Turtle Tots is a unique swimming programme that begins with aqua-natal yoga for mums-to-be and continues with specialised and progressive lessons for babies and toddlers. We welcome over 14,000 babies and toddlers (and their carers) every week, and our franchisees teach in over 250 warm pools across the UK and Ireland.
Swimming is unregulated in the UK, so we ensure all Turtle Tots teachers are as qualified as they possibly can be, through the Swimming Teachers’ Association (STA), and our own world-class training centre.
Sadly, drowning is still one of the leading causes of death in children, and the demand for swimming lessons is consistently high as parents want their children to learn water confidence and vital life-saving skills. Turtle Tots teachers are trained to understand every child’s verbal and non-verbal cues to allow them to progress through the programme, learning in a fun and sociable environment.
Franchisees benefit from three revenue streams: Turtle Tots lessons, underwater photography, and sales through our website’s online shop, which sells a wide range of swimming accessories, perfect for attending Turtle Tots lessons, and swimming elsewhere too.
The majority of Turtle Tots franchisees had very different jobs before they retrained to become swimming teachers, and we guide each new franchisee through the process of becoming a qualified swimming teacher through the STA.
Franchisees then complete the bespoke 5-day Turtle Tots training course which incorporated the STA’s Baby & Pre School qualification. This is a blended training course held over zoom, and with practical pool sessions. After that, franchisees are expected to teach an agreed number of assessed lessons before finally being signed off as having the Turtle Tots Magic!
A key component of the Turtle Tots programme is “Turtle Tums”, our aqua-natal yoga lessons for mums-to-be. Franchisees who wish to teach this complete a 4-day training course run by an external company specialising in yoga.
New franchisees complete two days of business training at our head office in Bristol, covering marketing, merchandise, IT, health and safety, customer service and much more. Ensuring franchisees are fully equipped to run successful and rewarding buisnesses.
Ongoing, our Aquatics Team arranges regular CPDs for franchisees and teachers. In lockdown most franchisees took the opportunity to become qualified to teach Aquaphobics, who often don’t bring their children to lessons because they are scared of the water themselves.
There is also more informal training via webinars and at our annual conference, where we frequently run workshops on subjects as diverse as Google AdWords, and Neuroscience.
Turtle Tots franchisees usually start their business teaching lessons in the pool, but very quickly grow and employ teachers to teach most of the lessons, and administrative staff to look after the day to day running of the business. This enables them to concentrate on other activities. No two days are the same and tasks might include liaising with pools, managing their team, marketing their business, working on their growth strategy.
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