Diving into a swim teacher career

Students at Coodanup College have participated in a unique Training to Employment Pathway Pilot.

Organised by the Department’s Swimming and Water Safety team and the college, the students continued their learning from their Certificate III in Sports, Aquatics and Recreation to become qualified swim teachers.

The school’s Career Practitioner, Deanne Johnson, said she reached out to the Swimming and Water Safety team because some VET students were interested in becoming a swim teacher, but there isn’t a lot of training available in the area. 

This sparked the idea for a two-week pilot program for local students to complete an AUSTSWIM course. 

Five Coodanup College students and one John Tonkin College student completed online learning before heading to the pool for the practical workshops run by Swimming and Water Safety and the Mandurah In-Term Swimming program, at Mandurah ARC. 

“The water-based and work-place learning requirements of the AUSTSWIM qualification took place over two weeks,” Mrs Johnson said. 

“The students learnt and undertook all the requirements required to be assessed as competent for the AUSTSWIM National Accreditation to Teach Swimming. 

“This includes holding a current CPR award, demonstrating a reasonable level of swimming ability and passing a theorical and practical assessment.” 

The program followed a model that the Swimming and Water Safety team have delivered in remote areas to upskill swimming teachers. 

Year 11 student Kaelin Christensen took part in the pilot program because he was doing his Certificate III, loves the water and helping people shape their lives. 

He said some of the activities that they had to do were basic theory work in a handbook this included some lesson planning, incident reports and a logbook. 

“After completing most of your workbooks you get to enjoy teaching students and also you get to see how happy they are just learning how to swim,” he said. 

“We learnt how to teach students, of course, but we also did first aid, swim rescues, how to fill out incident reports, management of classes, different strokes, breaking them down into easier steps and the best of all teaching the kids how to swim. 

“It is a very exciting pathway that you can enjoy. With this, you can also travel around, from big cites to small outback towns to teach children and adults alike how to swim.”

Kaelin said he love doing the course and is excited to become a swimming teacher to help others. 

Mrs Johnson said the school community is incredibly proud of the students for completing the pilot program and the AUSTSWIM course. 

“As someone who is extremely proud to live and work in Mandurah, personally it feels amazing to know the students of Coodanup College will be working and sharing their love of our incredible water-based lifestyle, to support others to develop the necessary swimming and water safety skills to fully enjoy our spectacular part of the world,” she said. 

For more information about VacSwim and Interm Swimming Programs, visit the Swimming page on the Department's website.