British Swim School

My son is 7 & has been taking lessons with the British Swim School for 10 months. We love his instructor Houston & have stayed with the British Swim School primarily because of him. 90% of the instructors here are great & I highly recommend bringing your young one here for lessons.

My three year old son takes lessons at the East Lakeview Location which is at a FFC. His current teacher is Coach Houston and we could not be happier. It took my son a few classes to get comfortable in the water. Coach H is incredibly patient. I can’t believe how far my son has come in just a few lessons.

I went to our first class excited to have a fun experience with my 10 month old baby girl. What we had instead was exhausting, frustrating, and disappointing. The swim classes are held at the pools inside Formula Fitness Clubs (FFC). And while the facilities themselves are nice, they are nice as a club for adults. They are NOT in any means set up for infants. At this location, there is only one Family room in the pool area. This family room has only one changing table. ONE! For a single class with at least 5 babies, you’ll have to wait your turn while you and your baby shiver. The floor was and changing table were wet and disgusting. The instructor suggested I go up the flight of stairs (sopping wet with baby in tow) to the ladies locker room. Ok, so I go upstairs to the locker room, and while perfectly nice for adults, there is no where to change a baby, unless you’d like to change your baby on the floor or a wood bench. Going back down to the pool area, other moms are haphazardly changing their babies on equipment baskets or chairs.
I’m sorry but its simply unacceptable. The set up for babies is as if this was the first class and they were completely unprepared, or perhaps haven’t the faintest idea of what is required when changing a wet chilly baby, then also having to change yourself. I toured Foss swim school on Ashland in Lakeview. The facilities were remarkable. The price was more than double, however, but I suppose you get what you pay for. I cancelled my remaining lessons. Thankfully British at least honored the refund for my remaining classes, but I never received a call from a manager to ackhnowledge my concerns.

We found out about this school through a friend who takes her girls for lessons. I decided to take my 2 boys and found a groupon for 6 classes. We have just started but so far it looks like my boys are enjoying the classes. I read some negative reviews about a closed location and am hoping we will not have the same experience. The teachers seemed very nice and my kids likes them, but I had to ask what their names were because they didn’t introduce themselves to me or my husband.
The main reason I am not giving them five stars however, is because the first time we went, I had to figure out a lot of things on my own. I made it a point to tell the staff we were new and it was our first lesson, but I would have appreciated a bit more info on where we could change (like someone pointing out the tents that were setup). also, I had no idea there was a changing table in the handicap shower by the pool. I quickly changed my little one out of his swimming diaper with the help of my husband by the pool because I had been told by the BSS staff as well as the FFC gym staff that I would not be able to take my boys with me into the ladies locker room. I only discovered the changing table afterwards when I took my older son into the shower to get him changed. Not a huge deal but still, when you know someone is new, some helpful info about where to go and what to do would be nice!