DUTY OF CARE
Duty of Care refers to the legal or moral obligations to protect the health, safety and well-being of others. This includes adherence to a standard of reasonable care against foreseeable harm or injury to another person or property.
All employees of a swim school or an aquatic facility including program managers and swim teachers have a duty of care to their patrons to ensure all safety elements, procedures and policies are in place and followed.
A program manager’s duty of care pertains to the employees, program participants and their parents/carers. The role includes ensuring parents/carers are aware and understand the supervision required of their child/children, the role of the swim teacher and their duty of care obligations and procedures specifically relating to their child’s swim lesson.
These may be included in the enrolment and the swim school’s terms and conditions.
A supervision program, such as Keep Watch, should be implemented to assist all facility users in active supervision and safe water practices.
A swim teacher’s duty of care commences at the scheduled lesson start time and concludes once all students have returned to their parent/carer or duty of care has been transferred to the supervisor/lifeguard.
Student attendance must be recorded prior to the class commencing.
Students should wait outside of the teaching area and not enter the water until the swim teacher has invited them to do so, therefore indicating their class is starting.
This supervision rule should be communicated to the parent/carer upon enrolment and to the student on their first lesson. The rule should be reiterated regularly to reinforce the importance of the swim teacher’s and swim school’s duty of care.
At the conclusion of each lesson, swim teachers are required to ensure all students are clearly informed and understand that the lesson has ended. Parents/carers also need to know when the lesson has ended and be available to collect their child.
Swim teachers must remain actively supervising until all students return to their parent/carer.
If a parent/carer is not present at the conclusion of a lesson, swim teachers may need to:
- Alert a supervisor/lifeguard and transfer care of the student to them to allow the swim teacher to start the next lesson on time.
- Instruct the student to wait on the side of the pool until their parent/carer arrives. The swim teacher must continue to actively supervise the student.
Examples of reasonable steps that should be taken prior and |
|---|
Supervision |
Active and constant supervision of all students is vital throughout lessons. Always keep students within your line of site. Check the number of students regularly to ensure you have everyone in attendance. Never, under any circumstances, turn your back on a student, leave the immediate vicinity of your class or leave students unsupervised. |
Safety Rules |
Establish safety rules with students and parents/carers prior to getting into the water on their first lesson. These should be simple, clear and appropriate for the students and teaching environment. Students need to be aware of the boundaries within the swimming lesson and understand the potential hazards and dangers. |
Medical Information |
Medical information for all students participating in the program should be obtained prior to the commencement of the program. This information should be recorded. All medical and/or personal information must be kept confidential and only shared with the swim teacher as necessary. If parents and carers participating in infant lessons have serious medical conditions these should be noted in the medical information of the infant participating. |
SunSmart |
If teaching in an outdoor location, or a location with high glare, swim teachers have a responsibility to act as a role model and promote sun smart behaviour. Students and parents/carers should be informed of the dangers of being exposed to ultraviolet radiation and be encouraged to take appropriate precautions and utilise the SunSmart website and app. To learn more from SunSmart |
