Do you have your STAMark?


In the future, this is the only question you will need to ask of any swim school in order to check that they are operating to safe and professional standards.  But given this much needed quality assurance scheme is still relatively new, here are some other questions you should ask in the meantime:

 

Are you properly qualified to teach my baby?

All our instructors must complete their Assistant and Full Teachers qualifications with either the STA or ASA before becoming a fully qualified Water Babies teacher

They also complete an intensive Water Babies training course at HQ, involving classroom study, group work, presentations and practical sessions in the pool.

Their course finals include being examined by an external professional assessor. Upon successful completion of the course they are awarded a Water Babies Instructor’s certificate, which includes (as one part of it) the STA’s national Baby and Pre-School qualification.

There is currently no legislation covering baby swimming or swimming classes in general. Anyone can set up a baby swim school, regardless of experience, and no-one will be along to monitor it. So do first check the qualifications and experience of the teachers in the school you choose.

 

Do you have company insurance and documented health and safety procedures?

Corporate Insurance is an essential. Just like car insurance, not everybody has it, but everybody should. Any professionally run baby swim school should be able to show you a copy of their current company insurance certificate.

Whilst Water Babies has full corporate insurance, equally important are our safety measures, designed to ensure no accidents occur in the first place. 

We take great care in the training of our instructors, the construction of our programme and the risk assessments we carry out at each pool to ensure that we operate to the highest standards of health and safety (as required by our membership of the NFS).

Should any minor incident occur, all our instructors are qualified life savers (including infant resuscitation), a qualification that’s renewed bi-annually. They all carry First Aid Kits, First Aid books, mobile phones, Emergency Action Plans (customised for each pool) and local emergency numbers.

Whilst it’s still very easy to set up a swim school, it’s becoming harder to insure it. Soon only companies operating to the very highest standards will be able to acquire comprehensive insurance – perhaps not a bad thing as it will hopefully help raise standards generally.

 

Are all baby swimming courses the same?


We are not in a position to comment on anyone else’s classes – nor would we want to. However, there is a great deal of variety amongst courses, with some having much more clearly defined aims and objectives than others. So, whilst many might look the same, there’s often a great deal of difference between them.

Some programmes simply involve creating water familiarity (which is great). Ours is a structured, progressive course, using many unique teaching methods pioneered in the 1970’s. These methods were taught to a small band of swimming instructors who, through forming their own companies, passed them on to a few more. Within the UK today there are still only a handful of these same baby swimming companies who continue to use and develop these techniques and share the same goals. 

the age at which we start. We begin lessons from birth, whereas most courses cater for babies starting at around 6 months.

the broad range of specialist underwater techniques that we use, enabling your baby to move underwater independently and with confidence right from the start

the absence of any permanent floatation devices (such as armbands) – encouraging natural free swimming that strengthens water confidence and understanding of the environment

in the particular case of Water Babies, the fact that our programme aims, right from the start, to teach you to teach your child. To do this we provide you with all the specialist equipment – including a custom-designed Swim Kit – allowing you to independently progress your child’s swimming in or out of class.

 

Can I get an underwater photo of my baby?

Whilst many swimming companies offer an underwater photography service, Water Babies is one of the few baby swimming companies to have a professional in-house photography team. This means that at the end of every term, in every area, we can guarantee a shoot will take place.

We also operate a unique viewing service whereby we hold individual consultations (no hard sell!) with every client. This means you can clearly see your images and discuss in person the size of prints that will suit them best – and these aren’t always the largest!

We strongly believe that no baby should attend a photo shoot without having completed a full course of professional lessons first. Babies need to gradually build their stamina over time and certainly shouldn’t be exposed to submersions, lights and cameras before they’re fully settled in the water. At the shoot your child must only be submerged by a professional swimming teacher who is able to fully monitor their confidence and ability.