I re-trained as a swimming instructor

[cakeyS8rah]

whilst being SAHM thinking it could fit in around school hours. I warn you this is not necessarily the case as the majority of lessons are after school (child care issues) or weekends (loss of family time). There appear to be no pool local to me, privately owned or otherwise, that can be hired at a reasonable cost to do private classes for one-to-one or small classes. I had hoped to teach adults during the day as well as young children. I now have to consider returning to work as a PA so that it fits around school hours. Unless somebody has any great ideas? Or a pool in their garden that they are happy to let me use?! So disappointed.

Did you not research the hours beforehand? My dcs go to puddle ducks classes on a weekend and I always think what anti social hours the instructors work. There are some newborn classes on a week day daytime though- could you do these? On the plus side I think it means they can do the school run with their own dcs, which I as a ft teacher cannot.

I am a bit puzzled, as in the two places where I have lived as a parent there have been lots of baby/toddler classes on in the day.

Local leisure centre?
Put up cards or adverts to attract private clients?

Why did you retrain without checking if it was viable?

Do you have to hire out the whole pool? I'm an adult who would benefit from one to one swimming lessons (can sort of splash my way for a length but not do proper strokes) and would be happy to just go in with an instructor at open swim times, if the pool allowed it. Is that an option?

The problem is, I'm at work during school times - so would need evening or weekend lessons and I'd imagine a lot of people would be in the same boat, so not ideal.

Could you team up with someone else and hire the pool for two groups?

So for example a water babies group in one half, and a different group in the other....maybe deep water aqua fit? And then the mums can do it whilst the littlies have there swimming lesson, two birds with one stone!

I retrained as a swimming teacher when I lived in singapore. There were lots of sahms, mostly expats who couldn't work due to visa issues, and I taught kids 6 months and up, most of my students were around 12-18 months. Everyone had a pool or access to one and we swam outside year round. One of the reasons I trained was the huge demand. I turned people away every week because. I only wanted to work 4 days a week and during the school day so I didn't need childcare.

Now I live in the USA and mums tend to work. I have given up teaching swimming because it's not economically viable to fork out for childcare when I would be teaching (my dh travels a lot so couldn't rely on him every weekend). Also the professional liability insurance here is cripplingly expensive for swimming teachers!

Speak to private pool owners (health clubs etc) and find an angle, whether you specialize in fearful adults, babies, children with sn etc and add on training accordingly. Or could you teach lessons for schools? I know it's part of the curriculum in the UK but not all pe teachers are swimming teachers .... Not sure how you would get into this but it might be worth exploring?

Private school with sports centre, therapy pools , council run leisure centre, gyms/health clubs?

Plus you could offer aqua aerobics or swim fit type classes for mums who equally are limited to school hours.

My 3 yr old has swimming lessons on a weekday morning at a local school - they hire the pool out to the instructors. It's not even a private school although all of the private schools in our area also have swimming pools they hire out.