AQUA Stars Life Saving Club, who are based at Royal Oak Park, Brandis Corner, have been piloting the new Water Smart Award in conjunction with the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS).

The RLSS already run a successful Rookie and Survive and Save programme, aimed at young people and ran over a series of sessions in clubs or at training centres.

As Aqua Stars run both programmes, and have done so for a number of years, it was a great achievement to be asked to trail the societies’ new award.

As with any award, the testing and proving of both the teaching materials and the syllabus is key to a successful launch.

The Aqua Stars team ran the award during the regular Friday evening lifesaving club sessions, using members who had already passed the Rookie and elements of the Survive and Save programme.

Those attending believed that the Water Smart Award is aimed at a slightly different audience in that most of the syllabus is covered in the two main programmes, but felt that this award would be great for Scout groups, school groups or holiday clubs as it gives a good level of water awareness mixed in with fun practical sessions but isn’t too long.

Aqua Stars’ director of swimming, Laura Morrish, said that the award is a great introduction to water safety and will hopefully be used across various groups, including the summer programme at Ruby Oak Park.

The award was delivered by Andy Squirell, one of the team members at Aqua Stars with support from the older members of the Survive and Save group.

Andy said that to be involved early with an award design was a something many clubs would like to and he was pleased that Aqua Stars had been asked and that being able to award the first ever Water Safety Award certificates to those that had achieved the standard was something not every coach was ever going to be able to do.

For further details on this or details on Aqua Stars swim School, email [email protected]

For further details on the work and awards of the RLSS, visit https://rlss.org.uk