The STA Swim Academy, which first launched in Shropshire in 2011 and is now helping to raise swim teaching standards across the country, has achieved further success after figures in Rochdale revealed a huge increase in enrolments and income.

The Link4Life Swim Academy, which operates at Middleton Arena, Heywood Sports Village and Rochdale Leisure Centre, was launched in May 2012 after the Rochdale Boroughwide Cultural Trust saw the impressive achievements STA had achieved at its first academy in Shropshire.

Now 12 months on, the Link4Life Swim Academy, in partnership with STA, has seen:

• enrolments increase by 24%
• income revenues nearly doubled – exceeding financial targets set for the first 12 months.

John Matson, Business Development Manager from Link4Life said: “We are really pleased with the success of the Academy programme. With STA we are providing high quality swimming lessons which offer more fun and more progression for more children.

Providing increased opportunities for people of all ages to learn this vital life skill and creating new jobs for local people to teach swimming are two important outcomes from this.”

In addition, figures from the new Cascades Swim Academy, which was launched in Tewkesbury by the borough council in January 2013, has also started to show similar upturns in activity.

The Academy’s innovative swimming business model, which was devised by STA to raise standards in local authority-run swimming pools, continues to keep proving itself to be a robust and highly effective management programme, said Roger Millward, CEO of STA.

Such has been the success of the Academy that the University of Wolverhampton has also just signed to become an STA Swim Academy partner.

These achievements follow on from the accomplishments in Shropshire, which saw a 567% participation increase between January 2011 – when it was launched – and May 2012 at Shrewsbury Quarry pool, one of the six pools operating under the Academy banner.

“We are seeing huge successes with the launch of every Academy,” said Mr Millward. “The STA Swim Academy is something we are very proud of because it is innovative, is cost effective and gives learners a guarantee that their swimming lessons are of the highest quality. Importantly, it is also giving people more opportunities to learn a key life skill.

“The increasing enrolment figures being witnessed across all our academy sites serve to prove that the Academy model is right for local authorities, and why we continue to receive enquiries from across the country from leisure operators wanting to replicate our success.”