Swimming Teachers' Association

The Swimming Teachers' Association (STA) is a registered charity founded in 1932; with the charitable objective of...

"the preservation of human life by the teaching of swimming, lifesaving and survival techniques."

STA receives no Government funding or support, yet has experienced incredible growth and success over the last few years; and unlike other professional bodies who are seeing declining memberships, STA is achieving significant growth in demand for membership (over 5,000 members to date) and courses, and awards near 1,000,000 STA badges and certificates every year for swimming through its Learn to Swim schemes.

This is all in addition to being the only awarding body that has QCA approval for its National Rescue Standard (NaRS) Lifeguarding / Lifesaving and First Aid Awards, Swimming Teaching Certificates and Pool Plant programmes; this clearly demonstrates the STA’s commitment to providing nationally acknowledged vocational awards that address the government’s skills strategy agenda.

As a major organisation concerned with swimming and water safety, STA is also at the forefront of raising standards. Not only is STA, the ONLY organisation that includes water safety in every element of its swimming teaching, STA is also the ONLY organisation that insists its swimming teachers can perform a rescue.

Furthermore in the last 2 years, STA has:

• Facilitated the founding of the National Federation of Swim Schools (NFS); an independent organisation dedicated to providing higher standards in a poorly regulated area of the market.
• Invested substantial funds to engage the British Standards Institution (BSi) to create a Publicly Available Specification – PAS 81 for the management and safe operation of UK swimming schools.
• Created the STAmark accreditation, which assists Swimming Schools wanting to improve their management and standards of service delivery. STAmark is currently the only accreditation that can externally validate a Swim School on best practices and quality standards, and is fully aligned with the PAS 81 specification

STA is also experiencing unprecedented success overseas, and partners organisations in China, Singapore, Middle East, Caribbean, Netherlands and Ireland, plus many more, as part of its long-term commitment to reduce deaths by drowning, by improving standards in teaching swimming, life saving and other survival techniques.

With a heritage spanning 70 years, STA has firmly positioned itself as a leading, industry-respected provider of specialist ‘fit for purpose’ qualifications to the sports and leisure industry.

STA is a solutions driven organisation, dedicated to working with its customers and partners here in the UK and internationally, to build Safer, Healthier & Better Skilled Communities.