guardians can social distance while spectating we ask that only one adult accompany a child/children to swimming lessons.
• In some cases, spectating may not be available, but an area elsewhere in the facility will be allocated for you to wait whilst your child’s lesson is taking place.
• If spectating is available, these areas may be existing spectator areas or new areas of the centre, like poolside.
• The Queue Supervisor will explain where these are for each class during the first few weeks.
• We ask that all parents and/or guardians remove shoes when entering poolside to help us maintain a clean poolside.
• Please consider what to wear if spectating on poolside due to the high temperatures.

In line with Government regulations we ask all parents and/or guardians wear a face covering while spectating swimming lessons in centre.

All children and parents and/or guardians will have access to changing rooms after lessons. We ask that all customers keep to the 10 minute allocation to ensure we have time to keep these areas clean and keep our lessons running on time.

The cut off time for all swimming lessons is the start time of the lesson; this is why we ask all customers to arrive 10 minutes before the start time. Queue Supervisors will try to accommodate customers who are late due to circumstances out of their control but this will be dependent upon lesson capacities.

Our new model is designed around our customers to reduce waiting between lessons. You can choose to move your children to times (via Home Portal) that are more convenient for you. Where you have children in different lessons that start 15 minutes apart, both children can be taken to the Swimming Lesson Drop off Zone pool ready. Your child can then either stay with you in the spectator area (if on poolside) or wait on poolside with the Teaching Teams.

The Queue Supervisor will be able to answer any questions you may have about our new lessons.  If you have any questions before your lesson, please complete the contact us form on our website. 

We are following industry guidance to protect our staff from the risk of Covid-19 transmission. We have ensured that additional equipment is available to support children who are non-swimmers or swimming out of their depth. Our Swimming Teachers are trained to deliver all abilities from poolside. As Government guidance is revised we will review our programme to allow our teachers to deliver from the water.

On the home page of your Home Portal account you will be able to hover over pupil name(s) towards the top (task bar) which will allow you to select the option to access barcode. Once selected, you will be able print screen and use via your smart phone or print and bring along with each visit.

The barcode will allow up to 3 swipes per visit to enable pupils and guardians entry within the lesson period.