Swimming Team Quarter 2 July - September 2015 salfordcommunityleisure.co.uk/sport
Salford Community Leisure is run by and for the people of Salford. We are committed to enhancing the physical and cultural wellbeing of the community through the sport, library and cultural opportunities we offer across 40 venues, which attract millions of customer visits each year. Passionate about delivering value for money, we reinvest all our profits because we believe that leisure and culture should be at the heart of every community. By being active with us, you are supporting your local community. Welcome to the 2nd quarterly report for 2015/16 for Salford Community Leisure s Swimming Team. The aim of this quarterly report is to highlight the work that has taken place during July, August and September within the Swimming Team and demonstrate how Salford Community Leisure is performing Quarter 2 (July - Sept) has been a very successful quarter, some key highlights include: Currently there are 3,797 children on the Go Swim Programme across the city, this is a growth of 26 children compared to last quarter The Dementia Friendly session continues to grow at Worsley Leisure Centre Over 46,000 general swimming attendances were recorded throughout quarter 2, this is an increase of 6.4 % compared to last quarter. City of Salford Synchronised Swimming Team achieved honours at the regional championships City of Salford Swimming Team achieved honours at both the British and National championships
Go Swim - Learn to Swim The Learn to Swim programme continues to go from strength to strength. It offers both children and adults the opportunity to progress their swimming through the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) framework with exit routes through to different aquatic disciplines across the city such as synhcro, water polo and competitive swimming. To raise the profile of the Learn to Swim programme, the scheme has been branded Go Swim, this will allow parents to identify with any marketing or information at site and will follow the ASA National Teaching Plan. The Learn 2 management system has proven to be a sound investment, enabling a more consistent and efficient swimming programme to be delivered and offering more spaces to children who are unable to swim. Since the launch of the home portal on the 1 st August, 50% of parents have registered which allows these parents to receive regular updates about their child s progress and what elements of their current stage they need to work on away from the structured lesson. After the introduction of the two different payment options, the number of parents paying by Direct Debit has increase month on month. The Direct Debit option also gives each child free swimming whilst they remain on the programme, other parents who have opted for a 10 week payment plan can be topped up at any time helping with family budgeting throughout the quarter, which is an increase of 2% against quarter 1. Worsley Leisure Centre hit 93% occupancy, followed closely by Eccles Leisure Centre at 91%, Clarendon at 90% and Swinton at 86%. There is still a high demand for Stage 1 and 2 lessons across the city and each pool continues to look for opportunities to get all children who want to learn a space. The number of children on the Go Swim lessons has risen by 26 against quarter 1. To meet the demand for Swim City Tots / Kids and Stage 1, Sunday lessons in two pools have been added to give a wider choice for parents. The Swim Stars Academy goes from strength to strength with 91 children attending each week and swimming at least twice a week. School Swimming Programme This year has seen the National Curriculum for schools Key Stage 2 scheme of work change; this has led to results falling from 62% to 35% in the first 6 months of this academic year. The changes now mean that children have to have at least three recognisable strokes and be able to swim 25 meters on their front and back. The team will continue to deliver to the schools for over an hour and will be encouraging each school to bring the same class for at least 19 weeks to ensure that their children achieve Key Stage 2 before leaving primary school. A professional team of teachers delivered lessons to 3,797 children each week. Lessons ran at an average of 90% occupancy General Swimming Quarter 2 has seen a significant growth in general swimming at Broughton Leisure
Centre after it was fully re-open to the public. With the new pool programmes, activity attendances have risen. Each site with the new programmes saw an increase in overall general swimming against quarter 2. As part of the new swimming programme the team introduced a specific programme for different demographics of the community whether this be Family Swim, Splash for the under 12, Primetime for the over 60 s or Swimfit Activated for the more serious swimmer. The aim of the new programme was to ensure that all pools had at least one of these sessions each week to drive up participation and encourage people to choose which sessions they wanted to attend depending on their ability, age or skill set. The pool programmes were reviewed during July and the new programmes were launched on the 7 th September 2015. This included a brand new session called SUP Yoga which is yoga on a paddle board. This moved from the Watersports Centre to Clarendon Leisure Centre. Junior Swimming During the Summer holidays extra Splash sessions were offered to encourage fun and play, these sessions were well attended. As part of the new timetable a Family Swim session was introduced providing specific times for families to swim with the added fun of equipment and music. During the summer holidays a Triathlon Camp was offered for children who were in the Academy or Squad. There were over 60 children who attended which led to the introduction of a Tri Links training scheme for young people wanting to take up the sport of Triathlon. The sessions will link directly to the Academy and the CTS programme offering the two disciplines in running and cycling in a safe and controlled environment. Disabled Swimming Sessions There are six dedicated sessions for people with disabilities across the city, two of these being specifically for young people with disabilities. The swimming lessons are delivered at Worsley Leisure Centre in the warmth of the small teaching pools, offering the young people the opportunity to work through the ASA framework and achieve their personal goals. Swim Ability is also available at Worsley Leisure Centre for families who want to make swimming part of their families physical activity routine. There are two further sessions offered at Swinton and Pendlebury and Clarendon Leisure Centres offering great opportunities for people with disabilities to access the pools and swim.
Dementia Friendly Session As part of the City s commitment to supporting members of the community who are living with Dementia, the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) funded a video to show the positive effect that physical activity could have on a person s life: this included two members of the group from Worsley. Please follow the link to the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujgsjarc a-w&feature=youtu.be A great new pilot aimed at people living with Dementia started at Worsley Leisure Centre, working closely with the Humphrey Booth Centre and the Dementia Friends groups in the area. The centre has established a small group of carers and adults living with Dementia who now meet on a weekly basis socially to go for a swim; this has given people the opportunity to exercise in a safe and welcoming environment with qualified swimming teachers on hand to help develop forgotten skills. The group has grown from the initial 6 up to 10 and new members are being encouraged to join the group. Worsley Pool has worked hard to make slight adaptations to the facilities to ensure that people who are living with Dementia find the facilities easy to use. All staff are fully trained and are on hand to help and to offer advice. Recently with the support of ASA a Dementia Awareness course was delivered to 20 members of staff, which will allowed the development of further sessions across the city in the coming months. Inclusive Swimming Swimming has no barriers to participation and where it does Salford Community Leisure can help to accommodate these needs. Salford has a diverse and multi cultural community and as such the centres are able to offer exclusive use to some of the group who require single sex bathing. The Yemeni community in Eccles have worked extremely hard with Sara Azzi the lead teacher at Eccles to establish a group that meets twice a week to offer ladies only swimming. This has enabled ladies and young women to both learn and improve their swimming abilities, taking an active role within the centre. Broughton Leisure Centre also offers the Jewish community in the Broughton area opportunities for all their young people to learn to swim. This project, which is driven by Danny Broadist Duty Manager, has over 100 young boys and girls receiving swimming lessons from the local Jewish community. This has been accommodated through using the facilities on alternate weeks for each gender group. This had no effect on general swimming as the pool was closed at this time
Competitive Training Scheme Occupancy has increased throughout the Swimming and Synchro scheme both have increased by 5% and 9% respectively. The competitive success has been phenomenal in this quarter featuring 2 National Champions at British Summer Championships Matthew George & Jaeger Turner with further medals from Katie McCarthy and Lewis Clough. Finalists were Ben Kerry, Laura Boardman, Katrina Alder, Marcus Dey, James Duncan and the Women s 4 x 100 IM Relay, 3 National Champions at the English Summer Nationals Emily Keays, Will Holland-Leavens and Joshua Cosgrove with further medals from Laura Boardman, Emma Jones and Katie McCarthy. Finalists were Jodie Alder, Charlotte Yates, Will Camden, Havanna Lloyd and the Boys 4 x 100 IM Relay Two swimmers also gained International recognition Lewis Clough selected for England at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa Jade Nuttall selected for GB Catholic Schools winning the only gold in all sports from a GB member. Katrina Alder 13 Years in National Finals Katrina Alder has competed in National finals for 13 years - a remarkable achievement - and from out in lane 0 she certainly had a good go at winning a medal, moving into 4th place at one point before fading. Well done Kat what an amazing career. The Regional championships heralded a new era of dominance for the City of Salford s Synchronised swimming team with 4 team gold medals completing a clean sweep of North West titles in the 12 & under competitive free team, 12 & under combination, 15-18 competitive free team and 19 & under combination team.
In the first event, the Figures, swimmers compete as individuals and are marked purely on technical ability showing height, control and flexibility. There were between 30-60 competitors in each event so it was very challenging to win the title of Regional Champion yet Salford s girls managed 4 individual medals here from Greta Hampson [Gold], Aimee Lawrence [Silver], Libby Taylor [Bronze] and Jessica Spencer [Bronze In the Solo events Aimee Lawrence became regional champion for 12&under years with Aimee Hodges taking bronze. Katie Finch placed 4 th in the solo 13-15 years. Another clean sweep took place in the 15-18 solos with Greta Hampson claiming the North West champion title for the 15-18 years, Isabelle Spencer was 2nd and Zoe Taylor 3 rd. The Duets competition brought further medals and the Regional title for Aimee Hodges and Aimee Lawrence in the 12&under category, Libby Taylor and Maddie Ashton came 2nd with Katie McNeill and Ellie Alder 4 th. Katie Finch and Olivia Scowcroft competed in the 13-15 categories. Gold came from Jessica Spencer and Greta Hampson in the 15-18 years category with
silver for Isabelle Spencer and Zoe Taylor 2 nd. Having won bronze at the prestigious British Championships in May this year, the 15-18 years swimmers performed their technical routine to Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk" finishing with the gold medal. A flurry of gold team medals followed with a clean sweep of Regional titles in the 12&under competitive free team, 12&under combination team and the 19&under combination team who took gold with some spectacular execution of lifts in their routine.
Forthcoming Events / Activities in Quarter 3 2015-16 New Triathlon session for juniors Launch of new swimming programme across the city in January 2016. Working with Adult Services to deliver Dementia Friendly Sessions. Introduction of spring board diving at Irlam and Cadishead. Scottish National Championships for the Synchronised Team in November