CompleteOverview:MoreStudentsfromtheSamePoolHoursasSwimmingSchool[2026]

A swimming school rarely earns too little from the price per lesson. Money is lost through empty spots, children who do not show up, and the hours you spend at the desk when you could be standing by the poolside. This mainly requires keeping track of a few numbers and a different weekly schedule.

The Netherlands has 619 public swimming pools and about 1,100 semi-public pools. In 82 percent of those public pools, the municipality does not operate them itself: that work lies with foundations, sports companies, and private parties. The water where you teach has thus become a scarce and costly space. Staff is the second scarcity: nationwide, there are more than a hundred vacancies for swimming instructors.

Below is how you get more students from the same pool hours. What one lesson hour yields, how to measure occupancy and flow, what an empty spot costs you per month, where the waiting list helps, and how to keep the administration around it small.

Why Pool Hours Are Your Biggest Scarcity

List what you fix in a week: pool rental per hour, one instructor per lane, a fixed group at a fixed time. Of those three, you can influence two. Water is the factor you cannot add. Of the 619 public pools, 67 percent are owned by a municipality, but in 82 percent of cases, the operation lies elsewhere. For you, this usually means one landlord, one schedule, and little room to just rent an extra hour. In the Parliamentary Letter Swimming in the Netherlands from April 2025, the Ministry of VWS calculates this, and the conclusion is not reassuring for those looking for extra pool water.

More than a hundred vacancies for swimming instructors are open

The same letter mentions three causes for the staff shortage: tight labor market, working hours in the evening and weekend, and relatively low pay for the work. These are things a small school can only influence to a limited extent. What you can do: make realistic schedules, ensure you are not dependent on one person, and keep the hours instructors work attractive. A school that runs on one teacher who is always available does not have a schedule but a risk.

Water is becoming more expensive and municipalities look at rates

Research by the Mulier Institute among sports officials shows where the pressure lies: half of the municipalities expected energy costs to rise further, and in two-thirds of the pools, this would significantly impact operations. In 57 percent of the pools studied, no sustainability measures had yet been taken. That bill ultimately ends up with the renter or user, through a higher hourly rate, shorter opening hours, or both. The number of public pools is also decreasing: from 690 in 2012 to 619 in 2024. Note the nuance the ministry places itself: fewer pools does not automatically mean less swimming water, because municipalities have also replaced small, outdated pools with one larger pool.

What this means for your weekly schedule

If water and staff are scarce, the question for extra hours is not the main question. The main question is whether there is enough in the hours you already rent. A lane with four children costs you almost the same as a lane with eight, because the rent and instructor continue. Everything you do to the occupancy of existing hours yields faster results than searching for a new hour that does not exist.

What One Lesson Hour Yields

For the tables below, we use our own price data from 547 providers. The median for a group lesson of 45 minutes is the calculation basis, and that is deliberately not the average: the average is higher because a handful of expensive providers pull it up. Those who calculate with the average think there is more to gain than is usually the case in practice.

What one lane per hour yields at different group sizes

The jump from four to eight children in the same lane is not a doubling of your work, but a doubling of your revenue. Occupancy is therefore the figure that says the most about how your school is doing.

What an empty spot costs you per month

The amounts in the table are reference amounts, because your rate and pool rental differ from the school two villages away. The ratios remain the same. Two fewer children in a full lane is not two fewer lessons of work, it is the same rent and the same instructor with less revenue. Calculate that over a whole year and you understand why some schools with a full waiting list still earn little.

Your fixed costs per hour do not decrease

Pool rental and wages are more or less fixed per hour. Your materials, insurance, and administration also, although those are per month and not per hour. A student you add in an existing hour thus yields almost full margin. A student who drops out costs you almost the entire margin of that spot. That calculation runs against you as soon as turnover or vacancy occurs, so that is where your profit lies.

Occupancy: The Number You Want to Know Every Week

How to Calculate Your Occupancy Rate

Your occupancy rate is the number of occupied spots divided by the number of spots you offer, times one hundred. Calculate it per group and per hour, not for your school as a whole. A school with a busy Monday and a half-empty Thursday has an average good occupancy and a problem on Thursday.

Why sixty percent is a logical lower limit

If a group falls below sixty percent occupancy, you usually lose money on that hour, unless you share costs with another group. The statistics in Swimmigo signal that themselves: at low occupancy, you get a suggestion to look at merging or extra registrations for that time. This way, you do not have to sift through your schedule every week to see where it goes wrong.

Merging small groups without losing parents

Merging goes wrong if parents hear it as a deterioration. Make sure you arrange three things in advance: the group size remains within what you consider responsible for that level, the lesson time and pool remain the same, and the instructor the children know stays with the group. Explain why you merge and what becomes better for the child. A child who swims with more children often learns faster than a child in a group of three.

If you first want to know which group size fits your offer, it helps to read what group size does to children's progress.

Cancellations and Empty Spots in Your Lane

A cancellation is not one less lesson, but one less spot

Parents cancel because a child is sick, something comes up, or there is something else to do. For you, the lane remains rented and the instructor present. How you handle that cancellation determines whether you see anything back. Some schools charge the lesson, others offer a make-up session. Make one clear agreement about this and put it in the app or on the site, so you do not have to explain every time why one pays and the other does not.

Make-up lessons fill the lane you already rent

A make-up lesson at a quiet time costs you nothing extra in pool rental, because you are there anyway. Make it a habit to let students from other groups make up a missed lesson in a group with space, on top of the normal group size. In Swimmigo, you open extra make-up spots per group, so the number of students per instructor remains visible and you do not accidentally stand with sixteen children in one lane.

Agreements parents immediately understand

Most discussions about cancellations and make-ups come from uncertainty, not unwillingness. Put the rules in one place and repeat them at registration. Background for parents is in cancellations and make-ups: tips for parents, and for the administrative side there is cancellations and make-ups via the parent portal.

Flow: Faster Graduation Means More Space

Find the level where children get stuck

Children leave your school in two ways: with a diploma or prematurely. The first way is the good one, because then a spot becomes free for the waiting list. Look per level how long children take on average. Almost every school has one level where it is sticky, often the level where a new stroke is taught or where the group is largest. That is your bottleneck, and that is where your biggest gain lies.

Twelve weeks of stagnation is a signal

A child who stays at the same point for twelve weeks usually also loses their enjoyment. Swimmigo's school dashboard shows such stagnant students, as well as children who seem ready for the next level and groups small enough to merge. This way, an instructor does not have to remember who was stagnant: it is there.

Tracking progress while teaching

Tracking progress after the lesson costs you half an hour and leads to errors, because those who update twenty children from memory forget half. Those who do it during the lesson, in the few seconds between two exercises, keep track without extra time. That only works if it can be done on a phone or tablet, with the exercises of that level in front of you. Parents then see the update the same day instead of only at the parent meeting.

The Waiting List Is Not a Waiting Room but an Engine

A freed spot is filled the same day

The biggest waste in a small swimming school is a spot that stands empty for a month because the administration lags behind. A child who stops or moves on creates space you can fill immediately if your waiting list is in order. Keep track of who waits where, at what time is possible, and which days do not fit. You can read more about this in managing the waiting list and filling freed spots.

What a long waiting list tells you

A waiting list of three months does not mean you are popular, it means your capacity does not grow with demand. You can solve this in two ways: faster flow in the hours you have, or looking for pool water at times you do not swim now. Nationally, this is also being looked at: the ministry mentions the quiet hours shortly after school time in pools as a place where more lessons fit, in pilots in Tilburg, Amsterdam, and Groningen among others. For a small school, that is often a cheaper hour than the popular evening hour.

The Hours You Are Not in the Water

Administration: the post that is not in your rate anywhere

Calculating your rate is about the hours in the water. The hours around it are not in any overview, and that is exactly where the irritation lies. Loose messages about a missed lesson, a parent asking if the level is progressing, a payment that has not arrived, an invoice you still have to sort out in the evening. These are small tasks that together fill half a day per week and that you can never charge to anyone.

What you regain when schedule, progress, messages, and payments come together

As soon as planning, progress, cancellations, messages, and payments are in the same environment, double work disappears. You note something once, the parent sees it immediately, and the invoice is not retyped. That is not a luxury: in the Swimmigo instructor environment, you see the occupancy of your groups, who is stagnant, and who still has to pay on the same screen where you prepare your lesson.

Parents no longer have to chase you

Those who let lesson payments run through the school no longer have to type reminders or keep a cash book: the parent chooses a package in the app and the money goes to the school's account. You compose your own packages and rates, with your own conditions, discounts, and price changes, and parents receive messages in their own language. For parents, the account is free, even if their school does not activate lesson payments.

What You Choose Per Month When You Work Digitally

For parents and swimmers, Swimmigo is free. For the school side, there are two subscriptions, both cancellable monthly and without costs per student, per location, or per invoice. The amounts are in the table.

The Instructor Subscription for One Independent Teacher

If you work alone, the Instructor subscription is enough: groups and student management, entering progress during the lesson, statistics and logbook, inviting parents with one link, the marketing toolkit, and an invoice by email. The trial period only starts when you link your first student, not when you download the app.

The Swimming School Subscription for Your Entire Team

If you teach with multiple instructors under one name, the Swimming School subscription is the logical choice: unlimited instructors, a team overview, and a school dashboard with flow per level. You can assign roles between owner, administrator, and teacher, so not everyone has to see the revenue and weekend substitutes can take over the groups.

Lesson Payments: Own Packages, Money to Your Own Account

Lesson payments are optional. If you activate them, you create your own packages and subscriptions that fit your school, with your own conditions and discounts. Parents choose a package and pay with iDEAL, credit card, or PayPal. The money goes directly to your own account, and Swimmigo retains a fixed percentage per payment as shown in the table. Everything can be accounted for to your accountant and exported as a member list or transaction overview.

The Numbers You Track Every Monday

Five numbers, written down every Monday, give you more insight into your school than any overview.

• Occupancy rate per group and per hour, because that is where your loss or profit lies.
• Average throughput time per level, so you see the bottleneck before parents complain.
• Number of cancellations per month and how many you solved with a make-up lesson.
• Length of the waiting list and the oldest registration that still has no spot.
• Outstanding payments and their age, because three months arrears you no longer solve.

This Is Not Only Happening in the Netherlands

The calculation of scarce water, scarce staff, and rising costs is not typically Dutch. According to the World Health Organization, about 300,000 people still drown worldwide each year, and swimming lessons are one of the cheapest ways to reduce that number. In England, swimming schools report they cannot expand their offer because there are too few swimming teachers. Also closer to home, the topic remains current: in 2025, one hundred residents of the Netherlands drowned, and according to the CBS, children born outside Europe have about eight times the risk compared to children with a Dutch background.

That is why Swimmigo works in five languages, from notifications to diplomas. A school that addresses its students in English, German, French, or Spanish does not need to look for a second system. And the parent who wants to follow a child's progress reads it in their own language.

Conclusion

You do not earn your money with a higher price per lesson, but with fuller hours. Measure your occupancy per group, keep track of cancellations, find the level where children get stuck, and fill spots that become free the same week. Then you get more out of the pool water you already rent, without looking for a new hour that does not exist.

Sources

• Ministry of VWS: Parliamentary Letter Swimming in the Netherlands and other policy developments (April 4, 2025)
• Mulier Institute: rising energy costs impact pool operations (February 28, 2024)
• WHO: drowning fact sheet (updated September 2026)
• Swim England: consequences of the shortage of swimming teachers (2025)
• FNV: collective labor agreement Pools Swimming Schools, term October 1, 2024 to December 31, 2026 (2026)
• CBS: higher risk of drowning among children not born in the Netherlands (2026)