Fiona Marshall

I started swimming lessons when I was five or six, went all the way through the swimming program and my teacher recommended that I join the local swimming club, which I did. I discovered that I really loved swimming and competing, so I swam competitively until I was around 15 up to National level.

During this time one of the coaches asked me if I wanted to help out with some of the younger swimmers. I thought “Why not? I spend most of my time here anyway”, so I helped out and they put me through my Level 1 and Level 2 swimming teaching qualifications. At which point I discovered that being a swimming teacher when I was still at school was really good money compared to what all my friends were earning in their part time jobs so I started swim teaching around doing my GSCEs and A Levels in the evenings and at weekends. It worked for me because it still allowed me the freedom to go out and spend time with my friends because I’d be finished by 7pm during the week and only worked in the mornings at the weekend.

In Sixth Form, I had a meeting with our school careers counsellor where I proudly announced that I wanted to own a swim school because I loved doing it and saw the potential to continue earning very good money; I was already earning close to a full time income working part time hours. She looked at me and said “You’re an A* student, are you joking? What happened to going to uni?” and I was shocked. I told her that I’d done my research, only part of the uni course I’d considered was funded and I’d end up in a lot of debt that I’d have to spend a long time paying off and the top end pay wasn’t what I wanted. She laughed at me, told me it was a waste of my potential, I’d never make any money in swimming and that I should go to uni. This just added fuel to the fire for me and I was even more determined that I wouldn’t go down the uni route and would continue to pursue my dream of having a swim school.

I finished my A Levels, didn’t go to uni, and continued with swimming teaching. I went on to do my PGCE and qualified as a primary school teacher, continued to teach swimming around that and then became a swimming co-ordinator for another swim school which I really enjoyed. I doubled the amount of swimmers that they had in their program and I realized that I was actually very good at the organization of swimming lessons as well as teaching them.

Then I had my son, Reuben, so I went back into teaching full time at a primary school because it was easier with child care. Working in the evening and at the weekend with a young child isn’t ideal and cost me a fortune in child care fees, so it made the most sense at the time.

I met the previous Swimtime franchisee for West Mids and approached them offering to teach 1 to 1 lessons because I found I was still getting requests for swimming lessons all the time. I was honest from the off and said my flexibility wasn’t great due to having a young child and limited child care options being a single parent but I wanted to find a way to make it work. She was great, so understanding and was willing to work around my availability so we agreed that I would teach every other Sunday when my son was with his Dad.

Eventually this increased to include a couple of nights in the week as well but I found that I was still getting bombarded by requests for lessons, people asking me if I could put them on a waiting list for lessons with me. I just thought it was crazy so when the franchisee made the decision to leave Swimtime and I received an email from Head Office saying they would be managing the area. I thought “I could do this”.

I went to the discovery day because, although I had been teaching for them for awhile and I knew the swimming program, I didn’t know much about the business itself. Whilst there I realized that a lot of the things Theo and Rachel stand for really align with me because of working in primary schools, running school swimming and knowing that the links between children’s mental health, children’s obesity etc falls directly into children’s activities and swimming plays a huge role in remedying these issues. I listened to them speaking so passionately about this at the discovery day and knew straight away I was all in. I didn’t know how I was going to make it work but I was determined.

When I started with Swimtime as a franchisee I quit my day job which is the best thing I ever did. I’ve gone from being run down, permanently exhausted and not having any time or freedom; I used to miss parents evenings, sports days, school plays etc. I was the parent who had to ask other parents to cheer for him and take pictures for me, I never went to anything. When I became a franchisee I suddenly had that time freedom which meant I could now go to these things which has made my son a lot happier and it’s made me a lot happier.

I can enjoy a much better work life balance now, I’m home in the evenings a lot more as I only teach now if I need lessons covered for my other teachers. Now I do still work at the weekend or in the evenings sometimes but, when I do, it’s because I’m choosing to, not because I have to which makes a massive difference.