As part of Coaching Week 2019 Swim England have unveiled fantastic new Level 2 Coaching Open Water Swimming qualification.
Replacing the Level 2 Award in British Open Water Swimming, this qualification has been designed to provide coaches with the specialist knowledge needed to deliver open water swimming sessions. It has been specifically developed to meet the needs of today’s open water coaches and swimmers, as the sport’s popularity continues to grow.
Coaches will learn about:
By the end of the qualification, coaches will have the skills needed to work as an open water coach and effectively and independently plan, prepare, deliver, monitor and evaluate a series of open water training sessions.
Sharon Lock, Swim England’s National Masters and Open Water Development Officer, said:
“The Level 2 Coaching Open Water Swimming qualification provides everything required to coach in any kind of circumstance – whether you are working with elite swimmers, beginners or anything in between.
“We know within the open water environment that changing from the pool to the lake or sea requires significant health and safety planning. That’s all still included but we’ve also added more of the hints, tips and techniques that today’s coaches were asking for.
“We’re focusing on more in-depth session plans around different types of athletes because as an open water coach you can be working with everything from social swimmers who want to have a go at the sport, right through to our elite open water talent swimmers.
“The whole emphasis has been about making it a better experience for the coaches so they can learn how to transfer the skills they have from the pool into an open water environment.”
Research from the Sport England Active Lives survey has revealed that more than 4.1 million people swam in lakes, lochs, rivers and seas between November 2017 and 2018. Sharon believes that the new Swim England qualification will help address that rising demand – and create more high-quality coaches.
She added:
“The amount of open water events across the country this summer is just incredible. There is huge interest there and it follows on that there must be a demand for first class open water coaches too.
“Open water swimming is popular with children of all different ages now and we want to encourage groups and venues to work with any age. It’s about their ability not their age, so there is a lot more content included around coaching children too.”
This summer there are two courses running:
Swim England Level 2 Coaching Open Water Swimming
Dates: 22nd June 2019 and 30th August 2019
Venues: Northolt Leisure Centre/Ham Lake
Swim England Level 2 Coaching Open Water Swimming
Dates: 6th July 2019 and 28th September 2019
Venues: Trowbridge Sports Centre/Vobster Quay