I booked an assessment session for my two children, a 3 and 8 year old. I had been very clear from the beginning that both my children had zero swimming experience and had never been in a pool. Also my eldest was afraid of the whole swimming idea. Hence why I wanted to book these one to one lessons. However, when we turned up to Sports Direct (Manchester) for my children’s swimming lesson it was a completely different story. The pool was 2.2m deep and the instructor advised she wasn’t going to get into the pool with them due to an injury. My children introduced themselves and sat down by the pool. My 3 year old got arm bands and my 8 year old didn’t. She then said she was going to get them in the pool, she picked my 3 year old and dropped him in. He obviously didn’t know what was happening and went head first, panicked and was flapping around. However, he was able to push himself towards the edge and climb out. My 8 year old saw this and refused to go in, it completely put her off. I asked the instructor if she would at least hold my little boys hand and try again, which she did but my little boy just didn’t like it and pulled himself out of the pool. With my little girl refusing to go in, we decided to leave. So the session only lasted 10 minutes and not only did those 10 minutes cost £40, I paid to have my children hated the idea of swimming even more. I’ve spoken to various people, friends and colleagues and they’ve all said that you don’t just drop a 3 year old in to do his own thing, that’s not professional. I just think it comes down to the instructor that you get as I chose Swimnow because of the good reviews, unfortunately not for everyone.