[Lifesaving] RLSS Survive & Save Assessor

Last weekend I took a big step on my lifesaving journey. After 9 years of being involved in RLSS awards as a candidate, I took the Survive and Save assessors course to become an official trainer/assessor. It's a fairly big step, but one that I'm pleased to have taken. With lifesaving having been such a big part of my life, I feel that it's time I put something back into it. I've already done that at the local level, but now it's time to expand that.

The Survive and Save program was introduced last September by the RLSS (Credit: rlssonline.com)

I've been looking to take a trainers' course for some time. Before the RLSS launched the new Survive and Save award scheme, I'd looked at taking the old TA course when it was last run in the Scottish Eastern branch. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the first of the two weekends that were required, so the opportunity slipped by. Luckily this new course is much shorter, and sits below the old TA course on the assessing ladder. The University's lifesaving club have also been looking to get some new TAs; with all of the TAs previously in the club having graduated, they would have to rely on external assessors, which isn't particularly convenient since all of their training sessions are on weekday evenings.

The course ran over two days, and I had a great time. It was the first of its kind run in the branch, so we had the author of the course (Michael Dunn) come up from Wales to run it. Mike is an excellent teacher; personable, chatty, not at all severe if you do something wrong, very encouraging, and rather good fun. 

There are three levels of award in the program. Each has a core element, 

and four add-on modules. (Credit: enfieldlifesaving.org)

The first day covered a lot of theory work, with the five of us that were taking it learning about the theory of teaching, a big of RLSS history, some of the reasons behind the Survive and Save awards being the way they are, etc. The second day was a bit more practical, as we wrote lesson plans, demonstrated CPR teaching, and worked our way through the various rescue techniques in the pool, teaching each other and offering feedback. The course ended with each of us putting Mike through a couple of the Survive and Save assessments, which was quite entertaining.

The way the course was run was excellent. With another qualified assessor there in addition to Mike we got two perspectives on a lot of things, and all five of us were able to give pointers to each other on teaching ideas, even though we had quite varies levels of lifesaving experience.

Hopefully this will be me soon! (credit: rlssonline.com)

So I'm now an official Survive and Save trainer/assessor. Well, nearly. I still need to teach 10 hours of classes with a qualified assessor in attendance as support. But that's for another day.