Swim Derby has achieved the top level Amateur Swimming Association’s (ASA) Aquamark accreditation.

The council-run swimming scheme, which re-launched its lesson programme in September 2005 and began the Aquamark evaluation process over two years ago, received the accreditation last week.

The ASA is the national governing body for swimming and Aquamark is its quality seal of approval for swimming lesson providers. It is an original and unique programme, designed specifically to help organisations providing swimming programmes to improve and enhance their service.

Comprising four modules, operators are assessed on areas such as Programme Operation, Staffing, Customer Relations and Policy and Strategy. To achieve the top-level accreditation Premier status, a lesson provider must pass all four criteria. To achieve Approved status it must pass two of the four criteria.

Swim Derby programmes are offered at two centres in the city - Queen’s Leisure Centre and Moorways Swimming Pool, and 2,500 people currently access the swimming lesson programme each week. Since its re-launch it has been working closely with the ASA to implement the National Plan for Teaching Swimming and the Kellogg’s ASA Awards Scheme.

Queen’s Leisure Centre swim co-ordinator Sarah Ingram believes the accreditation will not only reflect well on the centre but also on the whole community.

“We are all very proud that we have achieved the Aquamark Premier status,” she said. “Everyone across both centres has worked extremely hard to gain the accreditation. It was a lot of hard work for everyone but we feel that by achieving the Premier status it has made it all worthwhile.”

“We can now assure all of our customers that we provide the highest quality swimming lessons available.”

ASA Examinations Manager Jane Saddington has seen the progress made by the centre during the examination period and has been pleased with improvements to the scheme.

“The centre has been working hard for the past two years to achieve the top level accreditation,” she said. “The feedback received from the assessor was very positive and highlighted a number of recently introduced initiatives that will help the centre move from being very good to becoming a role model for other centres.”

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For more information contact ASA Media Assistant Gemma Field on 01509 632262, 07917 726431 or email gemma.field@swimming.org

The Amateur Swimming Association 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 1,600 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

The Kellogg’s ASA Awards Scheme is the most successful awards scheme in British sport and issues around two million awards every year to swimmers all around the world.

For more information about ASA Awards please see www.swimming.org