Development Coach Program

Development coaches have the knowledge and skills to help swimmers with technical and tactical development, goal setting and realising a sense of achievement by setting appropriate challenges while showing concern for safety and psychological comfort.

Successful Development coaches create experiences which focus on the benefits of developing skills and increasing fitness. Their enthusiasm and encouragement provide extra motivation for participants to develop a love of swimming and sustain this interest over their lives.

People commence their swim coaching journey holding a range of different prior skills and often hold previous experience teaching swimming or working with children and young people in other sports. To maximise the learner experience, people who seek to become a swimming coach should complete pre-requisite learning prior to enrolment into the Development Coaching Course. The current endorsed prerequisite courses are:

• AUSTSWIM Teacher of Towards Competitive Strokes
• Swim Australia Teacher of Competitive Swimming.

This ensures new Development coaches are tackling the right level of education, at the right time and with the right level of background knowledge and experience to be able to successfully complete the Development Coach Program and effectively apply the learning with their athletes.

PLEASE NOTE: The minimum age for becoming a Swimming Australia Accredited Coach is 17 years old.

The Development Coach Program is engaging, educational and motivating and designed to give new coaches a practical understanding of what it takes to coach competitive swimming.

The Swimming Australia Development Coach Program is delivered in a blended learning format consisting of

• online knowledge learning through the Swimming Australia Learning Centre
• face to face workshops delivered by subject matter experts
• practical assessment tasks where coaches have an opportunity to demonstrate their applied knowledge, and
• practical coaching experience under the guidance of a mentor.

The Development Coach Program should take 3-6 months to complete all requirements.

PLEASE NOTE: Coaches have 12 months to complete the Development Coach Program. This means the completion and submission of all assessments within 12 months of commencing the course.

Please review the Outline – Development Coach Program

To achieve your Swimming Australia Development Coach Accreditation, you’ll need to upload the following documents into Swim Central:

• Statement of Attainment for completion of the Development Coach Program
• current Working with Children Check
• current First Aid qualification (HLTAID003 or HLTAID011)
• current CPR qualification (HLTAID001 or HLTAID009)
• Completion of the Sport Integrity Australia Safeguarding Children and Young People in Sport Induction
• Completion of the Sport Integrity Australia Anti-Doping Fundamentals Course (formerly Level 1)

To enrol in the Development Coach Program

• Login or create an account on Swim Central
• Upload your prerequisite document under the document category ‘Application and Enrolment Form’ and document type ‘Coaching course prerequisite verification’
• Upload your Working with Children Check
• Go to Store
• Click on Development & Training
• Click on Courses
• Search for Development Coaching Course enrolment

Coach Support: Help Guide – How to enrol in Swimming Australia Coach Programs

If you need assistance with Development Coach Program enrolment, please contact coaching@swimming.org.au

Looking to learn about the Australian swim coaching methodology?

Swimming Australia has created an online course, which is now available for swimming coaches who reside outside of Australia to complete as a part of their professional development and additional learning.

This course also provides a great insight into our National Coaching Framework and the coaching experience in Australia.

Please note, that this course is a non-accredited coaching course and sits outside of the Swimming Australia National Coaching Framework.

This online course provides 15-20 hours of online learning and covers a range of coaching and technical skills.

Please click here to enrol into the course.