📝 Start Here — How to Use This Worksheet
- One line a week, written on the way out. The whole sheet works because you fill it in as it happens. Nobody can reconstruct four months of instructor names from memory, which is exactly why this problem goes unnoticed for so long.
- Write the instructor’s actual name. “A new one” is not data. If you do not know the name, that is itself the finding — and asking for it is a reasonable thing to do at the desk.
- Some turnover is structural, not a failing school. Many swim instructors are high-school or college students, seasonal hires or part-time staff for whom teaching is a temporary job. They graduate, move, or change schedules each semester. Read your log with that in mind.
- Continuity matters most for the youngest and the most anxious. For an older, confident swimmer a new instructor is a minor adjustment. For a beginner who has just learned that one specific adult is safe, it is not.
- Bring the filled-in sheet to the conversation. “She keeps getting different teachers” is easy to deflect. A dated list of six names in nine weeks is not.
What this worksheet cannot tell you. It does not grade anyone’s teaching, and a stable instructor is not automatically a good one. What it measures is the one thing a school controls that parents almost never track: whether the same adult is in front of your child week after week.
📋 1. The Record — Who Teaches Your Child Today
Child’s name: ______________________
Age: ______________________
Swim school: ______________________
Class day and time: ______________________
Current level / class name: ______________________
Children per instructor in the water: ______________________
Regular instructor’s name: ______________________
Date they started with your child: ______________________
Was that name given to you in advance? Yes / No
How the school assigns teachers: Same each week / Whoever is available / Unclear
Is your child young, new or anxious in water? Yes / No
Date you started this log: ______________________
Two of these lines do most of the work. Whether the school could name your child’s regular instructor in advance, and whether your child is a young or anxious beginner. A school that cannot say who is teaching next Tuesday has already answered the main question, and a confident seven-year-old can absorb changes that would stall a nervous three-year-old.
📅 2. The Instructor Log — Twelve Weeks
Fill in one row as you leave each lesson. The last column is the one that turns this into evidence — a substitute covering a sick teacher and a permanent change are very different events, and only you will know which happened
Fill in the skill column even when it feels repetitive. A run of weeks with no named skill focus, in the same stretch where the teacher kept changing, is the mechanism this whole sheet is trying to catch: the new teacher does not yet know your child’s specific fear, the cue that finally worked, or the game that gets them to try, so the first part of each lesson goes on rediscovery.
📊 3. Read Your Log — Which Problem Do You Have?
Weeks logged so far: ______________________
How many different names appear: ______________________
Longest run with one instructor: ______ weeks
Changes marked “permanent”: ______________________
Changes marked “substitute”: ______________________
Changes nobody explained to you: ______________________
Telling these two apart is the point of the log. They look identical from the deck and they have completely different fixes. Even a school with excellent retention can scatter a child across four teachers by scheduling whoever is free that evening — and that version is usually solved with one polite request rather than a change of school.
❓ 4. Five Questions About Staff Stability
Ask at the desk or after a lesson. You are not interrogating anyone about payroll — you are asking what the staffing model actually produces. Write down what you heard, not what you hoped to hear
Listen for confidence and specifics, not for the right answer. A school that invests in retention answers these easily and has a real handoff process. Vague or uncomfortable answers are themselves information — and “I’ll find out and get back to you” is a fine answer once. Note the date you asked, and whether anyone came back.
✅ 5. Green Flags — A Stable, Supported Team
- A mix of experience on deck. Not everyone brand new. A team where nobody has been there more than a season shows itself within one visit.
- Senior instructors or a deck supervisor mentoring the newer ones. Support is how schools keep good teachers, and you can watch it happening.
- Instructors greet returning children by name. And know their skill history without checking a screen.
- The school can name your child’s regular instructor in advance. Not on the night. In advance.
- Substitutes arrive briefed rather than cold. They know your child’s name, level and the thing she is currently frightened of.
- Handoffs are coordinated between instructors, in front of you. Thirty seconds of “she got her face in today, keep going with the ring game” is what a real handover looks like.
- The same friendly faces are there month after month. The quietest indicator, and usually a reflection of fair pay and good management — the conditions that keep instructors from leaving in the first place.
🚩 6. Red Flags — Chronic Churn
- Your child rarely sees the same teacher twice. This is the definition of the problem, and your log is the proof.
- Classes are routinely covered by whoever is available. Cover is normal; cover as the standing arrangement is not.
- The school cannot tell you who will teach your child next month. Or next week.
- Nobody tells you when the instructor changes. You find out at the pool, from a stranger holding a clipboard.
- Every instructor on deck looks brand new and unsure. With no senior staff visible supporting them.
- Each new teacher restarts your child at the beginning. The clearest sign that nothing is being written down about your child between lessons.
- Your child has stopped wanting to go, dating from a specific change. Check your log against the date. A confident swimmer who suddenly resists is telling you something.
- A marketed instructor-matching programme has never actually matched you. Formal matching is a genuine plus, especially for anxious or very young swimmers — but it depends entirely on retention.
Several of these ticked? Ask for a meeting with the program director — not the front desk — and bring the log. One question does most of the work: “Here are the six teachers my daughter has had since June. Can you tell me who she will have in October, and how you will brief them?” A well-run program can answer both halves.
🔁 7. The Handover — Sixty Seconds When the Teacher Changes
Fill this in once, now, and photograph it. When a new instructor appears you hand over what worked instead of making them rediscover it, and many schools will note it in your child’s file if you ask. The minute after a lesson is usually the only direct conversation you get all week — this is what to spend it on
What my child is working on right now: ______________________
The last skill they mastered, and when: ______________________
What they are frightened of in the water: ______________________
The cue or phrase that finally clicked: ______________________
The game that gets them to try: ______________________
What does not work — please avoid: ______________________
How they behave when they are overwhelmed: ______________________
Medical, sensory or communication notes: ______________________
What the previous instructor said was next: ______________________
Date I handed this over, and to whom: ______________________
Then give the new pairing a few weeks. Rapport takes time to rebuild and a slow start is not the same as a bad match — progress often plateaus briefly while trust re-establishes. If after several weeks your child is clearly not connecting, it is reasonable to request a change, and a good school treats that as normal feedback rather than a complaint. It is also worth remembering that rotation is not purely negative: children who meet a couple of different instructors often become more adaptable learners.
📈 8. Your Verdict and Next Step
Different instructors in the logged period: ______ in ______ weeks
Green flags ticked in section 5: ______ of 7
Red flags ticked in section 6: ______ of 8
Which problem this is: Retention / Assignment / Communication / None
Is my child’s progress affected? Yes / No / Too early to say
Who I am raising this with, and when: ______________________
What I asked them for, specifically: ______________________
What I need to see by: ______________________
Read the verdict against your child, not against an average. There is no official benchmark for how much instructor turnover is acceptable, and none of this is a grade. Four teachers in twelve weeks may be irrelevant to a confident eight-year-old and the whole story for an anxious three-year-old who has stopped wanting to get in. The number only means something next to the child.
⭐ 9. The Lines That Matter Most
- Continuity is valuable, but it is not the only thing. A warm, skilled, attentive new teacher beats a familiar one who is none of those. If your child is genuinely mismatched, ask for the change — the goal is a teacher your child trusts, not the same name on a list.
- No instructor, and no number of lessons, makes a child drown-proof. There is no such thing at any age or in any program. Lessons change what your child can do; they do not change the supervision your child needs.
- Lessons are one layer of protection, never the whole plan. Four-sided pool fencing, constant undistracted supervision within arm’s reach of a young or non-swimming child, properly fitted life jackets in open water and an adult trained in CPR are the others.
- Keep going to the lessons while you sort this out. The worst outcome of this worksheet would be a family who stops swimming while they think about it. Ask the questions with your child still in the water.
Why continuity is worth tracking at all. Participation in formal swim lessons is associated with a large reduction in drowning risk for young children, and drowning remains a leading cause of death for children ages 1–4. Young children attempt harder, scarier water skills when they trust the adult asking — so the adult in front of them week after week is not a scheduling detail. It is part of how the lessons work.