PodLifeAdapting rather than simplifying
How to change a lesson for a swimmer with additional needs without turning it into a different, lesser lesson. Same goal, different route in.
Swim teacher training
Teaching the swimmers who get turned away.
Most swim teaching qualifications prepare you for a class of eight in a loud pool. That's a real skill — and it isn't the one that helps when a swimmer won't get in, can't follow a spoken instruction, or needs the whole lesson rebuilt around how they communicate. This is training in that second skill.
Individual coachesSchools & organisationsCPDAdditional needs
What we cover
The parts a standard qualification leaves out
This is the working knowledge our own coaches use every week — the things that decide whether a lesson works before anyone gets in the water.
Communication in the water
Makaton signs, picture symbols, now-and-next boards and object cues — and knowing when fewer words and more demonstration is the whole answer.
Sensory planning
Planning the whole visit, not just the half hour: echo, temperature, the smell of chlorine, the changing room, and what to remove before the lesson starts.
Behaviour as communication
Reading refusal, rigidity, silence and shutdown as information — and changing the lesson in response rather than managing a swimmer out of it.
Pace, consent and trust
Building a lesson where nothing happens without the swimmer agreeing to it, and understanding why that produces faster progress, not slower.
Working at low ratios
What actually changes when you teach one swimmer instead of eight — including how to use the freedom, and how not to fill it with more instruction.
Medical and access needs
Writing an individual plan, working from a physiotherapist's or SENCO's targets, hoists and step access, and where a swim coach's remit genuinely ends.
Working with schools and therapy teams
How to talk to a SENCO, take a school swimming block, work to targets someone else has set, and report back usefully rather than vaguely.
Running a quiet-hour setting
How we keep ratios low, lessons calm and the room predictable — and the operational choices that make it possible rather than aspirational.
Who it's for
Two different reasons people come to us
Some are individual teachers who want to work this way. Some are organisations who need their existing staff to be able to teach the swimmers they're currently turning away.
If you already hold a swim teaching qualification and want to add the additional-needs side, this is the gap it fills. If you're a school, a leisure operator or a therapy service with swimmers on a waiting list nobody can teach, we can train the staff you already have.
We're a small teaching team, not a national awarding body. Anything we deliver sits alongside a recognised qualification rather than replacing it.
Details still to confirm
We haven't invented specifics for this page. These are the things we'd need before it can go live:
- [Qualification or award this leads to] — and who accredits it
- [Format and duration] — days, evenings, online, in-water hours
- [Entry requirements] — existing qualification, DBS, pool time
- [Cost per person, and group rates]
- [Next dates, and how often it runs]
- [Who delivers it] — names and their own qualifications
Questions
What teachers and schools ask us
Do I need an existing swim teaching qualification?
For the additional-needs training, yes — it builds on a recognised teaching qualification rather than replacing it. If you're starting from scratch, we'd point you at a qualification first and then talk about the specialist side. [Confirm entry requirements.]
Can you train our staff team at our own pool?
That's the model that usually works best for schools, leisure operators and therapy services — training the staff you already have, in the pool they already teach in. Get in touch and tell us how many staff, what they currently teach, and what's on your waiting list.
Is this a recognised qualification?
We're a swim school, not an awarding body. Whatever we deliver sits alongside a recognised qualification rather than substituting for one. [Confirm what, if anything, this is accredited as.]
How long does it take?
[Confirm format and duration.] We'd rather not put a number on this page until it's settled — tell us what you're after and we'll come back with something concrete.
I'm already a coach at another swim school. Can I attend?
Yes, and plenty of people do. The training isn't tied to working for us. If you're an individual coach who wants to teach this way, get in touch and we'll tell you what's running.
Do you take on coaches afterwards?
Sometimes — we're always looking for coaches who'd rather spend half an hour with one swimmer than thirty minutes with eight. More about the team.
Tell us who you'd like to teach, and we'll tell you what we can do.
Whether you're one coach wanting to upskill or a school with swimmers nobody can currently teach, send us a message and we'll come back with something concrete rather than a brochure.