If my child was at significant risk from anyone taking a picture of him there would be no way he’d be doing anything in front of crowds of people most of whom wanted to take pics. Absolutely no chance whatsoever. In the case of swimming I would explain to him I would coach him and he could start competing at some point in the future when the danger had eased.
I think it is far more likely that the parents concerned think there may be some very slight danger having have read somewhere you shouldn’t put pictures of ones self on the internet so are uncomfortable with the idea. They are free to feel however they want but I’m sorry, that is not a good enough reason to stop the other 95%+ of parents from using cameras.
i think you miss the point…but hey ho…
are you?
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Regular school teachers with no swim training can coach a swim class?
That’s a bit like letting swimmers with no teacher training to coach a swim class isn’t it…?
Or is it better than at least someone is running a swim session than not at all?
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I think he means that some people are swim teachers who teach beginners to swim, which is a very different skill to coaching those who can swim to get better, especially in a club environment.
SwimEngland have separate courses for each group. Many clubs will be grateful for any volunteer on the poolside though
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Master eJC is a swim teacher…he is absolutely fantastic with the kids…hopefully it will also help pay his way through college…although the pay is appalling (especially as a mid teen when he started)
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This is absolutely correct.
I also think it takes a different type of teacher to do each. I could not teach an absolute beginner, I just would not have the patience*. I think I’d be best at coaching a squad’s development group.
*It constantly surprises me the way some parents approach ensuring their kids can swim. I can understand if they don’t feel confident teaching them the technicalities, and/or their kids take no notice of them trying to teach them (that’s very common, I had that…). But paying a swimming teacher, sometimes on an individual lesson (which is very expensive), to teach them “water confidence” by essentially playing with them in the pool for 30 min. What ! Why don’t they just take them, and (usually) for the full hour as well, twice as long !
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What The good Doc says
SE have 2 very different pathways teaching and coaching, teachers are levels 1-7 on the Learn to Swim framework, teaching basic stroke mechanics, swim safety, water skills etc but coaches coach swimmers to get faster. There’s this grey area that teachers have the remit to coach squads but not the other way, so I’m a L3 Tri / L2 Swim Coach, but cant teach swimming, but a L1 swim teacher can essentially coach a squad!. The idea is they stick within remit and its risk assessed but not in practice! It can be OK for younger kids but as the kids develop past tadpoles into competitive squads there’s a real lack of knowledge racing craft past “what we did” and whilst even L2 coaching teaches pretty basic science, you learn enough background to help develop a periodised plan according to LTAD and have the confidence to read and research and understand the difference between good knowledge and “twitter knowledge”. (Its much better than the old BTF L2 i did!)
At El Ninos old club even the HC was just a L2 teacher. They literally had one proper coach, me. Its very much still “I swam this way so you will”
Personally I think its a loophole that needs closing but as eJC eluded to also, BTF have the opposite problem, where we are trained as coaches, but a lot of tri “coaching” involves teaching basic swim/run mechanics to novice adults or kids with a basic level of skills. We literally have a lane at juniors of kids barely able to do a 50m. Since covid we are seen as cheap swimming lessons and whilst we have trials to be inclusive we have relaxed the rules somewhat (we are lucky in that the HC is also a swim coach and teacher and we have another swim teacher so covered)
I started my L1 teaching as CPD just coming up to Covid but never got to complete it and got a refund, I may revisit it at some point as it was very interesting. Learned a few new skills just from the online part I did
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the least said, the better…
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parent confidence…amongst others…
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I know what you are saying, but its actually a big improvement on older models (IMO) with a few caveats on age to actual development. Its actually rebadged ADSP (Athlete Development Support Pathway) , a basic PDF outline attached!
At least they acknowledge that kids arent “sprinters” at 11 years old and also technique should be the overriding skill coached up to about 15-16years of age
Athlete Development Support Pathway for Swimming (2).pdf (339.8 KB)
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Meh “Go faster!”, “Go slower!”, “You’re not giving me 110%!” plus a random set of numbers and letters scrawled on a small whiteboard - how hard could it be?
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Mrs FB started as a swim teacher with Freedom Leisure and they put her through the teaching course. After moving to Wales she started with another FL centre but due to politics of the place (shite management basically) she switched to coaching with the local swim club who use the same centre. They sponsored her to do the L1 coaching course as - as said - there are differences between teaching and coaching. So she can cover both now. The club want her to do the L2 coaching course but she’s resisting as she doesn’t feel it’s of any extra benefit to her now.
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The main benefit is to the club as a L1 must be supervised by a L2 (the idea is that you would have a L2 overseeing with L1 assisting for each squad/lane for instance, in practice they get around the rules by having a L1 with one squad whilst a L2 is coaching another squad at same time).
Saying that, it may have changed since Covid, but I did gain a lot from my L2, it’s certainly more in depth than I had considered based on tri, and I got experience of coaching at another club, which included sessions with an elite para swimmer which was partly luck on my part, but an invaluable and rewarding experience. Its not cheap (unless funded) and quite time consuming. Its now ~21 hours of “classroom” (7 * 3hrs on zoom typically post Covid) and 4 x 2hrs coached sessions at another clubs “regional level” lanes as well as a lot of project work (ie build a micro/macro/meso cycle and plan 6 sessions, athlete development plans, testing sets/protocols do EAP/RA’s , oh and the hardest thing is watch a number of videos and do a stroke/skill description and analysis of them)
It serious about coaching for a number of years, she should go for it, worth the investment in time.
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Nail on the head there. No doubt she would gain from it but you need to factor in that she:
a) does it for enjoyment
b) has other unpaid volunteer roles that consume time
c) she’s in her 70s - the club need to get some younger coaches for the long term
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Interesting time at the Skins relays tonight.
How do you explain this H ?
He was going first on every leg (which had the benefit I could time his reps as individual)
1st - 50 Br - 3.4 secs over his PB
3 min rest
2nd - 50 Back - 1.3 sec over his PB
about 5 min rest (as there was the other “pool” was swimming)
3rd - 50 Back - PB by 0.8 sec
3 min rest
4th - 50 Fr - 8.4 over his PB (he got left on the blocks as he was expecting an on your marks !)
3 min rest
5th - 50 Back - 1.3 sec over his PB (his prev PB that is)
3 min rest
6th - 50 Back - 4.0 sec over his (prev) PB
Hopefully I timed the biggie (the 3rd one) correctly, the split is about right (he dropped 1.1 sec on the second 25), but can he really have done a PB on the third 50 of a Skins relay ? ! ? One clue was he was well motivated because he’d thought, incorrectly, they’d been eliminated by coming 3rd (of 3) in the 2nd 50, but there was the other “pool” which had slower teams in it.
Under 42 for 50 back was a BIG milestone for him (I timed him at 41.60), he’d been promised an Airfix Challenger 2 tank for doing it (or going under 40 for 50 Fly) ! But did he do it for sure ?
As an aside this is yet another big negative of that ridiculous video ban because I could have checked it off that, but I cannot as I have no video…
This may happen for a host of reasons…or you may of course have got all the times wrong.
Assuming the timing is correct, then in similar circumstances it may well be repeatable. Without knowing his PB it is impossible to gauge how good a progression this is, but one assumes it is significant, so well done him. That said, assuming also that he is relatively young, i would put the stop watch away and focus on skill development and retention in the sport…in ten years of skill development he will be super fit and super skilled and the outcomes will take care of themselves.
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Skins arent officially timed events, so it doesnt matter really but as they are “races” as opposed to “time trials” which most opens are in all but name, maybe he was dragged along, maybe he had warmed up after 2, hit a decent start or turn. Could be a number of reasons
El Nino has done them at club champs once last year (only for top 6 swimmers overall in club 200IM) , made the final against kids older and faster than him and beat his 50Free pb on one leg despite having raced all 4 50s and 100IM in 2hrs before skins. He even beat his 50free fresh earlier in the day. He just seemed to be able to push “in a race” to get that extra. He was around 2-4 seconds down for the others legs.
FTR Skins is usually on 3 minutes with just a 10second warning and the beep. Takes some practice to get it right. Weve seen kids still climbing on blocks, or daydreaming 
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Many say this, incl H., and in theory I agree with you. But it’s easier said than done when, basically, swimmers are judged by their times,
- a time to get in a particular squad,
- a time to get into particular events (e.g. the Yorkshire championships)
- times when comparing oneself to other particular swimmers, esp those one knows !
etc etc.
The only way round it could be having awards for getting up the pool in the fewest number of strokes, a good measure of technical ability, but that would be even more unfair on shorter swimmers !
You can set a time off the first leg of a relay* so it’s still a PB H. ! I was very happy, as was he, though we’d have been happier if it’d been a confirmed time (either from the club or off a video).
Under 42 for the 50 back for the first time. He went 43.25 one year ago when he was 10 which was pretty good as that was his first real gala, though that was probably why he went that quick : he was a bit nervous… But then he did not improve that till just a few weeks ago (when I realised he just wasn’t swimming hard enough and advised him of my conclusion ! ) so it’s all very encouraging.
*I’ll always remember Klim breaking the 100m Free WR on the first leg of the 4x100 in the Sydney Olympics, the most exciting swimming race ever ?
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only by those that judge them…
that may or may not be valuable…
that too may not be important…
yep, but ego may not be the best motivator…