lessons

Welcome to Winchester City Penguins Swim School. We are proud to be a well respected swim school that has been delivering highly effective and enjoyable swimming lessons to local children and adults for over 70 years.

We are unique because

We provide lessons to swimmers from as young as 1½ years of age, up to adults

We cater for all ages and abilities. Our programme is broken down into 9 different stages and provides a pathway which enables the non swimmer to start with us and progress up to eventually joining either a competitive squad or social swim programme if they choose to.

We have low teacher to student ratios

With a maximum of 5 to a class for our Learn To Swim, the highest ratio we provide is 1:5. In our Stage 1 and 2 lessons, we also deploy our Aquatic Assistants under the direction of the class teacher, making the ratio 1:2.

We offer small class sizes

Our lessons will be limited to a maximum of five swimmers per class for our Learn To Swim (Stage 1 to 5), with numbers increasing to a maximum of just six for our advanced lessons at Stage 6 and above.

Our lessons are affordable

Our 30-minute lessons are ONLY £13.50 each!

No rolling contract

You only need to sign up for one term at a time. We do not run our termly lessons over the Easter, Summer and Christmas break – so you aren`t tied in to paying for lesson over the holiday period which you may not be able to attend! However you are still welcome to sign up to our holiday courses if you would like to continue to swim.

We are accredited

We are the only swim school in Winchester awarded with Swim England Swim Mark Accreditation – which recognises excellence in governance, sustainability and effectiveness. Swim England describes our lessons programme as delivering the best possible Learn to Swim experience for all!

Our programme is inclusive

By employing a number of teaching assistants to work alongside our lead teachers in the water, we are able to adapt sessions around the needs of individual swimmers.

We have qualified instructors

Our Lead Instructors are fully qualified instructors. Lead teachers are often assisted by trainee teachers. Many of our lessons swimmers progress through our lessons programme to become swim teachers themselves.

We offer a personal service

We have a supervisor present at every session to assist with any queries you may have. They oversee each session and ensure swimmers are in the correct classes for their ability.

We are a charity

We are a registered charity, committed to leading the way in offering accessible swimming lessons to the members of our local community.

Look out for us on poolside

james swatton

LESSONS MANAGER

James is a highly-experienced swimming teacher in his own right, who began his involvement in local swimming lessons when he was a 17-year-old college student. Since then, James has gone on to sit his Level 2 teaching qualifications and spent more than five years teaching full-time, so you know your queries will be answered by someone who truly understands swimming lessons.

James takes great pride in the provision of our swimming lessons and works tirelessly to ensure the programme is running smoothly, as he feels few things can be as rewarding as tracking the progress of a young swimmer. James is keen to continue mentoring young teachers as we look forward to nurturing the next generation of swimmers.

What our customers think

“The adult ratio was excellent and Lucas really enjoyed himself. He actually said the timings were shorter, which means he clearly had fun and time flew by as it’s the same length of his normal lessons”


lessons, learn to swim, lts