Shefford Swim School
Please take your time to read through our terms and conditions carefully. By signing up to lessons with Shefford Swim School, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions set out below.
Definitions of words used in the Terms and Conditions
Shefford Swim School
, We, Us Shefford Swim School
You - the customer
Guardian - a person other than the parent who brings the child to
the lesson
Provisional booking a space which is held for the swimmer without
payment
Booking Conditions
We can provisionally book you into a class and hold the space for the maximum of 24 hours upon receipt of your booking confirmation. You must complete the direct debit mandate emailed to you within 24 hours of making the provisional booking.
You can place yourself on a waiting list for another time and day. However this does not guarantee you will be allocated this space. Payment must be made on the agreed date each calendar month. Failure to do so will result in your space(s) being taken by a swimmer on our waiting list.
Payment Conditions
Your first payment will be taken by direct debit within 5 working days of completing the direct debit mandate. Your first payment will ensure you have enough credit in your account to ensure you are always paying for lessons in advance, your first payment may be up to 8 lesson fees. Your initial payment will also include a £20.00 membership fee.
Membership fee will be charged annually at £20.00.
If your payment fails for any reason, this may result in you losing your space or a charge may be added to your bill.
Further payments are accepted by direct debit only.
Direct Debit subscriptions pay for 3.5 lessons per monthly transaction (12 months x 3.5 = 42 lessons per annum) and will begin after your upfront payment. Your subscription date will be the 1st of each month and the first date will be given to you upon sign up.
A receipt can be requested but is not given out at the time of payment.
An email will be sent to confirm booking with details of the class enrolled for.
Late payments or missed payments may incur a £10.00 charge. Refunds will be given if any payment is taken in error and in accordance to the Direct Debit Guarantee.
Prices may change with a minimum of 4 weeks notice given and these changes will be communicated by email and text to all customers.
Direct Debit Payments
By completing the direct debit mandate, you are allowing Shefford Swim School to take automatic payments for your swimmers lessons until such time you cancel this authorisation.
The email address you register your direct debit with must also be on record with your booking. This is your payment reference and failure to ensure we have the correct email address may mean your payment is delayed or missed being recorded.
Shefford Swim School will notify you when signing up to your parent portal the initial payment and reoccurring payment amounts, as well as verbally by phone. This will also detail the agreed payment dates.
The amount taken from your account will reflect your total lesson cost over 42 weeks (the total number of weeks Shefford Swim School run lessons annually). This cost will be broken down in to 12 equal monthly payments, meaning each monthly fee pays for 3.5 lessons.
After your initial payment, subscriptions will be made on or just after the 1st of each calendar month. This date will be agreed with you upon signing up.
Any discounts or credits agreed with Shefford Swim School will be applied to your direct debit payment. These will have no cash value. Any late or missed payments may incur a late payment charge of £10 and could result in your swimmer losing their space.
Lesson Conditions
All classes are 30 minutes long, and run for 42 weeks a year. We reserve the right to cancel classes due to unforeseen circumstances, if a lesson is cancelled we will offer a Make Up class.
Lessons will be taught by teachers who are trained in how to deliver Shefford Swim School’s approach and teaching scheme. All teachers are DBS checked.
During the lessons the swimmers parents/ guardian must be within the vicinity for the duration of the lesson.
All customers must respect and follow the rules of the site you are swimming at. Complaints made about swimmers to us could result in losing your space at Shefford Swim School.
Whilst we always try to ensure you have the same teacher, Shefford Swim School reserve the right to change your swimmers teacher at anytime to suit operational needs. This includes reasons such as but not limited to: illness, leave, personal reasons or swimmer pairings. This will not affect your lesson day or time without prior agreement with you.
Changing, Cancelling or Suspending Classes
You can change your time and day of lesson, to suit you. Subject to availabilities.
We can suspend your classes due to exceptional circumstances, however we can only hold the space(s) you are suspending. This must be sent in writing.
If you miss a class for any reason, and do not remove yourself using your parent portal including acts beyond your control, you are not entitled to a refund or a catch up class. This class is lost.
Only swimmers which remove themselves from their class via the parent portal, giving 24 hours notice of a class that is to be missed, will be entitled to a catch up class. A credit will automatically be added to your account when you remove yourself from your lesson. Catch up classes are subject to availability and outside the control of Shefford Swim School.
To cancel your swimming lesson with Shefford Swim School, you must put your request in writing to TBC or via the contact us section of our website with a minimum of 7 working days before your next subscription date. Requests after this date may result you in being charged another monthly fee.
Once we have received your written request, we will confirm your final lesson date within 7 days.
Your final lesson date will be given to you in writing by our Accounts team and is based on when your account balance reaches £0-00.
If Shefford Swim School have to cancel lessons for any reason, we will notify you as soon as possible by as many means as possible in the circumstances. This may be via phone, text and/or email.
For any classes that are cancelled by Shefford Swim School, through no fault of their own, will be offered as make up lessons for up to 1 year after the date of the cancellation. After this period of time has passed and if Shefford Swim School have failed to offer a suitable make up lesson, a full refund for the cost of the cancelled lesson will be provided.
Early Termination
If, for any reason, a customer does not wish to see out their notice period with Shefford Swim School – they do have the option to request an early termination of the contract.
This would mean Shefford Swim School would look to find a new swimmer to take your place and once this has been done, you will be entitled to any remaining credit from the date the new swimmer started being refunded, minus a 20% early termination charge.
Shefford Swim School cannot guarantee any swimmer that we will be able to fill their space in order for them to terminate their contract early.
Catch Up Class Policy
To qualify for a catch up class you must give 24 hours notice and remove yourself from your lesson via the parent portal. Availability for catch up classes is found on your parent portal. This will show all classes at your swimmers age, level and lesson type.
Catch up classes should be booked via the online portal.
Catch up classes are offered on a first come, first serve basis. Catch up classes are a gesture of good will. Fees cannot be transferred over or refunded if a suitable catch up cannot be found.
It is the parent responsibility to book a catch up session.
If no catch up class can be found then the missed class is lost. Shefford Swim School can only accept a booking for a catch up class if the level and age of your swimmer suitable matches that of the other child in the class.
If a catch up class has been booked in a ‘vacant’ space (i.e no swimmer is currently enrolled rather than being absent for the week) and Shefford Swim School subsequently take a booking for the class, all catch ups booked will be auotmatically cancelled and a credit added back to your account.
Catch up classes expire after 3 months if not utilised.
Catch up classes can only be taken whilst swimmers have an active account, any catch ups not used when a swimmer leaves will be lost.
Swimwear
Swimmers must wear appropriate swimwear at all times. Swimmers ‘potty training’ or that are under 3 must wear a swim nappy at all times.
No Jewellery, make up, hair products to been worn in the pool. Swim hats must be worn at all times.
Parents must supply the swimmers goggles.
Behaviour
We reserve the right to remove a swimmer from the lesson if their behaviour is affecting the smooth running of the class. Swimmers of all ages must be accompanied to lessons by their adult carers and handed over to their teacher. At no point should swimmers be left unsupervised.
All swimmers and parents must follow any site specific rules at the Shefford Swim School. This will be communicated to you by the Sales team upon sign up. We ask all parents to wait in the designated waiting room during lessons to ensure we know where to find you in the event of any incident.
Photography
If you wish to take video or photography of lessons you must adhere to our strict terms.
You are only permitted to photograph or video your own child. Without prior agreement, you may not have any other swimmer, teacher, members of the public or customers in the photo or video. Shefford Swim School and parents reserve the right to ask to see any photo or video taken to confirm that our terms have been adhered to. If there is any concern and you have not met our terms then we reserve the right to ask you to delete the media.
Please remain sensitive to other customers wishes and stop filming if asked to.
Shefford Swim School forbid any photo or video content to be used to reproduce content of our lessons.
In all instances, the decision of Shefford Swim School staff is final.
If any venue has its own photography and/or media policy, this will supersede all Shefford Swim School terms on photography and video.
Health and Safety
You must not bring your child swimming if they have any illness that could be spread to other swimmers or teachers. Please do not bring your children to lessons for 48 hours if they have been suffering from sickness or diarrhoea.
We recommend changing your baby on the floor on a suitable changing mat. We do not recommend any raised areas such as benches or tables. This is to prevent babies from rolling on to the floor from high surfaces. Shefford Swim School cannot take responsibility for any injuries if customer choose to use the changing tables provided by certain facilities.
It is the responsibility of the parent to disclose to Shefford Swim School any condition that could impact your child’s capabilities in the pool.
Safeguarding
Shefford Swim School want to provide a fun, safe and happy environment for all their swimmers. We therefore as a company adopt the Swim England policy for safeguarding children – Wavepower.
For full details on the policy, please see the link below. We encourage all parents, guardians and anyone involved in your children’s swimming journey to take the time to read this document to help us safeguard our swimmers. http://www.swimming.org/swimengland/wavepower-child-safeguarding-for-clubs/
Lost Property
All property left within any pool building or grounds including but not limited to: car park, entrance, spectators’ area, changing rooms and poolside area, is left at your own risk. Please ensure you have all your belongings with you before you leave.
Any lost property found will either be kept by Shefford Swim School for up to 3 weeks or given to the swimming venue. If not claimed, these items may be disposed of and Shefford Swim School cannot be held liable.
Swim Scheme and Progression
Our swim scheme is designed around children learning to swim in a natural way. There will be no use of swim aids to teach your child to learn to swim.
Children in semi private lessons will be paired based on their age and ability as closely as possible unless you request otherwise. There may be some difference between swimmers levels and Shefford Swim School will continually monitor this and discuss progress with their teacher. Lessons may be changed subject to availability.
Shefford Swim School cannot predict the rate at which any child will progress or learn to swim. All children learn at different speeds.
Data Protection and Privacy
In order to book lessons with Shefford Swim School, we will require you to register your details and your child(ren) with us.
This information is for sole us by Shefford Swim School and will not be shared with any third parties unless required to do so for the booking process or where we are legally required.
Data
We currently hold the following data about you and the swimmer that attends our classes.
All data above is stored on our own secure server and only Shefford Swim School staff have access to this data.
Use of Data
We store your data for a service reasons, rather than promotional. The following data is used for:
We have always welcomed customers contacting us to check what information we hold and change it as they see fit – this will continue and is best done by contacting your site manager.
From time to time, we may send you some offers and discounts specific to Shefford Swim School services that may have legitimate interest to you. If at anytime you feel these offers are not, please contact our operations manager who can discuss this with you.
Data Sharing
We do not share any of your personal information with any other business or company.
Promotions
We do not send out other promotions or offers for any other companies or businesses to your phone number or email address. These offers may be posted on our Facebook page from time to time, if you’re interested – please give us a like!
Opt In or Opt Out?
As a customer you are not needed to opt in or out of any of our services. However when you leave Shefford Swim School as a customer, we are required to keep your data safe. You can choose to stay on our mailing list or opt out by asking us to remove you from our database.
Offers and Discounts
There will be a selection of offers and discounts for new and existing swimmers but these are subject to availability and will have their own terms and conditions. New swimmers are defined as children that have never had a lesson with Shefford Swim School before. Recommend-a-friend credit is an on-going offer from Shefford Swim School. Any existing customer that introduces a new customer to Shefford Swim School classes will see both awarded £10 credit towards future payments.
Shefford Swim School reserves the rights to cancel or withdraw offers as they see fit.
All offers, discounts and promotions are subject to availability.
Complaints Procedure
If, for any reason, you are not happy with any aspect of Shefford Swim School lessons or service. Please email or phone the Team.
If the response from your support team is not satisfactory, please forward a written copy of your complaint to mike@sheffordswimschool.co.uk.
We reserve the right to change our terms and conditions at anytime. This will take effect from the time it is posted on our website. It will be communicated to all swimmers if applicable.
Competition Terms & Conditions
Introduction
By participating in the competition you are agreeing to these competition terms and conditions. The competition is being run by Shefford Swim School.
Eligibility to Enter
The competition is open to entrants over 18 years of age. Shefford Swim School employees and associates are excluded from the draw.
By entering the competition, you confirm that you are eligible to do so and that you are eligible to receive any prizes that may be awarded to you.
There is a limit of one entry per person and the competition is completely free to enter.
The Prize
The use of specific brands as prizes by Shefford Swim School does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement of such brands.
The prize is non-transferable and non-exchangeable, and no cash alternatives will be provided.
We reserve the right to substitute prizes of equal or greater value if circumstances beyond our control require doing so.
Shefford Swim School’s decision on any aspect of the competition is final and binding, and no correspondence will be entered into about it.
Winner Announcement
The winner will be chosen at random and notified via the email address provided.
Shefford Swim School will make two attempts to contact the winner via email.
If the winner does not respond to the emails informing them of their win within 14 days of the second email, they forfeit their right to the prize, and Shefford Swim School reserves the right to select and notify a new winner.
Delivery of the Prize
The winner will allow 14 days for the prize to be delivered, otherwise alternative collection or delivery arrangements can be made through mutual agreement.
Data Protection and Publicity
You agree that any personal information that you provide when entering the competition will be used by Shefford Swim School for the purposes of administering the competition and for the other purposes as specified in our Privacy Policy.
All entrants may request information on the winning participant by emailing Shefford Swim School.
If requested by Shefford Swim School, the winner agrees to release their first name and place of employment to any other competition participants.
The winner’s first name and country of residence will be announced on Shefford Swim School website and social media channels.
Limitation of Liability
Shefford Swim School accepts no liability for any damage, loss, injury, or disappointment suffered by any entrants as a result of participating in the competition or being selected for a prize.
General
Shefford Swim School reserves the right, at any time and without prior notice, to cancel the competition or amend these terms and conditions.