Career change - swim teacher - advice please

[Polkadotpride]

I am thinking about a career change aged 40. When I was a student I worked as a swim teacher and really enjoyed it but it was a just a part time casual job and many years ago.

I'm thinking of re-training and doing it again. It would be part-time only while my kids are young. Are there any swim teachers out there (or indeed anyone else) who has any tips/advice/warnings about this? I would not intent to be self-employed (certainly not at the moment).

Some questions I have are:
Is it difficult to find work?
Is it possible to work term-time only? (This would be a huge advantage to me but not essential).
What do the main working hours tend to be - eg is it mainly evenings and weekends or daytime work as well?
I imagine it to be exhausting/draining to teach a full day, am I right about this?
What may I not think of that I need to know?!

And most importantly, do you enjoy this job?!

Someone very close to me re trained as a swimming teacher at 50.

She finds it very easy (too easy!) to get work. There appears to be a lot of demand, and because she has a relatively stable life (so not a student going to and from uni for example) she can be relied upon a lot for cover. I know she adores it.

I don’t know about the term time only thing, but I do know that a lot of her work is schools swimming so therefore she isn’t needed in the holidays.

Hope that helps. Where are you in the country?

My neighbour is a swimming teacher at our local pool. He works year round and all day Saturday and Sunday. It's the weekend working would put me off, but I guess that's when the majority of kids have their swimming lessons.

My SiL has done exactly this! She is mid fifties and has recently retired from school teaching. She starts actual swimming teaching in September. She is employed by her county council for school swimming lessons, so her work will be term time only, but she says she is fighting off the job offers from private providers. She will also provide cover for council run swimming lessons out of school hours/dates.

It seems like there is a lot of demand for swimming teachers.

Oh, thank you for the responses! I'm glad to hear there seems to be demand.

*Needallthesleep - I'm in the North.

*LeekMunchingSheepShagger - Yes, I imagine the weekends are the busiest, not ideal for me but that's good to know.

*BikeRunSki - not just me then! Altho I'm not a teacher so she's obviously got that good experience on her side.

Generally a qualified teacher with lifeguard qual is in demand and can walk into a job in many leisure centres.

Hours -
4-7 Monday to Friday
8-2 sat and Sunday
Most places do this all year round.

Extra hours for term time only (school swimming) would be 9.30-11.30 and the 1-3 during the day....these are the preferred hours by most teachers so these are snapped up first and not given up so wouldn't expect to be getting these initially.

Most teachers also then have a second role at the leisure centre to up the income and make hours work better. (Lifeguard etc)

You are generally paid as casual staff hourly paid.

Physically hard work but you do get used to it fairly quickly.

I have suggested this to my ds, he recently qualified as a lifegaurd but there is more money in teaching swimming. Yes I would absolutely go for it, it's flexible and reasonably well paid and there is definitely demand. I suppose the health clubs like David Lloyd pay better than the likes of Everyone Active or Places for People that run the council pools?

The downside for me would be the hours, they can be quite anti-social eg weekends and also late evenings (I finish my lesson at 9pm on a Monday evening though the kids usually finish by 6.30 where I am).

There's also the scope to add a coaching qualification and work for a club.

Good luck.

Most teachers also then have a second role at the leisure centre to up the income and make hours work better

Yes, one of my friends works in the creche in the mornings.

@spinn (and others) - thanks this is just the sort of information I was looking for.

I've worked as a swimming teacher. I loved teaching children to swim but it's hard work, you are hot and sweaty all the time and the smell of chlorine used to make my nose run.

When I worked doing council run lessons, the were always too many children in the classes. I felt I couldn't give the children the attention they needed.

I also worked for a swimming club and this was much better. The classes were much smaller and you felt you could get somewhere with the children. It was still very hot though and this did get to me.

Lsuppose the health clubs like David Lloyd pay better than the likes of Everyone Active or Places for People that run the council pools"

Nope! Varies - ea are one if lowest pay, council is alright, David Lloyd etc aren't great - get into puddleducks/waterbabies type groups and you a quids in!

Op, you do level 1 and can work straight away but lower pay, then move to level 2 to be better pay (both courses are hundreds of pounds).

I have heard from two different people that the big problem is getting a pool to teach in.

My DCs had a teacher who taught at a local hotel's pool. There was a problem with the pool and the hotel closed it. We had lessons in a pool at a private house for a while but that didn't work out for the owners. The teacher just had to give up. She said that pool space was always a problem. A friend found the same - did the training but could never make any money at it as there was no pool space available.

Thanks @balloonslayer - makes sense I guess, they've closed 2 council pools in my city over last 5 years due to funding so I guess that's a problem that will only get worse.