A swimming teaching programme is not a “Lesson Plan” nor is it a “Scheme of Work”.

It is much, much more and they are very difficult to develop, especially if you have never done it before.

The ASA used to offer a Level 3 “Certificate for the Development and Management of Swimming Programmes”, but this ceased in 2010 (I am told, through of lack of interest arising from the difficulty in completing the work).

So what we now have are a lot of providers teaching only what they learned on a Teachers course and what they have been able to pick up from limited CPD events.

This mostly ends up just with providers just teaching the Awards in the ASA National Plan for Teaching Swimming or …”by implementing STA’s awards and qualifications…” and does not come close to representing a swimming programme.

Note: The NPTS is a template upon which a swimming programme can be based and is limited in its technical scope. Just teaching the Awards is like a teacher coaching pupils for known questions in a History exam – they will get full marks but they will know nothing of History.