Survive & Save Training’s condensed offer has global appeal

A Swim England Approved Training Centre in Middlesex is helping people from across the world to become swim teachers.

Survive & Save Training offer combined Swim England Qualification Level 1 and 2 courses over the space of eight successive days and that innovative approach has seen people fly in from across the world to secure the national governing body’s qualifications.

Hong Kong, France and Switzerland are just three of the countries would-be teachers have jetted in from to gain a Swim England Qualification.

Director Sally Baldwin said: “We’re quite distinctive in the fact that we offer a holistic delivery, so where there’s any overlapping elements on the Level 1 and Level 2 courses, we will merge those together, so we don’t have to cover it twice on two different qualifications.

“We also condense our qualifications into eight successive days, so people can start on a Saturday and finish the following Saturday as fully-qualified teachers.

“We were finding that people were looking for that block of training, rather than a day a week over several weeks.

“Because of that we’ve had quite a few overseas candidates on our courses because they can fly in, do their week’s course and secure their qualification.

“We had an English learner who lives in Switzerland on one of our courses and she made a holiday off it by visiting her parents whilst she was over.”

Founded in 2007 by Sally and husband Andrew, Survive & Save originally operated out of a pool in Harrow but are now based at St Helen’s School Sports Centre in Northwood.

Robust qualifications

Sally said: “Northwood has been home now for 15 years – they’ve made us very welcome and we’ve trained some of their swimming teachers.

“Their swimming manager will sometimes pop on poolside when we’re training and ask if we think there’s anyone that might be suitable for them.

“We’ve also got close links with many local swimming clubs and they regularly send us trainees to go on our courses.

“We’re a relatively small business – there’s just myself and one other tutor at the moment doing training and a couple of other tutors who look after our quality assurance.”

Survive & Save train people of all ages, from teenagers looking to forge a career in aquatics all the way through to 60-somethings who are fancy a change in career direction.

“I would say that the majority of our demographic are young people,” said Sally, “but we’ve had people who are later in life who are looking for a part-time job as a swim teacher.

“Swim England Qualifications are robust qualifications. They are industry recognised and are seen as the industry leader which is why we use them.

“The organisations that come to us have got very strong links with Swim England. A lot of them are swimming clubs and Swim England swim schools, so they’re looking for Swim England trained swimming teachers.

“The robustness and breadth of their qualifications means that teachers are ready to start delivering as soon as they have finished their courses and they’ve had their inductions in their workplaces.”

To find out more about Survive & Save please visit Survive & Save Training.

Further details on how to become a swimming teacher – and all of Swim England Qualification’s courses – are available by clicking here.