Workforce Development Update

Edition 24: 10 July 2009

Starting off with some great news for the Institute of Swimming (IoS) who can now boast the new status of Centre of Excellence for Aquatics Instruction. Awarded by the National Skills Academy for Sport and Active Leisure, the accreditation will mean swimming teachers and coaches across the country can gain increased access to high quality, industry-recognised training. It also enables the IoS to receive national and regional support from the Academy which will ensure the education programme reflects the needs of the swimming workforce. Click here to read more.

Staying with the IoS, an online booking system for Continuing Professional Development seminars will shortly be launched. Run as a pilot initially, this has been developed as a result of customer feedback – look out on the website for the announcement soon.

There have been concerns regarding the attendance of 16-18 year olds at ScUK Safeguarding & Protecting Children Workshops about the learning experience being provided to this age group. ScUK have taken guidance from the NSPCC and issued some recommendations which have been published on our website here.

Coaches in England can now benefit from two ambitious new programmes launched by the Coaching Systems and Talent Development teams. Professional apprenticeships for 16-24 year olds will give up to 40 budding young coaches an opportunity to pursue coaching as a career.  This effectively provides a fast track programme into high performance coaching up to Level 3 standard, in any of the aquatic disciplines, whilst they work in a club environment.  Click here to read the press release.

The second phase includes the ‘Advanced Coaching Offer’, which will provide targeted support to up to 160 proactive, talented, developing coaches over a four year period.  Offering a structured process of mentoring, support and development at absolutely no cost to the coach or club, coaches will have the opportunity to shape their future by taking part in observation/analyses of coaching sessions, one to one discussions, coaching at regional ASA Beacon programmes and attendance at talent camps. Click here to read more.

The Coaching Systems team also launched an online workforce audit survey last week as part of the coach and teacher development programme. The aim of the ASA Aquatic Workforce Audit is to provide robust data on the employment status and employee numbers in swimming teaching and coaching.  Employers who complete the survey have the chance to win free UKCC courses and gift vouchers to spend in the ASA Awards Centre. Visit now for your chance to win! 

The UKCC Level 2 Certificate for Coaching Synchronised Swimming and the Level 3 Certificate for Coaching Diving have both received provisional endorsement from ScUK. The two final Level 3 certificates, Coaching Water Polo and Synchronised Swimming, are being reviewed at ScUK’s next quarterly meeting.

The UK Coaching Centre of Excellence has approved a proposal for a substantial research project which aims to instil more lateral thought and complexities into our coaching model and UKCC qualifications.  National Education Officer Ian Freeman received full approval for British Swimming as a National Governing Body to undertake research into Participant Development Model Pathways to expand the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model to incorporate coach development. The findings will develop a diagnostic tool to highlight coaching characteristics and identify where and how they can be best employed, which will enable assessment of different athlete or potential athlete qualities at any given period in their development.  More news on this as the project develops.

Now for news from the Awarding Body – firstly the team have maintained excellent timescales for delivering exam results. They aim to reduce timescales further to 2 weeks for Level 1 courses and maintain the timescale on Level 2 courses to within 4 weeks from receipt of paperwork.

Following a review of other sporting awarding body’s systems, there are plans make the process for charging registration fees to Approved Centres fairer and more efficient. The new charges will take into account the level of resources required and the candidate numbers on courses registered and Approved Centres will be able to ‘recycle’ resources for future courses instead of returning unused items.

A significant amount of applications for the ASA Licensing Scheme for Aquatic Professionals are being received and processed – almost 200 have been issued since April.  In view of the demand, the offer of free licences to teachers and coaches has been extended until the end of September.

See you next month!

If you would like future editions of this update emailed straight to you as soon as they become available, please send your contact details to claire.freeman@swimming.org

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