Life Saving Classes

[Lolrt]

Ds (11) starts a life saving club next week and I was wondering what to expect. E.g. How many children to a class, what they do etc.

TIA

[BopToTheTop]

I helped out at a lifesaving club for around 5 years, mainly teaching the Rookie levels (the junior award scheme of the RLSS), so I imagine that this is what your DS will start with. You start out with the rookie bronze award and then progress onto silver and gold

Our sessions used to run for 1 1/2 hours, with 30 minutes being used for the theory teaching side and 1 hour in the pool, once you reached a certain level, at our club it was rookie gold, then your began to have 1 hour of theory and 1 hour in the pool (so 2 hours total)

Membership at our club was around £10 for the year and then children just paid the basic pool entry to swim each week that they came, with the aim of this making the club accessible to all children, there was also the flexibility of there being no massive upfront costs if the child is unable to come for a couple of weeks.

For the bronze and silver rookie awards there is no theory assessment, all assessments are pool based, although we still used to get the children to attend theory with the aim of building foundations of basic first aid skills, such as how to deal with bleeding, shock and how to put somebody into the recovery position. We also used to begin to teach them about what different types of rescues they could do, which rescues were the safest to perform, what 'everyday' objects can be used as rescue aids and knowledge of what other emergency services there are (coastguard, cave rescue etc.)

Classes could range from having 4 children in during the summer holiday months when many are away to being pretty full with maybe 20-25. The sign of having a good teacher is knowing how to adapt the class depending on the number though, the lady that I used to assist was brilliant at this, always turning up to a class with a couple of lesson plans to suit different numbers. You shouldn't be put off though if the classes do seem a little large, obviously this will depend on the area you live in, as this would enable a child to possibly learn even more if they are able to observe their peers too :)

Sorry this was lengthy but I hope it gives you a bit of an insight!

[Lolrt]

Thank you so much, very helpful