Your child’s safety is paramount while at our swimming lessons. So we upheld our value placed on their safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have to change the way we deliver our lessons. Social distancing is the most effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 regardless of any protective equipment we could wear, therefore we will maintain a 2-metre distance between child and teacher throughout our lessons.
Our teachers love being in the water and being able to give your child a feeling of being secure and safe to build their confidence. Unfortunately, we cannot do this while social distancing is in place. Therefore, we will be following advice from the Swimming Teachers Association (STA) and Swim England to keep our teachers out of the water and teach from the side.
“Where possible, you should maintain 2m”
UK government, Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19)
Having teachers out of the water for our improvers, stroke improvers and advanced swimmers will work. However, we will need to ask you as parents to be part of your child’s swimming journey for beginner level. In line with guidance from the STA and Swim England, we are asking our parents to be in the water with their child during swimming lessons. We appreciate this could be difficult logistically, but this is the only way we feel beginner lessons can comfortably take place while maintaining an appropriate physical distance of 2 metres. We will try and help you as much as possible for you to be able to do this. Having parents in the water does increase the numbers of people in the pool, but we have been advised that a parent and child are counted as one unit when it comes to pool capacity. Even with parents in the water, the number of people we have in the water during lessons is still less compared to lessons before COVID-19.
“All people must be 2 metres apart, excluding same household members”
Swimming Teachers Association, STA COVID-19 GUIDANCE IN PREPARATION FOR UK SWIM SCHOOLS RE-OPENING POOLS
We know how important the wearing of face coverings is during day-to-day life and they have become part of ‘normal’ routines during COVID-19. However, when it comes to swimming lessons face coverings are counterproductive. The guidance is specifically not to wear face coverings during the lesson for the teacher nor the child swimming (or a parent in the water with their child). Government guidance states that face coverings are not required in exercise and sports venues but people should check with their local pool whether they are encouraging attendees to wear a face-covering upon entering the facility before heading through to poolside. When the mask/covering becomes wet it makes it difficult to breathe and promotes the growth of microorganisms. Our staff will not be wearing face shields during lessons, owing to the difficulties this would pose to communication and that they are ineffective against protecting our staff from aerosol droplets (how COVID-19 spreads) as primary PPE without an appropriate mask. Our staff will also not be wearing masks while teaching as they will be physically distancing from parents and children by 2 metres. According to Swim England, the most important preventative measure during exercise is to maintain a physical distance of 2 metres.
“People should NOT wear masks/coverings when swimming, as these may reduce the ability to breathe comfortably.”
Swim England, Swim England/Institute of Swimming Coronavirus (Covid-19) FAQs
If you have any questions about our teaching approach during COVID-19, please feel free to get in touch.