Members of the Swim Team have started their training on the new “Learn2″ iPad system this week.

Parents will start to see this new electronic system starting to roll out over the next 6 – 12 months in the various swimming lesson classes.

The investment by Inverness Leisure will assist our swimming instructors during the swimming lessons as it now means everything from class registers to the course syllabus will literally be in their hand all the time.

We are hoping that the new system will therefore cut down on some of the teacher administration time previously been required in order to teach the 2,000 plus children to swim every week. In turn, this means teachers will have more hands-on time in their actual classes.

We are all really excited about the new system as we start to move into phase 1 of the rollout and hope you will be too.

You can get more information about our new system direct from the suppliers website by clicking here.

As the current Learn to Swim programme is being redeveloped and improved we have taken a decision to suspend our Junior Swimming waiting lists for the time being.

You can read our full Press Release about out scheme redevelopment on our News Feed Page.

This page has been designed to offer you on going updates as to the developments and progress we are making with the scheme. The information below details our progress over the last few months in taking our new programme forward.

Our main objectives in redesigning our already popular Learn to Swim scheme was to:

• Make the scheme fairer, offering everyone a chance to learn to swim;
• Increase the number of children we were teaching to swim;
• Revamp the lessons criteria at all levels of the scheme;
• Create clear entry and exit points for our swimming lessons;
• Streamline our rebooking process making it easier for parents;
• Developing a defined pathway into competitive swimming to club level and beyond.

We started off by creating a new objective: “At Inverness Leisure we want to give children the skills of swimming and knowing what to do in the water, teaching them a lifeskill and opening up pathways to more competitive swimming if they desire.”

Fairer – our new scheme means that our Adult & Child lessons will operate on six week blocks on a ‘first come first served’ basis with no waiting lists being applied. The Adult & Child scheme does not offer automatic access into the main Learn to Swim programme.

Increase – by adjusting our existing schedule and openly focussing on the key swimming strokes that will allow us to meet our new objective, we will create additional entry level spaces that will offer access to more new swimmers throughout the year.

Revamp – Our qualified swim team have undertaken a full review of our existing lesson criteria and made a number major improvements to the programme. This includes the creation of an obvious start point to enter our scheme as well as a clearly defined finish at the point an individual has met our objective. This will remove the potential for individuals to be ‘locked in’ our lessons programme potentially for many years, thus improving the fairness for all.

Streamline – The new scheme will be altered in order for the lesson programme to run through a continual assessment process. This means that individuals in the scheme will progress at their own rate, not having to wait until specific assessment weeks in order to move to the next level. The current rebooking system will no longer be in operation from October. From this point onwards, you will then only need to rebook your child(ren) if they are moving up from one level to the next at the various points throughout the term.

Pathways – We will create a new “Club Pathways” scheme which will offer individuals who wish to move onto fully competitive swimming at a Club as well as hopefully a regional and national basis.

To help you out we have created a Learn to Swim Frequently Asked Questions page which you can find by clicking on this link.