JERSEY SWIM SCHOOL HAILED CREAM OF CHANNEL ISLANDS
07.07.2005
A family run Swim School in Jersey has just been awarded the prestigious STAmark, with merit, it was announced today. The School, led and created by Maureen Parris, has been in business for some thirty years, successfully teaching all ages from all walks of life.
Le Mourier Swim School has become the first in the Channel Islands to achieve the award, which has been developed by the Swimming Teachers Association (STA) as a Quality Award to help SwimSchools, and similar organisations that teach swimming, to improve the quality of service standards, and to recognise good industry practice.
Malcolm Parris from Le Mourier explained just what the award meant to him and his team. He said: “We were absolutely delighted to be told that we had achieved this award. We chose to work toward the STAmark in particular, as it is so comprehensive and covered every aspect of our school – not solely the teaching of swimming. All the staff worked through the complete framework with just minor interjection from the examiner who also watched and spoke with each in turn and to various clients.”
“The whole team feels that this is an important milestone for the School as it has been shown to operate to high standards in all aspects including the standard of our teaching programme increasing the water confidence of the children and adults, helping them achieve statutory targets and learn water safety.”
“We are completely in favour of anything that helps people to choose a swimming school for the right reasons and the STA is clearly trying to improve standards across the nation, and that can only be a good thing! We’ve already had one Olympic swimmer from Jersey, so who knows where the children currently in our programmes will be in a few years time…”
“Swimming is a life skill, especially important when living on an island where you are surrounded by water.”
The STAmark is a nationally recognised quality mark that externally validates and recognises safe practices and standards in SwimSchools and similar operations. The STAmark has a strong bias towards both safety and recognition of how effective and efficient the SwimSchool is in managing its business.
There is a clear focus on assessing the range, scope and quality of the organisations Teaching Programmes and their respective learning outcomes. There is also recognition given to other non STA Teaching qualifications and awards that are nationally recognised and consideration is given to any external award(s) that the respective organisation may have already achieved.
