Worked setups · Children's swim schools
Each child its own record with a stage the teacher moves, classes with six places a slot, a term booked as a weekly series that skips half-term, a grandparent poolside as a named party, and the 48-hour sickness rule worked out on the real dates.
Worked example: Ripple Swim School. A fictional independent swim school in Ledbury, Herefordshire, hiring the pool at a hotel leisure club: four teachers, 30-minute classes of up to six children by Swim England stage, parent-and-baby Ducklings, private one-to-ones, Saturday and Sunday mornings plus weekday after-school sessions, and termly enrolment — the same slot every week for twelve weeks, paid in advance, with half-term off. A family has several children with the school, each at a different stage, and a grandparent often brings them.
Proven in a full run on the live system on 5 September 2026. The businesses on these pages are fictional — worked configurations we built to run BLAM8 end to end on the live system, not customers. Every step described happened in the run it cites.
1 · The diary
Classes run at the pool's fixed times, so the diary is 30-minute slots with six places in each — a class is a slot with a capacity, not a job with a length. From one chat message the setup assistant proposed the slot length, six places per slot, a different opening span for every day (Saturday 8–1, Sunday 9–12, Monday to Thursday 3:30–6:30, Friday closed), 24 hours' notice, a 120-day horizon so a term ahead is bookable, the four services, and weekly recurring bookings up to twelve times — the term.
exact time
Free, before any child is placed; every new child has one.
exact time
£9 a class, £108 for a twelve-week term; six to a class, eight for Stages 4–7; 10% off a second child.
exact time
Parent and baby, 6 months to 3 years; £10 a class, £120 a term; swim nappies under three.
exact time
£28 per half hour.
Timing is what the customer is offered: an exact time for an appointment they come to; morning or afternoon for work at their address where you manage the hour; a whole day for a day-long job. The diary reserves the real length either way, so it can never double-book.
2 · Before a booking is made
Nine details: the ones the setup assistant recommended, minus a parent's email address and the child's medical facts (those live on the child's record), plus the school's own asks — the signed consent and medical form as a photo attachment for everything but a private lesson, who brings the child, and the placement question every teacher asks. The children are not on this list: each is a dependant record on the parent's card, with a date of birth, medical conditions, a stage the teacher moves, and whether a swim nappy and a photo consent apply.
| Detail | Needed | How it's gathered | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which day and time works | Required | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | Saturday or Sunday morning, or a weekday after school — the same slot every week for the term. |
| Parent or guardian's phone number | Required | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | For urgent poolside contact. |
| Emergency contact name and phone number | Required | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | A second adult to call if the parent is not reachable; asked once, then on the record. |
| Signed consent and medical form | Optional | As an attachment — a photo or scan | A photo or scan, as an attachment; kept on the record and never re-asked. Not for private lessons. |
| Who brings your child to lessons | Optional | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | Parent, grandparent or childminder — they stay poolside; a named one becomes a party on the booking. |
| Can your child put their face in the water and blow bubbles? | Optional | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | The placement question; assessment swims and group lessons only. |
| Previous swim school and badge or stage reached | Optional | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | Background for the teacher only — the assessment decides placement, never the badge. |
| What would you like to focus on in the lesson | Optional | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | Private lessons only. |
| Anything else we should know | Optional | Asked in the reply, or reused if already known | Nerves, a previous bad experience, anything that helps the teacher. |
The agent asks only for what is genuinely missing, never re-asks something already in the thread or on the customer's record, and refuses to book until every required detail is present. Documents are requested as attachments and their contents are never claimed as checked — a human reviews them.
3 · The CRM that fills itself
Plus Won and Lost. A contact quiet for 7 days is flagged for a nudge.
Emergency contact
The second adult on the day, filled from the first email that names one.
Who pays
A grandparent, an ex-partner or an employer when it isn't the parent writing.
Preferred contact
Email, text or phone — and when (evenings, not the school run).
Extracted from the emails as they arrive, plus the contact's phone number. A returning customer is never asked for any of it again — by email or on the portal.
4 · What the agent knows
Eight notes, one per kind of fact, written by the setup assistant from a chat interview in the school's terms. In the run the agent refused to place a child from a badge, quoted the term price with the sibling discount worked out, asked for the consent form as an attachment, applied the 48-hour rule to the actual dates, and told a grandparent she must stay poolside — all unprompted.
£9 per 30-minute class, booked and paid by the term — £108 for a twelve-week term per child; Ducklings £10 a class, £120 a term; private one-to-ones £28 per half hour; second and further children 10% off their term fee; the assessment swim is free.
A child who has had sickness or diarrhoea stays out of the pool until 48 hours after the last episode; after a confirmed cryptosporidium infection, two weeks (PWTAG's own words). The dates are worked out in the reply, against the booking on the record.
No photography or filming poolside or in the changing rooms; badge photos only with the signed consent form; phones stay in bags in the changing rooms (Swim England's Wavepower). A parent or named adult stays poolside for every class for children under eight.
Every new child has a free 15-minute assessment swim before placement — water confidence and the Swim England stage they are working at — and is never booked straight into a stage from a parent's description or a badge from elsewhere. The signed consent and medical form comes before the first lesson.
Classes run weekly, the same day and time all term; the autumn term is twelve weeks with no lessons in half-term week. Current swimmers get first refusal on their slot for the next term before the waiting list is offered places; a child moves up a stage when the teacher signs off the outcomes, at any point in the term.
Term fees within 7 days of the place being confirmed, by bank transfer or card; monthly standing orders by arrangement; one make-up lesson per term for a class missed with 24 hours' notice, subject to space, no refunds otherwise; pro-rata for a child joining mid-term.
Teachers hold Swim England Level 2 or the STA equivalent, a current DBS check and safeguarding training; a lifeguard is poolside at every session; classes are six for Stages 1–3 and eight for Stages 4–7; no adult other than a teacher in the water except in Ducklings.
One pool, in Ledbury; families from Ledbury, Colwall, Bromyard, Newent and the villages between. Saturday 8am to 1pm, Sunday 9am to noon, Monday to Thursday 3:30 to 6:30pm, no classes on Fridays; 24 hours' notice for an assessment; September fills first and the spring waiting list opens in November.
5 · The journey we proved
The run on the live system on 5 September 2026, in order.
Customer
Emails: Saturday morning lessons for my two — Isla is 5 and has never had lessons, nervous of water on her face; Finn is 8, swims ten metres and has a Stage 3 badge from a school in Gloucester. Can Finn go straight into Stage 3? What does the term cost and what do you need from us?
BLAM8
Says no to Stage 3 from a badge — every new child has the free assessment first — quotes £108 a term and works out Finn's £97.20 with the sibling discount, notes Isla's nerves for the teacher, and asks only what is missing per child: dates of birth, medical conditions for each, a phone and emergency contact, a day that works, and the signed consent form as a photo attachment. The reply carries the customer's reference and portal link.
Customer
Sends the signed form as a photo, then the details: both dates of birth, Isla's asthma with the inhaler in her bag, Finn has no medical conditions, Nana Pat brings them on alternate Saturdays, an assessment on Saturday 12th at 8:30 please.
BLAM8
Keeps the form on the customer's record and says so. Holds BOTH assessments at 8:30 on the 12th in one reply — two places of the six in that slot — each on its own child record (date of birth, medical conditions, the swim-nappy and photo-consent facts derived), with Finn's 'no medical conditions' recorded in the parent's words, and binds Pat Deane to both bookings as the adult on site. Tells the parent the inhaler goes poolside and that Pat is welcome as the adult who stays.
Customer
Finn was sick on Thursday night — is he still OK for Saturday morning?
BLAM8
'If Finn was sick on Thursday night (3 September), the 48-hour period ends on Saturday evening, 5 September. His assessment is on Saturday 12 September at 08:30, well clear of that — so he is fine to attend. If he has another episode, the 48-hour rule resets.' The dates are written out against the booking on the record.
Customer
Can you move both assessments to Sunday 13th at 9:30? And, after the assessments, hold Isla a Stage 1 place at 9:30 on Saturdays for the term and Finn a Stage 3 place at 10:00.
BLAM8
Says plainly that placement follows the assessment and holds nothing yet (the school's own rule), asking only for the emergency contact's number. The move to Sunday it cannot make by email — that goes to the school.
Owner
After the assessments, enrols both children from the diary: Group lesson, Saturday 19 September, 9:30 and 10:00, Repeat weekly, twelve times, About Isla / Finn — 24 confirmed lessons in two series, the half-term Saturday skipped and the term extended to 12 December, every one on the calendar and on the child's record.
Customer
Opens the portal with the reference from the email: asks what is still needed (both sides of the ledger), what the spring term would cost (the sum with the sibling discount), whether Isla can move to 10:30 (a series move goes to the school — offered, not faked), books Finn a private lesson on Sunday 20th from one line, and asks what stage Finn is in — 'According to the record, Stage 4', the fact the teacher had just written.
Owner
Asks the concierge to invoice the term — £108 and £97.20, due in 7 days — confirms the card, then confirms the send: the PDF with the school's bank details lands in the parent's inbox and Money shows £205.20 owed.
What this run showed us we still owe this trade
Built since · 5 September 2026 — Repeat and Times on the Add form: each date placed like a single add, half-term and closed days skipped and the term extended, every lesson on the calendar and on the child's record.
Built since · 5 September 2026 — Built the same day and proven on a driving school: an excused miss with notice mints a make-up to book within a window; a full slot is joined as a waiting list from the portal and the freed place is offered by the morning sweep; moving a child's stage drafts a message to the parent for approval.
Built since · 5 September 2026 — A genuine none is recorded in the parent's words; the next hold went through first time.
Built since · 5 September 2026 — The drafter writes the dates inside the reply and concludes from the dated booking on the record.
Built since · 6 September 2026 — The agent moves the customer's own booking from their email: in time it moves in place and keeps its reference; inside the notice rule the old booking is cancelled as a late cancellation and the new time held for approval, or the move is free — the business's setting. A whole series is still rearranged by the business.
Connect your mailbox and tell the setup assistant what you do. It proposes the diary, the services, the checklist and the pipeline for you to confirm — nothing is saved until you press Save. Free 14-day pilot, no card.
BLAM8 assistant