Well, driving down on Wednesday night all I could think about was 9 days away from the kids. However, my Water Babies friends had kept reassuring me that time would fly and I'd be so busy that I would cope with the separation with little stress. HOW RIGHT THEY WERE!!!
The next morning we drove to a hall (I'd love to say where it was but I think we covered every corner of Yorkshire while we were there and it has all fused into one – let’s blame the chlorine!!) We spent the entire day in a classroom situation. Time did fly as the content was both so relevant and interesting. The next day we spend a total of twelve hours in the pool. Five hours were spent in the first pool including us all teaching the rest of the group a lesson to establish our teaching 'personalities' . We then went through the lesson plans and perfected each practice and I mean perfected!
Fortunately we had all been warned about Paul forgetting to let you eat so we soon had a sandwich-making rota established! The rest of that day and the following one were spent going through each skill in the lesson plans. These sessions although very intensive were amazing. We would just keep going until everyone had it completely right, there was always a nice atmosphere. Even sitting over a quick sandwich, or in the car or on the train we would be quizzed about lesson plans and practices. Each night irrespective of how late we had finished homework would be given, this could be preparing and learning lesson plans, writing toddler lesson plans or reading one of the books written on the subject of water babies.
From the Sunday onwards we started teaching real classes. Anytime we are not teaching we are watching and learning. It is a logistical nightmare for Paul, every evening he had to find the appropriate classes for each of us the next day based on how we've done, what levels we have still to teach and he also arranged for us to teach in as many different pools as possible. Often after the last class we all donned our swimsuits and entered the pool to look at class management and effective use of the size and shape of the pool. These sessions very invaluable altho' at 8 o'clock at night with an hour’s drive back to the flat and homework to do it often didn't seem that way at the time.
Always at night we would be given feedback and details of where we were going the next day and what we were teaching. After that we would get together and go through the relevant lesson plans or have a karaoke session to learn the correct words to the songs. On one of the days the pool went down so we all foolishly thought we might get the morning off. NO WAY! We spent the morning watching water baby videos.
The Thursday night before the STA exam we went through the STA manual in great depth until we were all confident for the exam at 7am the next morning. We finished about 2am! I must mention for all those attending future courses that Paul cooked us dinner that night, before we started, and we all went to the pub until it was ready!
This may make the course sound like boot camp but it really was a fantastic experience. I for one can't stand time wasting and I can guarantee every minute of the trip to Yorkshire was worthwhile. I have been on many training courses before but this course was of an immensely high standard. Not only was the course content and delivery excellent but the standard expected from each of us was very high. The theme song for the week is appropriate on so many levels: just be prepared to ‘keep moving, keep moving, keep moving'!!
Angie Sword
Water Babies Instructor, Glasgow
