The Kings' Experience

These past 4 weeks I have been working at a kids summer camp in my home town as a swim coach and lifeguard...

It has been a bit of a whirl wind to be honest as I applied for the job one day, was given an interview literally the next day and started camp the week after, therefore I had very little time to prepare myself for how manic the month ahead would be.

As the camps main swim coach, my job was to teach all of the children swimming but with a fun element, so I basically just played games and splashed around in the pool for the entire time I was at work!

Although stressful at times, I have had the best 4 weeks and have made some great friends and have really learnt a lot about swimming in general and about working with young children..

...next stop for me, applying to work at a summer camp in CANADA

Swim Teaching #3

After three weekends on the level one swim teaching course I have finally completed and passed it! So I can now call myself an ASA accredited level one swimming teacher, you wouldn't believe how chuffed I am!
I had three classes this weekend which was quite stressful and tiring but fun all the same. I had a stage 4/5 and a 5/6 class today so all the children could swim fairly well so I just had to refine their techniques, which I must say is a lot easier than teaching them to swim from scratch.
Hopefully I'll get a job soon as a teacher and be able to use my new skills in practise and actually help children in swimming and earn more money!

Swim Teaching #2

I have just completed my second weekend on the level 1 swimming teaching course, and like last week I had a whale of a time.
I had a lovely stage 2 class on Saturday morning and tried to help them I improve their leg technique but they seemed to be having more fun playing with the sinkers, so I decided to adapt my lesson plan to just playing...however, they did have to swim to reach the sinkers so I'd call it 'playing with a purpose!'
On Sunday morning I had a stage 6/7 class with only two boys in it and luckily they were both very well behaved and confident swimmers. I had them practise front crawl and back stroke then since they had improved so much and had put a lot of effort in we spent the last part of the lesson diving in.
Today (Sunday) was our practical assessment day, so we had an internal verifier come and observe our lessons as well as our tutor observing too...puts a lot of pressure on us to do well! Luckily we all passed as competent.
I can't wait for next weekend as we are finally learning how to teach the correct techniques for the different strokes which is what I find most interesting.

Swim Teaching #1

I decided a while back that I wanted to become a swimming teacher so I booked onto an ASA accredited level 1 course.The course is spread over 3 consecutive weekends and will allow me to assist large classes and teach small classes.
I have just completed my first weekend, and excusing the pun, we were thrown in at the deep end! We arrived at 8am on the Saturday morning and were told that we'd be teaching a class of real children at 8:30am! I was so nervous considering I'd never taught before, but once I'd had time to plan my lesson and met the kids I was fine.
My first class was stage 4, so luckily they could already swim a bit... we had a really fun lesson learning back stroke and one kid actually said that it was the most fun lesson she'd ever had!
On the Sunday I had a stage 1 class, they could barely swim at all but luckily none of them cried! They seemed to have a lot of fun playing a traffic light and collecting game which I had organised, so I think the lesson was generally a success.
The theory of the course is good too, seems to be a lot of recapping of the lifeguard course that I did over 3 years ago, as well as incorporating stroke techniques and the skills required of the national plan stages. I have also met some really nice people on the course which I am sure I will stay in contact with when we finish.
I really cannot wait for the next two weekends to come so I can teach some more kids!