Coughlan's Swim Centre

Family run and you can tell! Leanne and her family treat you like one of their own family. Cannot recommend enough of you want your children to learn to swim!

Love the swim centre, lovely clean pools. Only hugh problem they don't have a decent disabled friendly shower or toilet. Need replacing badly, they are really old. There is no shower rail to hang on too. There is no disabled shower head or a seat that is of adequate height and no hand rails. Makes it extremely hard if u r disabled and only 1 shower is available

I have been taking both my children here since they were 4 months old seeing both Anne and Katie and i have loved our families experience here. I can not speak highly enough of the swim center and highly recommend. My 3 year old absolutely adores Katie and loves swimming lessons days. Katie makes the lesson so enjoyable for him shes fantastic with the kids he has learned so much from her and really has a lovely bond its been beautiful to watch him grow with his swimming.

We absolutely love Coughlan’s baby classes! My bubba has been loving swim lessons since she was 6 months old! Katie does a fantastic job of making classes fun and exciting while teaching such a crucial life skill. The water is an amazing temperature for those cold winter mornings. Would highly recommend

Think again if you need a disability friendly venue. Target market child learn to swim, bring your ear plugs. Squard then don't replace disability stairs to pool unless you request how dimening. Allow parents of learn to swim children use disability showers while you shiver and wait, strongly recommend you go elsewhere.

Amazing to watch my child develop in the pool, and most importantly the confidence. Thank you

The teachers are very patient in teaching swimming from the very beginning of the children
very good at teaching swimming

The first time I used this hybro pool
I came here from another hydro pool
The pool is a great temperature
I can concentrate on exercising without a lot of noise
The toilets and showers with the mats are great
The service people are friendly
I will be back

I have taken my kids to Coughlands for 16 yrs it saddens me at their current behaviour in making everyone to go over to direct debate. I have felt bullied by the staff at into going direct debate and having a lot if problems with direct debate in the past.

My daughter did a fair few classes here but the following factors made us move onto a better school.
-the waiting area is very crowded
-the pool is jam packed with kids
-teachers talking to each other rather than watching the kids. I would be so worried that I’d be on my feet making sure my girl was ok the whole time and didn’t drown in the chaos of the busy pool or distracted teacher.
- the teacher barely made eye contact when you speak to her and probably only ever spoke two words to me.
-exact same lesson each week and nothing changed, I didn’t see any progress.

I will add that the reception staff was always lovely, the parking was convenient.

We have tried numerous swim schools around the Newcastle area and have finally found our perfect match. I have been very picky, a competitive swimmer & also swim instructor myself (we wanted someone outside the family for lessons).

I found many swim schools to have young, inexperienced staff or the wrong settings (eg outdoors, massive pool, cold pool etc). I found couglans to be perfect for our then 3 year old. Before any lessons Mr 3 had to be assessed. We were told a few private lessons was the only option to bring him up to speed before he could join a class, which I personally think was necessary because I don't believe he was gaining adequate skills at previous centers. He flourished with his instructor and we actually kept private lessons for longer than necessary to build Mr 3's confidence.

The instructors are experienced, with many being mum's themselves. The pool is heated and approx 10m, so not a baby pool, but also not an intimidating 25m lap pool. There is always lots toddlers learning in the pool at the same time which I found helped Mr 3's confidence seeing other kids learning too. He has gone from hating the water and screaming at lesson times so whining because it' not his turn to get in the pool. So a big recommendation for Couglans from me.

Our swim teacher was nice but some of the staff we spoke to were incredibly rude. The centre is quite small so it feels crowded very quickly. The lessons don’t follow much structure/levels and there appears to be little room for development - can’t imagine doing the same thing every week for 2 years & there being much learnt by the end of it.

Kids love their learn to swim classes, they are always so flexible when they can't attend, runs all year round.

Nice swim center, fast service. The teachers there were really good with my kid in the learn to swim section.

Great for kids classes - dedicated pools for young children and another warmer pool for babies. Our child has enjoyed the lessons. Well organised and not too expensive.

Lovely staff, friendly place very flexible in their rescheduling and my kids love the crew there
Peter he is a good champ

An excellent facility for lap swimmers who loves a quiet and relaxing swim! A perfect spot for teaching young age children or disabled persons in a lovely, well staffed, excellent customer service, friendly, perfect spot. Perfect perfect spot

Great Hydro pool, staff and nice and friendly, willing to help with any questions you may have.
Nice and clean

Lack of consistency with instructors and extraordinarily slow progression were the factors that made me change swim centres. The new centre was appalled to discover that our child had not been taught even a 10sec float or any other strokes beside freestyle in the 3 years of attending.

If your child requires familiar instructors and you value attention and verifiable progression of skills for the money you pay then I would recommend looking for a different centre

The inconsistency of this swim school is what made us leave. Classes running late, the pool is crammed with children, so much that they kick each other in the face and can't do proper strokes because there just isn't enough room. Instructors chatting to one another instead of focusing on children. Ultimately none of these red flags were what made us leave. Our daughter was perpetually stuck in the same class doing the same thing each week, no extending on previous lessons. It was only on the odd occasion that we would have a substitute instructor that we were told that our daughter needed to be challenged and to be moved up. Unfortunately when these comments were pointed out to management there was always a reason to hold her back "by March you'll progress or 3 more weeks and you'll be in the next class". This was a major frustration for us. We do not feel that our daughters progress was managed correctly and she has been held back due to the inconsistent approach across all the instructors.

In the end we were sick of paying our money each term and not seeing results. Our new swim school was appalled that she wasn't taught any stroke besides freestyle. In just 3 weeks she has already picked up backstroke and breaststroke. I cringe when I think that if she had stayed with Coughlans and been moved up it would've been another year of just freestyle. I kick myself for not removing her sooner.