Survive and Save Club based in Harrow, Middlesex is an accredited Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) Swim21 Teaching club, Approved Training centre and Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS) Approved Training centre for the National Pool Lifeguard Qualification, providing learn to swim opportunities and converting swimmers into lifesavers to save lives.

• The challenge

The club relies on a large teaching staff to provide swimming and lifesaving classes. We have up to 8 sessions per half hour over the three hour Friday evening session and so there is a need for qualified and ‘stable' staff. So we began to target the youth members of the club to assist in the teaching.

• Key actions

The major initiative was the establishment of an annual training and development programme. This enabled people to gain qualifications. The ASA Helper & RLSS Assistant Teacher course helped attract our 14+ members to take an active interest in the first steps to teaching. We also ran ASA Level 1 & subsequently ASA Level 2 Teaching courses.

In addition to attracting those within the club, external persons participated and we have been successful in recruiting teachers from these courses to staff our teaching programmes. We ensure everyone has completed the CRB forms and provide further development programme. This has included hosting recently the Sports Coach UK Safeguarding and Protecting Children, How to Coach Disabled People in Sport and Equity in your Coaching workshops.

• The solution

Two years later, we have gone from 8 teachers to now having 27 teaching staff, of which 75% are between the age of 14 - 18 helping, assisting or leading classes dependent on their qualifications.

We provide a continuous professional development programme so that people can gain the experience but also work towards other qualifications. We have a large number of staff representing the ethnic minority on teaching staff that has been useful in role modelling to people within our local community.

In addition, we have been successful in securing funding for some of our members to participate on the courses.

• The future

We are currently working towards the ASA Aquamark which is the quality assurance for learn to swim programmes. We are now looking to focus on improving the quality of our teachers to raise standards. Within our lifesaving programme, we will be running a trainer/assessor course which will aid the other clubs in the area.

Contact details
Ray Lau, Education & Development Officer, Survive and Save Club
Email: rlauma@hotmail.com
www.surviveandsave.org