A long, still indoor pool reflecting a wall of tall windows and green trees outside.

Deep End

Swimming lessons for grown-ups who never learned, and would rather nobody watched

Four learners, one teacher in the water with you, and a hotel pool we hire at seven in the morning with the blinds down.

What the first morning is like

Four at a time

Everyone in the group started where you are. Nobody is there to watch.

Standing depth

The whole pool is 1.1 metres until the last two weeks. Your feet can always find the floor.

No goggles-off tests

No badges, no lengths for their own sake, no one timing you. Just the ladder below.

See the courses

A bright, empty indoor pool under a pale vaulted ceiling with arched windows along one side.

Never learned at all

Eight Saturday mornings, forty-five minutes in the water each. We start with your face, not your arms, because that is where most of the fear lives.

£180 for eight mornings · pool hire included

A woman swimming front crawl, one arm reaching forward over bright blue water.

Learned once, then stopped

For people who can get across a pool but hold their breath the whole way. Six mornings on breathing, and nothing else, until it is dull.

£140 for six mornings

A quiet pool edge with a steel ladder, tall narrow windows above and a plant in each one.

On your own, one to one

The same pool, the same teacher, just you. For people who can't face even three others yet. Most of them join a group by the fourth week.

£48 per half hour

The six rungs

This is the whole course. You climb at your own speed; some people spend three weeks on the first rung and are the best swimmers in the group by the end.

1
Face in. Breathe out through your nose with your face in the water, standing up, for as long as you like.
2
Float. On your back with a hand under your head, then without the hand.
3
Stand up. From a float to your feet without panicking. The most useful thing you'll learn.
4
Glide. Push off the wall and go as far as the push takes you, face down.
5
Breathe. Turn your head, take air, turn back. Hundreds of times, at the wall first.
6
A width. On your own, in the shallow end, with us walking beside you.

A man gliding face down just under the surface of a clear green pool, arms by his sides.

The pale blue tiled floor and wall of a shallow pool, the water perfectly still.

A swimmer in a white cap breathing to the side between lane ropes.

A small, bright indoor pool with a hoist chair at the edge and loungers along the far wall.

Before your first morning

What to bring

Anything you're comfortable in that you can swim in. Shorts and a T-shirt over a costume are fine for week one.

Goggles

We lend them. Most people find everything easier once they can see.

Getting in

Wide steps with a rail, and a hoist chair if you'd rather. Nobody jumps.

What we do on morning one

We walk the pool from end to end, hold the wall, and put our faces in when you're ready. That is all.

Deep End

The pool at the Harbour Hotel
Saturday and Sunday, 7:00 and 8:00

+44 7700 900 574
A person answers, Mon–Fri 9–5

Deep End is a fictional example. The school, the teachers, the pool and the prices do not exist, and nothing here is safety advice; never swim alone. Photographs are stock images and were not taken at this school.