How It All Started
Hello! Here’s a little bit more about us Sports Nuts.
Since 2005, the Sports Nut family has grown from just David and Mark, to a 32-strong team of multi-talented, kid-friendly sports coaches.
So, whether you would like your child to learn to swim (who doesn’t?!) or would like to refine your technique or improve fitness or maybe you’d like to try triathlon out for the first time; our coaches can support you at every stage of your sports development.
To find out more about any of our coaching sessions, group or private, in the Beaconsfield and High Wycombe area, call us now on 0330 1248238 or email us at info@sports-nut.co.uk.
Bowled Over
On a balmy summer day in 2005, David (a Business Studies graduate) and Mark (a Sport and Exercise graduate), were playing a leisurely game of cricket.
From the satisfying ‘thwack’ of leather on willow to its many health benefits, such as improving physical fitness and hand-eye co-ordination, Mark and David wondered why more children didn’t take up the sport? Perhaps there weren’t enough fun, professional cricket coaches around…and so, over a crisp cucumber sandwich, the idea for Sports Nut was born.
Having now earned their stripes as ECB qualified cricket coaches, for the next four years David and Mark focussed on delivering cricket lessons to children, and they loved it…and so did the children. So much so, that Sports Nut expanded, providing cricket parties, after-school clubs and cricket camps.
Making a Splash
In 2009, David and Mark brought their quirky blend of super-professional yet super-fun coaching techniques to swimming.
Starting out with just 15 children, Sports Nut’s Swim School at Davenies School, Beaconsfield was born and word quickly spread within the community. After just 2 years our swim school had grown to over 250 swimmers per week and our cricket academy was fully booked!
Bridging the gap between swimming lessons and club swimmers, Sports Nut also created a dedicated, competitive Swim Squad, which is still going strong today.
Riding the Olympic Wave
The magic of London 2012 inspired lots of young people to try out more sport. In response to the demand, we continued to evolve, offering a variety of sports coaching services to schools in the form of after-school clubs and PE lessons. We also offered popular sports parties and holiday camps throughout the year.
Sports Nut listened to it’s community and opened its first Junior Triathlon Club in 2013, enabling children to experience a true Triathlon experience with back-to-back swimming, cycling and running. The programme’s popularity led to the start of the first ever local Go-Tri Triathlon event, which over 100 children took part in!
Our Junior Triathlon Club acts very much as an introduction to triathlon and remains hugely popular to this day, with our club running during the Summer Term each year.
Growth & Digital Evolution
Our offering of sports coaching, parties, holiday clubs and swimming lessons continued to prove extremely popular and managing the growth of our small business, while maintaining our high standards was a priority for David, Mark and Charlotte.
In 2017, Sports Nut had a complete makeover, with a full business rebrand, a bespoke Swim School Award Scheme and a new software implemented for managing all of our scheduling, assessment, payments in a variety of sports, as well as a shiny Parent Portal!
Our Swim School at Davenies reached capacity and in 2019 we were delighted to secure the contract to open our second swim school at the state of the art, brand spanking new pool at Godstowe School, High Wycombe!
We were so excited about the challenge of building another successful swim school and had recruited some outstanding new teachers to join our team. Then, whilst we were happily hosting our fourth charity Sports Nut Swimathon in March 2020, the world got turned upside down…
Pandemic Restrictions…Adapt to Survive
The Covid Pandemic devastated millions of lives around the world, for many different reasons and it had a devastating impact on our small business. Sports Nut was forced to literally stop operating overnight as the raft of restrictions that were put in place meant that we were unable to offer our sports coaching services.
Our amazing Sports Nut community were extremely understanding and sympathetic and we will be eternally grateful that 99.9% of our customers stuck with us while we rode out the Pandemic and enabled us to (just about) keep the business afloat by the skin of our teeth, until swimming pools were able to re-open again.
We did our very best to support our team of coaches and teachers as much as we could during the shut-down, but inevitably some of our staff decided to take employment in other industries. The loss of a number of our staff and the restrictions in how we had to operate to keep everyone as safe as possible meant we had to hugely adapt to survive!
Bouncing Back…
After almost 18 months of shut-down and restrictions, we finally fully reopened Sports Nut in September 2021. Our small business now looked very different and in order to survive we made the very difficult decision to focus solely on our Swim Schools.
Demand for our swimming lessons was as high as it’s ever been and as much as we would have liked to continue to offer cricket coaching, sports parties and holiday camps, they were just no longer feasible.
In 2022 we chose to make a significant investment in Bone Conductor Headsets and this has proved to be a revolutionary step in how we teach children to swim.
Sports Nut upgraded to a more advanced software (Swimphony) with even more brilliant features in 2023! The ability for swimmers and parents to track their swimmers progress via their Member Hub account is one of the most popular features in our software.
We continue to offer outstanding swimming lessons, with over 900 children each week on their learn to swim journey with us and we have no intention of stopping anytime soon. We currently have a 6 month waiting list for lessons so if you’d like your child to become a Sports Nutter then get the ball rolling and join us now!
Swimming Lessons in Beaconsfield
Swimming Lessons in High Wycombe
Holiday Swimming Crash Courses
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The kids have always LOVED their swimming lessons and teachers and we thank you so much for what an amazing Job you all do! You are the best!
Nicki / Davenies Swim School Parent
