2 minute read
CPD Review
Royal Life Saving Bahrain (RLSB) are a Bahrain registered charity who were founded to prevent drowning related death and injury in Bahrain. RLSB works with many different organisations teaching water rescue, first aid, providing lifeguards, advising the Bahrain Government on water safety and being involved in regulating all water activities.
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Although the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health have not, as yet, provided enforceable regulations for the supervision of swimming lessons in schools, in 2018 BSB made the decision as best practice to train staff involved in swimming through RLSB in the Teacher Rescue Award (TRA).
The TRA is not a Lifeguard qualification as such and those who complete it cannot work as Lifeguards. A Lifeguard can only perform Lifeguard duties and NOT teach any lessons.
In contrast, the TRA teaches instructors in accident prevention, CPR, first aid and aquatic rescue skills. It is a 2 day course and allows teachers to safely manage and supervise their own programmed sessions. It allows the swimming programme to be changed and adapted without needing to manage additional employees as Lifeguards and it also offers CPD for teachers.
It was felt that this was the best option for BSB as it allowed the teachers at the pool and the PE teachers to deliver safe and quality lessons in small groups.
The first full course took place in October 2018 with 6 PE teachers across all 3 schools, the Pool Manager, the 2 Swimming Teachers and some Swim Academy staff attending. 6 monthly refreshers took place until February when swimming classes were stopped due to Covid-19.
CPD Review continued
As Bahrain has started to relax restrictions and in light of the differences now in place due to Covid-19 and to ensure all staff were updated, RLSB attended BSB during the past 2 weeks to update the original attendees and to train some staff who had not yet attended.
The update course was attended by Tracey Marshall, Halima Wanjiku, Marites Reyes, Jonathan Macmillan, Nicola McHugh, Billy Swicke, Naomi Gay, Alex Brennan and Hanna Albarous. The course took place over 2 sessions and involved refreshers in pool rescue (in light of Covid-19), use of the spinal board, First Aid, CPR and use of Defibrillators. The participants were assessed on practical and theory and all passed.
The full course was attended by Gillian Belcher, Owen Williams, Ali Aziz Alarayedh, Charlotte Blackwell and Sharina Mahutariki over the course of 4 days. The full course covered all aspects of water rescue, first aid, CPR, use of Defibrillators and the Spinal Board. Again all participants were assessed on practical skills and theoretical knowledge and passed.
BSB can now operate it’s swimming lessons, both curriculum and after school in the knowledge that all staff members are qualified, competent and uptodate with both First Aid and Water Rescue training. Tracey Marshall - Head of Aquatics
