Start To Swim

Scottish Swimming Participation and Performance Conference 2014 Start to Swim Alan Reed / Fiona Paterson

Early Years Swim Teacher Qualification Pre-requisite – UKCC L2 Swimming teachers or equivalent Course Info •Pre-course work •3 day tutor lead course •4 theoretical 2 practical assessments •Candidate funding available through SAAS

Start Swimming Before You Start School!

• How it started – 30% of Children in Scotland leave school unable to swim. The primary objective of the preschool program is to intervene early and address this issue • Partners involved – Scottish Swimming, Falkirk Community Trust, Scottish Salmon and Sportsmatch • Process – Engagement with Nurseries, parents and teachers working together to provide quality provision

Results and Impact • Prior to the lessons starting, 83.1% of children had never been to a structured lesson • 79.6% had little or no confidence in the water • 41.6% have continued into mainstream swimming lessons • 58.4% who did transition into mainstream swimming for example if finance was a barrier ‘‘Really impressed with how well Isla’s swimming has improved from swimming underwater to swimming up the deep end without arm bands (my heart was in my mouth that day) and all without armbands. Well done this is a great thing to be doing with the kids.

Thank you we will continue to go swimming and encourage her more.’

What's Next…..

• Offer preschool swimming again with the addition of another nursery • Look at a sustainable model to enable the program to be rolled out to other nurseries

Group Task • What should be delivered as part of the lesson, i.e. pre-school syllabus, a variation of Triple S or something else? • Within your organisation how would you monitor and evaluate?