Just Swim, the council's new in-house swimming school, launched yesterday, when the first of nearly 1800 people signed up to the new service took to the water.
Moana Pool manager Nicola Jukes said the in-house service replaced the previous Swimsation school, which was a programme run by council staff according to the external franchise's requirements.
The new service was a chance to try innovations, including smaller class sizes, different assessments, a new nautical theme and an enhanced school holiday programme that focused more on water safety, she said.
It would still cater for all ages, from babies to adults, and existing customers and staff had been rolled over to the new service, she said.
Prices had increased slightly, but parents now also had access to a new website, an online parent portal, where they could monitor their child's progress, and the option of online payments, she said.
The council had used Swimsation for 14 years, but had decided it was time to ``try things on our own and do things a wee bit differently'', she said.
``Sometimes when you're with a franchise . . . you have to run everything as a franchise wants it. Sometimes you do have ideas you want to bring to the party and you can, in a sense, be restricted with that.
``We just had a few things we felt we wanted to do and decided . . . it's time we went out and decided these things on our own.''
