The Richmond Hill Swim Club

"Very professional and great instructors for our little swimmer"

"Great coaches.. great facility.. awesome learning environment.. my child wants to do more instead of just staying home and playing games.. this is what really sold me"

"I cannot recommend the group instruction at this pool. My daughter took 3 private lessons here in May and had a wonderful experience. She is 5 years old. We then signed up for group lessons and took Swim 3 as recommended by her private instructor, in June. There were 4 lessons total and they never practiced the same thing twice during those lessons. There were no objectives stated and no mention of a skills test on lesson 4. They never even swam half the pool length during the first 3 lessons. However, on lesson 4 they were expected to swim 3/4 of the pool length in order to pass. She found this out when she jumped in the pool during lesson 4. Had I been notified as a parent that this was going to be a requirement I could have worked with her on it in our neighborhood pool. Instead she was told she had to repeat the class. I chalked it up to a bad instructor and moved on even though I was pretty upset. Now she doesn't want swim lessons from anyone because of the negative experience. I then spoke to other families , that had children also take group lessons here, at different times, with the exact same experience. I decided I should let the swim club know so I emailed them today. What follows is the exchange that took place. I sent an email and this was the response ______________________________________________________________________ I will comment that generally there is a progression where the kids will swim halfway and then immediately turnaround to swim the other way in order to build their endurance. The instructors will push the kids to then swim almost 3/4 the the next lesson if the instructor/ child is confident in their skills. Swim 3 is a difficult class whereas the swimmers are taught more technique work on freestyle and new skills of backstroke and treading water. Repeating Swim 3 is normal because of having to master all these skills. However, I will be looking into this class and speaking to the instructors who taught it prior to contacting you with an additional follow up. We, in no way, want a child to feel bad about themselves in our environment as everyone learns at a different pace. ______________________________________________________________________ Me: This was the June class and this never happened ______________________________________________________________________ We just completed our July Saturday classes, so I was guessing that XXXXXX was a part of those classes. I am not in the office yet to look at her paperwork. At this point due to the lessons in question being over a month ago, I will talk to my staff as a reminder of certain skill sets that are expected in each level. It will be difficult for them to recall how a class went that occured over a month ago as they were at least teaching 5 clases a day with a different sets of kids for the month of June. I won't be able to get any specific feedback on how the class was run due to the timeframe. I apologise that you are unsatisfied with how the lesson went as I can only go off of the information you provided me. Our staff of swim instructors are all Water Safety Certified and have always performed and taught well. It is regretfull that this was apparently lacking in XXXXX case. We appreciate your business, and are deeply sorry about your negative experience. _____________________________________________________________________ Me: Unfortunately we have spoken to others that have had the exact same experiences at different times so it seems to be an instructor issue _____________________________________________________________________ Is this your first time contacting the Swim Club about this issue? It is hard to get the viewpoint from the instructors on the class when the class occured over a month ago. And others in the class? I feel that this issue could have been resolved better if our business was contacted first or sooner. None the less, I will take your word as a customer and look into this. ________________________________________________________________________ I copied this directly from the email thread"

"My favorite place to swim and since its a heated pool, you can swim all year round for $5 per person- if you can stand the cold when you get out. The only advice I'd give you is to call ahead to make sure that the general public swimming time didn't change at the last minute."

"The water aerobics was a real workout. It's not your typical bounce up & down, sway side to side kind of movement. Just try it & you won't be disappointed. The instructor and the member's were nice & helpful. I couldn't get the coordination going at first but everybody was willing to help. I also stayed to swim laps. One lane was open & I was the only one in the lane. It gets busy at times so check before you come in. The price is reasonable. I'll definitely come back."