The BBC’s Inside Out West followed Grace Isaacs and the Spencer Swim Team in the lead up to the European Masters Championships in Cadiz and the show is now available on the BBC iPlayer.

At 77-years-old, Isaacs has swum for over 60 years and competed as part of the British team at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.

Isaacs, who is from Chruchill in Somerset, competed as one of 4,000 swimmers at the European Masters Championships and the Medley relay team took on the Swedish team to break the world record.

To see if Isaacs and her team-mates succeeded CLICK HERE

-ENDS-

Two top swimming coaches are set to graduate (9th November) from the highly-regarded UK Sport Elite Coach scheme after three years developing their skills and knowledge.

Gallica’s Head Coach Louise Graham and British Gas ITC Coach Graeme Antwhistle were chosen as ten of the most talented young coaches in 2006. The scheme which started in 2004 has grown in strength and has seen a total of four aquatic coaches already graduate from the scheme.

The Elite Coach scheme was established to accelerate the development of the nation’s most exciting coaching prospects across a wide range of sports. The focus has been on practical applications to elite coaching, and there has been a strong emphasis on the skills required to lead a high performance programme and manage a team of expert support staff in order to maximise athletic performance.

Each coach has benefited from quality learning experiences featuring the latest international research presented by leading experts.

Graham moved from the British Gas ITC in Loughborough to her current Head Coach position at Gallica earlier this year and has felt that the transition was made easier by the skills she learnt through the scheme.

“The scheme was really tailored to our development which was great,” Graham said. “Each year was very self-driven and that meant that we could all get what we needed out of the course. I am looking forward to the graduation but it is sad that the programme has now come to an end.

“The scheme gave me a good toolbox to lead the programme at Gallica. It has enabled me to see the bigger picture about things. I have been able to plan the programme to make itdriven for the individuals at the club.

“The scheme taught me about self awareness too. I have learnt which parts of my behaviour motivate people and which part annoy people. I know more about myself and that has allowed me to recognise when I am at my best and how to get the best out of the swimmers.”

This year has seen Gallica celebrate success at both the British Gas Scottish National Championships and the British Gas ASA National Championships and Gallica swimmer Dan Sliwinski broke James Gibson’s 100m Breaststroke British record.

“Dan’s record was definitely one of the highlights for me working with Gallica. It happened on the first day of Nationals and it gave everyone a lift. I had only been with the club for 12/13 weeks before the competition and so to see the performances they brought out was great. Everyone just raised their bar and performed well.”

-ENDS-

For further details contact British Swimming Media Officer Gemma Field on 01509 632238, 07917 726431 or email gemma.field@swimming.org

About British Swimming
British Swimming is the National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain.  It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Countries national governing bodies of England (ASA), Scotland (Scottish ASA) and Wales. (Welsh ASA)  British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

About British Gas
British Gas is Britain's favourite domestic energy supplier. As well as providing gas and electricity, it also installs and maintains central heating and gas appliances in millions of homes throughout the country. British Gas is very proud to be the principal partner of British Swimming and home countries: The ASA, Scottish Swimming and Swim Wales. British Gas is supporting the team's quest for medals on the world and Olympic stage - and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and use swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle. British Gas wants to ensure local pools remain at the heart of our communities. By using its expertise, it can help them reduce costs by being more energy efficient and safeguard the facilities for this and future generations. For more information visit www.britishgas.co.uk/swimming

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

 

Teachers and coaches are invited to apply to become part of the ASA team of qualified tutors by taking part in a national training programme run by the Institute of Swimming (IoS), commencing early next year.

After successful completion of the training, candidates will benefit from increased career opportunities and an additional income stream by becoming a licensed ASA tutor, eligible to deliver UKCC courses and continuing professional development seminars in the relevant discipline. 

Qualified tutors will effectively become part of the ASA’s new development framework to provide a world class coaching environment for England’s teachers and coaches.  The framework, launched by the ASA last month, will create a new coaching system that delivers the right number coaching hours, by the right coach, in the appropriate environment to achieve success.  It will create teachers and coaches who can promote learning through ownership, awareness and responsibility.

This means that tutors will also get the satisfaction of knowing they are contributing to the advancement of the sport, which trainee Sarah Slowgrove, who hopes to complete the training programme early next year, is particularly looking forward to. 

She said: “There is definitely a feel good factor in knowing that you are part of the revolution to professionalise the industry and the fact that I will be part of the build up to 2012 by educating a new generation of teachers is a massive thing for me.  As a sports person, I feel that it’s so important to promote the sport by getting more young people involved and then providing them with professional and well trained teachers.”

An experienced swimming teacher herself, Sarah began her career by helping at her local club in Colchester and then taught in leisure centres and a private swim school.  Now a Sports Lecturer at Colchester Institute, Sarah plans to run courses for students at the Institute as well as externally for the IoS.

“Swimming is my passion and I view this training programme as a way of taking my swimming career a step further,” she said.   

“Personally I have enjoyed my swimming so much, I want to give something back and although I have done this by teaching swimming myself, I really like the thought of improving the quality of future swimming teachers by developing them and helping them learn.” 

Sarah has almost completed the training programme which comprises three distinct stages: firstly, the pre-programme application and an assessment day; then the programme itself with induction, registration, courses and seminars and finally formal assessments and course attachments. 

Following completion of the assessment, induction and registration processes, candidates attend a three day ‘Certificate for Tutoring in Sport’ course followed by ‘Introduction to Assessment Practices in Sport’, a two day course which will allow candidates to assess ASA courses. There will then be a final assessment day for each of these courses.  The IoS then provide a further two day seminar covering IoS and ASA Awarding Body processes and procedures.

Trainees then take part in three course attachments where firstly, they observe an experienced ASA tutor in the delivery of an ASA/UKCC course, then work with another tutor to deliver part of the course content for the second attachment.  The trainee is responsible for the planning and delivery of a full course for the third and final attachment, with an experienced tutor acting both as support and assessor. 

 “The attachments were my favourite part of the training programme,” said Sarah. 

“My placement tutors were all absolutely fantastic – their expert support and guidance has been invaluable.  Just watching them gives you huge amounts of direction on what is required.  Being a teacher has helped me massively as I already have the delivery skills, but someone who doesn’t have that background will rely heavily on the placements to get that support.  I particularly enjoyed the final placement which confirmed that becoming a tutor is absolutely the right thing for me.”

Ray Lau has been an ASA tutor for fifteen years and ran Sarah’s first course attachment.  “Sarah was an excellent attachment and I am sure she will do well,” he said.

“My tip for those who may be interested in tutor training is that you should really know your stuff and be keen to make a difference in tutoring the next generation of teachers.  It’s really important to ensure that learning is fun and remember to keep the teachers active!”

Once Sarah has completed all elements of the training programme, she will need to submit her portfolio of evidence to the ASA Awarding Body to prove her competence in all areas.  This will include certificates, qualifications and attachment evidence. She should also have had a recent Criminal Records Bureau check and attended an accredited Safeguarding and Protecting Children Seminar.  Once all the evidence has been confirmed as sufficient and valid, the ASA Awarding Body will issue a Tutor Licence and Sarah will be ready to begin her new career as an ASA Tutor!

If you are an ASA qualified swimming teacher or coach with recent experience of teaching and/or coaching in the UK and think you may be interested in becoming an ASA accredited tutor, please submit your CV together with a covering letter to the IoS for consideration to tutortraining@swimming.org by 31^st December 2009.  For further information including full candidate advice and guidance and a flowchart of the full process please click here.

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA PR Officer Claire Freeman on 01509 632265 or email claire.freeman@swimming.org

About the ASA
The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn to Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

In order to comply with national education and training standards it has developed two separate and independent arms – the ASA Awarding Body and the Institute of Swimming (IoS) - which represent the awarding and delivery channels for all ASA qualifications.

ASA Awarding Body
The ASA Awarding Body develops, assesses, awards and quality assures all ASA qualifications. It is the equivalent of other awarding bodies such as City & Guilds and OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations). The ASA Awarding Body is licensed by British Swimming to award qualifications in England and Wales. It also has the remit for quality assurance of all areas of UKCC standards.

Institute of Swimming (IoS)
The IoS is a licensed training provider, like a school or college. It is one of many ASA Awarding Body Approved Centres.  The IoS is also a membership body for qualified swimming teachers and coaches, providing insurance, advice and learning opportunities to its members.

About British Gas
British Gas is Britain's favourite domestic energy supplier. As well as providing gas and electricity, it also installs and maintains central heating and gas appliances in millions of homes throughout the country. British Gas is very proud to be the principal partner of British Swimming and home countries: The ASA, Scottish Swimming and Swim Wales. British Gas is supporting the team's quest for medals on the world and Olympic stage - and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and use swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle. British Gas wants to ensure local pools remain at the heart of our communities. By using its expertise, it can help them reduce costs by being more energy efficient and safeguard the facilities for this and future generations. For more information visit www.britishgas.co.uk/swimming

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

 

A valued British volunteer, Robert Outtram, has been appointed to the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) Swimming Technical Committee.

Outtram has been chosen as Head of Technical Control after his countless number of years volunteering within the sport.

Last year, Outtram was chosen to work as the Technical Director at the Beijing Paralympic Games and most recently worked at the IPC Swimming European Championships in Reykjavik.

-ENDS-

The new IPC Swimming Technical Committee consists of:

Glenn Robert Tasker (Australia) – Vice Chairperson
Robert Outtram (Great Britain) – Head of Technical Control
Ross Brag (New Zealand) – Head of Officiating

The handover ceremony of the Delhi 2010 took place at the Houses of Parliament last week (30th October) and Chef de Mission Craig Hunter played an integral part to the ceremony.

Sir Andrew Foster, Chair of Commonwealth Games England (CGE), was handed the Delh 2010 Queen's Baton from Suresh Kalmadi, Hon'ble member of Parliament and Chairman of the Delhi 2010 Organising Committee. 

Also in attendance were Dr M S Gill, Hon'ble Minister for Sport (India) and The Rt Hon'ble John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons and Ann Hogbin, Chief Executive of CGE.

The countdown for the 2010 Commonwealth Games now lies at just 334 days and preparations are well underway within all of the aquatic disciplines.

-ENDS-

Kellogg’s has been recognised for making a significantly positive impact on the community thanks to its partnership with the ASA.

The company was awarded the 2009 Silver Food and Drink Federation’s Community Partnership Award in the Culture, Media and Sport category on 15th October at a special lunchtime event at the Institute of Directors in London.

Since beginning their partnership with the ASA in 1996, Kellogg’s has demonstrated that they are committed to supporting a ‘grass roots to gold medals’ programme of swimming to encourage more people to learn to swim and get active.

Kellogg's is aware that an active lifestyle is key to improving and maintaining good health, and through research discovered a significant amount of girls and boys aged two to 15 were not meeting the Government's targets for the recommended levels of physical activity.

In 2008 Kellogg's launched its Free Swim Programme after  identifying cost as a barrier for consumers, so the programme was designed to remove this barrier by offering one free swim voucher with every promotional pack of cereal. This led to 923,000 free swim vouchers being redeemed.

As part of its work with the ASA, Kellogg's has set up over 40 community projects to address specific local barriers to keeping fit including: transport for rural communities; women-only sessions for women and children from ethnic minorities; and specialised teaching for disabled children.
Kellogg's also launched its Family Swim Challenge, which further strengthens the campaign to get more people swimming.

-ENDS-

For further details contact Lauren Sanderson, British Swimming Media Assistant, on 01509 632236 or email lauren.sanderson@swimming.org.

The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water, and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn To Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About British Gas
British Gas is Britain's favourite domestic energy supplier. As well as providing gas and electricity, it also installs and maintains central heating and gas appliances in millions of homes throughout the country. British Gas is very proud to be the principal partner of British Swimming and home countries: The ASA, Scottish Swimming and Swim Wales. British Gas is supporting the team's quest for medals on the world and Olympic stage - and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and use swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle. British Gas wants to ensure local pools remain at the heart of our communities. By using its expertise, it can help them reduce costs by being more energy efficient and safeguard the facilities for this and future generations. For more information visit www.britishgas.co.uk/swimming

About Kellogg's
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg's has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg's ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

 

Presentations from the ASA's First Annual Council Conference are now online for those people who could not get to the event itself in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The ASA held its first Council Conference on October 10th 2009, entitled ‘Facing the Future Together’, to look at the current challenges it faces and to show its members and volunteers how together everyone can drive the organisation’s future development.

For more details or to view the presentations CLICK HERE.

A high level evaluation has shown the ambitious Everyday Swim project – that set out to get more people swimming over the past three years – has succeeded with a gain of over 10,000 adult swimmers across nine pilot schemes.

The report, published by the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University on behalf of the ASA and Sport England, presents key findings about how swimming participation rates have changed across the local authorities who each ran projects with a specific focus, dependent upon the needs in the community. 

Everyday Swim was a national pilot project led by the ASA and supported by Sport England and local partners which concluded its first phase at the end of March this year.  The key aim was to get more people swimming and find out ‘what works’ in getting more people into our pools. 

Two of the original Everyday Swim pilot areas were awarded the status of ‘Everyday Swim Good Practice Centres’ for a second phase of the project until March 2010. These centres, in Islington and Suffolk, will continue to build on the great work of Everyday Swim by sharing the common lessons learnt.

Everyday Swim Co-ordinators were set the target of increasing swimming participation rates by 3% in the final 18 months of the project – a very ambitious target not wholly achieved - but overall there have been positive increases in local participation rates and a gain of over 10,000 adult swimmers across the pilots.

The report states that it is clear that the projects have genuinely made a positive difference.  The Everyday Swim authorities as a whole have performed considerably better than the national average, determined by Sport England’s ‘Active People’ surveys (which interview residents in local authorities nationwide).

Of particular note is the Everyday Swim Good Practice Centre at Islington where they have succeeded in finding new ways to build an effective and entertaining pool programme of structured activities away from the traditional lane swimming, including Super Swim – events that take place over the summer holidays and include mini polo, diving, synchronised swimming, snorkelling and lifesaving. 

Islington has achieved an increase in its adult participation rate by taking a community-wide approach of ‘bringing the gym culture to the pool’.  The report states that Everyday Swim Islington has shown it is possible to increase participation in swimming, through paying attention to detail in all aspects of the business, being customer focused and responsive, marketing of the centre externally and having committed and dynamic staff on the ground driving the project forward.

Aquaterra Leisure is a charitable trust that manages Islington’s public leisure facilities in partnership with Islington Council. 

Their Chief Executive Jonathan Gibbs said: “This has been a great opportunity to develop innovative strategies to change pool culture, and measure the results. We’re excited to be able to continue our successes as a Good Practice Centre.”

The report presents three key themes which have emerged from across all of the pilots and are considered instrumental in helping to encourage more people into the pool;

• Structured sessions – particularly focused on teaching non-swimmers to swim or rebuilding the water confidence of those people who have not been swimming for a number of years.

• Culture change – changes to the way in which pool operators work such as performance management and customer service measures, establishing pool operators groups to share ideas and resources, making sure the workforce is fit for purpose and properly trained, programme analysis including assessments of unused pool time, ‘swim buddy’ schemes to give support to non swimmers and the use of swim diaries to provide feedback from pool users.

• Creative marketing -  including attracting new participants by promoting sessions outside of the leisure centre environment which are audience and context specific.

The results of the Everyday Swim evaluation are underlined by the take up rates of the Government’s Free Swimming initiative which show that more than a thousand local authority pools in England have been offering free swimming to 20 million under 16’s and over 60’s with more than 250 councils backing the scheme, including the Everyday Swim pilot areas.

David Sparkes, Chief Executive of the ASA, commented: “Careful investigation into the pilot projects run in each location, coupled with consultation with stakeholders and the public, has effectively gone a long way to prove the commonly held view that there are no ‘quick fixes’ which will lead to more people swimming. 

“To bring about a culture change in the swimming industry we need to build upon the excellent catalyst provided by the introduction of Free Swimming. We can now also use the valuable lessons learnt in Everyday Swim to release the high levels of latent demand for swimming and work with our stakeholders and partners to bring about a sustainable increase in participation.”

Lisa O'Keefe, Sport England's Director of Sport, said: "Everyday Swim is providing vital insight into what attracts people to swimming and keeps them coming back for more.

"Swimmers and the ASA have a significant contribution to make towards our goal of getting a million more people participating in regular community sport. The lessons learned from Everyday Swim will enable the ASA to focus on the most effective ways of driving up participation and satisfaction levels and ensure we get value for money from our investment."

Duncan Goodhew, Everyday Swim official ambassador, commented: “I am delighted at the continuing success of Everyday Swim and have thoroughly enjoyed my work with the pilot project schemes.  Although the main project has concluded, the Everyday Swim Good Practice Centres will continue to share their learning beyond the project areas and encourage others to emulate their successes.”

This was successfully implemented this month with more than 350 delegates attending one of the ASA’s five free national Everyday Swim Good Practice seminars to find out the lessons learnt from the pilot project.  Goodhew was a motivational and inspirational guest speaker who formed part of the Everyday Swim team who travelled to Manchester, Bristol, London, Newcastle and Birmingham as part of the second phase of the pilot project. 

The seminars were extremely well received by the audience of leisure providers, local authorities and county sport partnerships, with one attendee highlighting “the day was very informative and I found great value in being involved”.  Another stated “…fantastic examples of how we can support our pool operators in helping re-programme their pools, promote adult lessons and engage with their customers on a very real level to help entice new users into their facilities”.

The Everyday Swim Good Practice Centres will continue to build on these events by continuing to share good practice across the industry through other methods, including the offer of bespoke visitor days to the Good Practice Centre areas, Everyday Swim resources and email and phone support services.

The full Everyday Swim evaluation report can be downloaded from www.everydayswim.org or by clicking here.

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA PR Officer Claire Freeman on 01509 632265 or email claire.freeman@swimming.org

About the ASA
The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn to Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About Sport England
Sport England invests National Lottery and Exchequer funding in organisations and projects that will grow and sustain participation in grassroots sport and create opportunities for people to excel at their chosen sport.

Sport England is committed to creating a world-leading community sport system, and has set specific and measurable targets to achieve by 2012/13:
*       One million people doing more sport
*       A 25% reduction in the number of 16- to 18-year-olds who drop out of at least five key sports
*       Improved talent development systems in at least 25 sports
*       A measurable increase in people’s satisfaction with their experience of sport
*       A major contribution to the delivery of the five hour sports offer for children and young people.

About Kellogg’s
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg’s has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg’s ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers.  The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency.  Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money.  So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year.  To complete a report go to .www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

A development framework to provide a world class coaching environment for England’s teachers and coaches has been launched by the ASA Coaching Systems Team at the ASA Council Conference.  

‘The ASA Development Framework for Teaching and Coaching in England 2009-2013’  will effectively create a new coaching system that delivers the right number of coaching hours, by the right coach, in the appropriate environment to achieve success.

Teachers and coaches across all the disciplines and the wider coaching workforce will benefit from the implementation of the Framework which will operate in all five key environments: beginner, talent development, high performance, participation and potential participants. 

The Framework represents a significant culture shift by delivering much more than just coach education.  Previous systems have had the education and qualification of coaches as their main focus, whereas the new Framework is all about developing the potential of participants (swimmers) by creating teachers and coaches who can promote learning through ownership, awareness and responsibility.

Bill Furniss, Head Coach, Nova Centurion SC believes the ASA’s approach to coach development will create a world class, dynamic coaching system:

“Developing a ‘high performing’ coach takes more than just education.  It involves a wide range of activities that help the coach ‘develop’ and achieve their potential. The approach of the ASA is now focusing on giving coaches ownership of their decisions and the ability to choose what they are going to do.  This will then create greater self-belief, allowing the coach to better understand and manage themselves, which in turn will positively impact upon the participants they work with.”

He added, “the ASA coach development plan will focus on changing their behaviour, as opposed to simply increasing their knowledge.”

Colin Huffen, Coaching Systems Team Manager and National Education Officer for the ASA, is excited about the changes brought about by the new strategy.

“Teachers and coaches face daily challenges and strive to be the best they can be.  The ASA have identified that to reach this goal they not only need the ASA to help them qualify, but also support to help them flourish.

“The participant is clearly the priority for all of us.  We have identified that there needs to be a move from an instructional, autocratic approach to the empowerment of coaches.  This will hone their skills so that they can follow the participants lead and develop them with the knowledge to take ownership of their own development.”

The four Key Objectives of the new Framework are:
1. Recruit: Recruit the appropriate number of coaches into swimming’s delivery system
2. Train: To qualify the appropriate number and level of coaches required
3. Support: Provide appropriate levels of support to the coaching workforce to allow them to achieve their potential in their chosen environments
4. Retain: To provide systems of recognition and reward in order to retain the coaching workforce

For further information on the work of the Coaching Systems Team and for a copy of the Development Framework, please visit CLICK HERE

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA PR Officer Claire Freeman on 01509 632265 or email claire.freeman@swimming.org

About the ASA
The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn to Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

In order to comply with national education and training standards it has developed two separate and independent arms – the ASA Awarding Body and the Institute of Swimming (IoS) - which represent the awarding and delivery channels for all ASA qualifications.
ASA Awarding Body
The ASA Awarding Body develops, assesses, awards and quality assures all ASA qualifications. It is the equivalent of other awarding bodies such as City & Guilds and OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations). The ASA Awarding Body is licensed by British Swimming to award qualifications in England and Wales. It also has the remit for quality assurance of all areas of UKCC standards.

Institute of Swimming (IoS)
The IoS is a licensed training provider, like a school or college. It is one of many ASA Awarding Body Approved Centres.  The IoS is also a membership body for qualified swimming teachers and coaches, providing insurance, advice and learning opportunities to its members.

About Kellogg’s
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg’s has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg’s ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers.  The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency.  Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money.  So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year.  To complete a report go to .www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.