This article is written for the person running the session rather than the person swimming in it: a swimming teacher, a club coach, a school staff member, a group organiser. It assumes an indoor pool and it deliberately sets aside sun protection, because indoors there is nothing to protect against, as covered in indoor pools and ultraviolet.
What replaces it is a longer and less glamorous list.
Before the day
Know what you have hired. Pool dimensions, depth profile, water temperature, whether any part of the roof opens, what the changing arrangements are, and what supervision the operator provides as opposed to what you are expected to provide. The last of these is the most commonly assumed and the most commonly wrong.
Establish the supervision arrangement in writing. Who is providing lifeguard cover, how many, and what the operator's normal arrangement is when a pool is hired to a group. Some hires include lifeguard cover. Some assume the hirer provides it. Assuming the wrong one is a serious failure and it is discovered at the wrong moment.
Collect what you need to know about the people. Swimming competence, medical information the family wants you to hold, and any relevant condition. Hold it, do not improvise with it, and do not become an amateur clinician with it.
Write the risk assessment. Covered in what a session risk assessment should cover. It is a requirement under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 for an organisation running an activity, not a formality, and the useful version is short and specific to this venue and this group.
The environment on the day
| Check | What you are looking for | Who to tell |
|---|---|---|
| Water clarity | Can you clearly see the bottom across the whole area you will use | Duty manager, before anyone enters |
| Hall air | Strong smell, eyes stinging, a hall noticeably worse than usual | Duty manager, and in writing if it recurs |
| Water temperature | Appropriate for the activity and the group, particularly small children and long sessions | Duty manager |
| Poolside surfaces | Standing water, damaged tiles, obstructions on the route | Duty manager |
| Lifeguard cover | Present, in position, and the number you agreed | Duty manager, before starting |
| Changing rooms | Clean, working showers, warm water, lockable if that is what you were told | Duty manager |
The point of writing it down is that it converts a vague sense that something is off into something you can say to a person and record. A session leader who says "the hall smells worse than usual today" to a duty manager and notes it has done their part. One who thinks it and says nothing has not.
A cooler pool is fine for adults training hard and is not fine for small children standing still for twenty minutes learning to float. Cold children stop learning, stop listening and get miserable, and it is a supervision problem as well as a welfare one. If you are teaching young children in a pool set for lane swimming, that is worth raising with the operator before the block starts rather than after week three.
The pre swim routine, which is part of the session
Toilet first, then a proper shower with warm water and soap, then poolside. It takes a few minutes and it is the swimmer's only contribution to water treatment, as explained in why pools ask you to shower first.
Building it into the session is a leader decision. So is raising it with the operator or the programme manager when the timetable makes it impossible, which with a tight lesson changeover it frequently does. A teacher cannot create five minutes. A programme can.
The parts of the session that are not the pool
Most of what goes wrong at an organised swim happens outside the water. Changing rooms are wet, hard, crowded and busy. Corridors are slippery. Groups get separated. Children get lost between the changing village and the poolside. Belongings go missing. And the journey to and from the venue is, statistically and practically, a substantial part of the risk of the day.
A plan that covers only what happens in the water is not a plan for the session. Things worth deciding in advance: how the group moves from changing to poolside and who counts them; where belongings go; what the arrangement is if a child needs the toilet mid session; who is in the changing room and under what safeguarding arrangement; and how the group leaves at the end without a scatter.
What is the environmental question for this session?
Air quality, water temperature, clarity, and the state of the changing facilities. Sun protection is not on the list and putting it on the list wastes attention that the real list needs.
The one thing to check is whether the roof opens. If it does, and it will be open, you are running an outdoor session and the list changes.
Ultraviolet exposure and timing become the dominant environmental question, alongside heat, shade and drinking water. The water and air questions largely fall away.
See an outdoor group session plan, which is the outdoor counterpart to this article.
If the group is children
Everything above, plus supervision ratios appropriate to the age, the competence and the activity, and plus the recognition that children in water are a different supervision problem from children on land. Guidance for swimming activity is published by Swim England, and for schools the Health and Safety Executive's material on school trips and outdoor learning is the relevant starting point. Swimming is part of the national curriculum in England, and the requirement is set out in the programmes of study.
The interaction between supervision and everything else is covered in children in water. The short version is that a child in water requires eyes on them, and every task that pulls a leader's eyes away from the water is a supervision cost that has to be planned for rather than absorbed.
Hold what families give you, act on what you have agreed with them, and do not improvise. Do not decide whether a child's skin condition is fit for swimming, do not adjust anybody's medication timing, and do not offer an opinion on a rash. If something changes at the session, the route is the family and then a pharmacist, a GP or NHS 111, depending on urgency.
Whether this indoor session goes ahead as planned
Owns turning up ready: showered, with the right kit, having said what needs to be said about their own health. A swimmer can decline to get in and should be told that is allowed.
Owns the go or no go decision on the day, the environmental checks before entry, the supervision arrangement, the pre swim routine, the movement of the group through the building, and the escalation of anything observed to the duty manager. Owns the written risk assessment and owns keeping it current rather than filing it.
Owns the pool, the water, the air, the plant, the changing facilities, the lifeguard cover it has agreed to provide, and telling hirers accurately what is and is not included. Owns notifying hirers when something changes, including a roof opening.
Where a duty attachesThe Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 for the assessment itself and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for the underlying duties. Sector guidance from Health and Safety Executive, HSG179 Health and safety in swimming pools, and swimming specific guidance from Swim England.
The short list
Before the block: know the venue, agree the supervision in writing, write the assessment, collect what you need from families. On the day: look at the water, smell the air, check the lifeguards are there, check the changing rooms, count the group in and count them out. During: eyes on the water. After: dry, warm, counted, and a note of anything you want to raise.
None of it involves sunscreen, because you are indoors. That is the useful thing about being explicit about the environment. It frees up the attention for the list that actually applies.