Managing the Swimming Lesson Waiting List: How to Fill a Vacant Spot Immediately

The pool is full, your instructors are fully booked, and there’s a line of parents waiting that you can’t place. For many swim schools, this has become the normal situation: demand for swimming lessons is growing faster than the water time and the number of instructors.

The waiting list quickly becomes an emergency solution: a spreadsheet, a notebook behind the reception, or a folder with registrations that no one opens anymore. That works fine until a spot becomes available. Then you see what that chaos costs. The wrong parent gets a message, someone doesn’t respond, and the spot stays empty for weeks while thirty children are waiting for that same spot.

Below you’ll find how to use the waiting list as a planning tool, which numbers to track, and how to prevent a freed-up spot from remaining empty for days.

What Waiting Lists in the Netherlands Show

Waiting Times from Four Months to Two Years

Consumer program Kassa conducted a sample survey in February 2024 among about fifty providers in provincial capitals. The longest waiting times were found in The Hague, Utrecht, and Middelburg, where children could wait up to 24 months for their first swimming lesson. In Maastricht, four months was the shortest waiting time found.

The sample shows the regional spread:

This picture is regional and has not proven to be a one-time snapshot. Omroep Zeeland found in October 2025 waiting times from six months to a year and a half, with fifteen months for the A diploma at zwembad Vliegende Vaart in Terneuzen. At the Zeeuwse Zwemschool in Vlissingen and Goes, parents waited a year and a half or longer, while the school employed 28 instructors and gave lessons to over a thousand children weekly. The youngest student on the list was one year old.

The Demand Is Not the Problem

Almost every swim school asked about the waiting list mentions the same thing: there are too few swimming instructors. The NRZ named this shortage in 2024 as the main cause. The work takes place in the evenings and weekends, so a full workweek is not feasible for many. Extra recruitment alone doesn’t solve it: with 28 instructors employed, Zeeland still had a waiting list simply because demand exceeds the available water hours.

There is a second limit as well. For diploma swimming, a minimum water depth of two meters is required, and not every pool has that depth. A swim school wanting to expand doesn’t automatically find a place to do so.

Who Is Most Affected

Waiting times are not equal for everyone. According to figures from the Mulier Institute, published by the World Health Organization: drowning, facts and figures, in 2024 fourteen percent of children aged 6 to 12 had no swimming diploma at all. In families from the lowest income group, that share was 33 percent, compared to 5 percent in the highest income group. Among children with a migration background, 40 percent had no diploma, versus 9 percent without such a background. This vulnerability is reflected in drowning figures: of the hundred residents who drowned in 2025, 37 percent had a non-Dutch origin.

For a swim school, this means the waiting list is longest for families who find it hardest to find alternatives. The progression to the B and C diplomas also lags: in 2024, 38 percent of children aged 6 to 12 earned all three diplomas, compared to 27 percent in 2012.

What a Slow Waiting List Costs You

A waiting list costs money in a place where you don’t immediately see it. An offer that remains unused means an empty spot in a group you already scheduled, resulting in less revenue from the same water hour. Parents who hear nothing register elsewhere or drop out entirely. The municipality of The Hague itself communicates that commercial swim schools have shorter waiting times, showing that parents really compare. Every manual call round also costs time that you cannot spend teaching.

Seven Steps to Manage Your Waiting List

The order below is deliberate: first order, then rules, then communication. Without the first two steps, the third only costs more time.

Step 1: Put All Registrations in One Place with One Registration Date

One central list, with for each student the registration date, age, preferred day, and whether they had swimming lessons before. As soon as that data is in two places, for example a spreadsheet and a chat group, discussions arise about who registered first. One list means one order.

Step 2: Calculate How Many Spots You Actually Free Up Each Month

Your waiting list only moves when spots become available. Count once a month how many students graduate or quit, and how many new groups you can start with your instructors. That number determines how fast the list moves. Those who don’t track this promise parents more than they can deliver.

Step 3: Make Your Order Rule Explicit

First come, first served. That’s the simplest rule to explain and the easiest to maintain. Exceptions always exist: siblings wanting the same day, a minimum starting age, or a student who must start earlier on a doctor’s advice. Write down those exceptions and share them with parents, so an exception doesn’t seem like a favor.

Step 4: Give an Offer a Response Time

The silent loser in many waiting list procedures is the offer that remains unused. Give a parent a fixed time to respond; two days works well in practice, then move on to the next on the list. Without that deadline, you hold a spot for someone who might not want it, while another child is waiting.

Step 5: Tell Parents Where They Stand

Parents rarely complain about the waiting itself. What bothers them is not knowing how long it will take. A position on the list plus an expected month when the offer will come takes most pressure off. The municipality of The Hague shows how this works: parents see the waiting time per pool immediately upon registration and automatically get notified when a spot becomes available.

Step 6: Keep Those Waiting Engaged Before They Start

A practice hour for those waiting tackles two problems at once. In Drenthe, pools organize free swimming in the lesson pool under the guidance of a swimming teacher, where one lifeguard is enough for a whole group because parents are in the water themselves. Children who have already gotten used to the water before their first lesson progress faster through their swimming lessons. The Hague gives children on the waiting list a QR code for free recreational swimming under adult supervision until they have their A diploma.

Step 7: Make Enrollment Easier Than the Waiting List

Parents who register well in advance most often have a spot when their child is ready. Help them with that: put your waiting time on your website, keep registration open, and ask only for the data you really need at registration. The earlier a parent knows registration is necessary, the less rush there is at the end.

Which Numbers to Track Every Month

Four Numbers That Tell Enough

• The number of new registrations this month
• The number of students who actually started
• The total length of your waiting list
• The number of students who drop out before the first lesson

With these four numbers, you know if your list is growing or shrinking and what waiting time you can promise a new parent. More is not needed to give an honest answer when someone asks at reception how long it takes.

Use the Median, Not the Average

The average waiting time is one of the easiest ways to fool yourself. One student who was on the list for two years or never started pulls the average in all directions. List the waiting times and take the middle value: the median. That number tells you half the parents wait less and half wait longer, and that’s the number you can use in a conversation.

Spread Your Lessons Over the Days That Remain Empty

The busyness of the waiting list says little about gaps in your schedule. Pools in Drenthe saw that Wednesday and Friday were the busiest and Monday the quietest, and that Monday filled up well once they told parents there was space then. Communicating about available days often fills a group faster than starting a new group.

How the Swimmigo App Handles the Waiting List

In Swimmigo, the waiting list is in the same system as your groups, lessons, and progress. These are the parts that matter in practice.

Registration, Position, and Offer in One Place

Parents register in the app on your waiting list or book an open slot with a fixed day and time directly. First to register is first in line. When a spot becomes available, you offer it to the top student without having to search in a spreadsheet or chat group.

Response Time, Moving Forward, and a Maximum

You set how many hours a parent has to respond to an offer. If no one responds, the system can automatically offer the spot to the next student. Per school, you choose what happens if there is no response: the student moves back one place or keeps the same position. After a number of times without response chosen by you, a student is removed from the list so someone who never responds doesn’t keep a spot occupied.

Messages in the Parent’s Language

At registration, at an offer, and at placement, parents automatically receive a push notification and an email. The text is in the parent’s language, while you don’t have to send anything manually. You also see if a message has been read, which is handy if you want to explain later why a spot was moved forward.

Visibility and Enrollment You Control

If you want parents to see their position and how many people are ahead, you can enable that. You can close the waiting list for new registrations if it gets too long, set a minimum age for enrollment, and optionally ask for a registration fee with your own refund policy.

Internationally, This Is Not Just a Dutch Problem

Waiting Lists Are Everywhere

Waiting times are rising outside the Netherlands as well. In Ireland, a mother told on the radio that children in some parts of the country wait up to three years for a spot. Swim England estimated that in the UK about 667,000 children miss swimming lessons due to the shortage of swimming teachers. The combination is the same everywhere: few pools, few instructors, and a profession that takes place in the evenings.

Children Who Stop Too Early Make the Problem Worse

Research by Swim England from March 2025 shows that more than seventy percent of children are taken out of lessons before they are competent, and more than half stop before mastering basic skills. Swim England uses four skills as a measure: swimming 100 meters, treading water for 60 seconds, floating and swimming in clothes for 30 seconds. Parents often estimate the distance their child can swim safely at five to twenty meters.

This is relevant for your planning because every child who stops too early makes the waiting list longer for the child who still has to start. Keeping the flow to the B and C diplomas smooth keeps your groups fuller and your waiting list shorter.

What Is at Stake Worldwide

The WHO calls drowning the fourth leading cause of death among children aged 1 to 4 and the third among children aged 5 to 14, with about 300,000 deaths worldwide annually. Worldwide drowning mortality has dropped by 38 percent since 2000, showing that swimming skills and water safety make a difference. Swimmigo is available in five languages because swim schools in different countries struggle with the same planning and waiting lists.

Conclusion

The waiting list results from more demand than water, and that won’t be solved by working harder. What you can control is the order around it: one list with one order, a fixed response time, and parents who know where they stand. A freed-up spot filled within two days pays back the entire system.

Curious how this looks in practice? Check the page for swim schools and instructors, the features, or the student tracking system. For parents, we previously wrote about making good use of the waiting time and about planning with limited pool capacity.

Sources

• Kassa (BNNVARA): Large differences in waiting time for swimming lessons, shortage of instructors, 3 February 2024
• Omroep Zeeland: Long waiting lists for swimming lessons, the youngest registered is only one year old, 27 October 2025
• RTV Drenthe: Swim schools drowning in waiting lists, but also coming up with solutions, 18 April 2024
• World Health Organization: drowning, facts and figures, 10 November 2025
• Municipality of The Hague: Many more children earn swimming diplomas in The Hague, 15 April 2026
• Rescue Brigade: Higher drowning risk among specific groups, 2026
• WHO: Drowning fact sheet, updated 1 May 2026
• Swim England: More than 70% of children taken out of lessons before they are competent in water, 19 March 2025
• Swim England: Concerning number of children to miss lessons due to teacher shortages, 16 April 2024
• Newstalk (Ireland): Too many people, not enough pools, children waiting up to three years for lessons, 2025