The squad system will allow swimmers to train at different levels throughout their long-term athletic development. 

It will help identify a level of acceptance of swimmers within the programme by the achievement of predetermined levels: -

• Training ability.

• Commitment

• Swimming standard (stroke technique and times)
   

Training Development

The following development phases will operate within the club structure.

Foundation	Introductory
Introductory	For teaching / coaching
Performance	For competition

Foundation

This represents the starting point of the programme. It focuses on teaching children from the age of 5years the relevant basic swimming skills needed for them to further their development.

Introductory

This training stage is defined as club swimming and used to promote a healthy life style as well as introducing some basic swimming skills and competitive awareness.

Performance

These groups will contain swimmers who need to develop their skills, enabling them to compete in competition. Taking them to a level where a higher level of training needs to be introduced.

The following groups will follow the above development phases: -

Group levels based on the NTP are as follows: -

Training Assessment

Teaching assessment is based on a series of skills where as training assessments are designed to identify a swimmers ability to perform certain training related sets and determine the swimmers level of competence. Reaching a level of competence does not always mean promotion into the next squad, as other criteria has to be considered, and is as follows: -

• Age

• Ability (as above)

• Commitment to training and competition.

Squad definition guidelines are clear, but at the Head Coaches discretion promotion may be given beyond current guidelines.

Equally if a swimmer is unable to maintain their present levels of performance within a squad they will be asked to return to their former squad. This will be in the best interest of the swimmer and only be done after speaking to the swimmer and their parents.

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