Published on Wednesday, 13 October 2021 at 9:28:02 AM

Sarah Brook is one of our Swim Teachers at Beatty Park Swim School. She is trained to teach every level, including our Parent & Baby classes – which she happened to do at Beatty Park when she was a baby!

We had a chat to Sarah about her experience with Beatty Park as a kid and now at 18.

Tell us about your memories of Beatty Park!

I have been coming to Beatty Park my whole life! I live super close and we don’t have a pool at home, so ever since I was little we often walked up the street to the pool. I took my first swim lesson here (and many more after that) and spent many many hours over the years playing in the pool and going down those blue slides!

Some of my best swimming memories are at Beatty Park - the slides were of course a massive highlight for every kid (or adult - my last slide trip was not very long ago!)

I have a clear memory of Dad teaching me how to dive into the dive pool when I was younger, which was of course interrupted by lots of bombies with my brother. And not to forget of course the years’ worth of bus trips in primary school to Beatty for swim lessons during the school term - the bus seats were always soggy from kids in the lesson before but it was one of the best parts of every school year.

Here’s a home video of Sarah and her Dad during a swimming lesson in 2005 – when Sarah was just two years old! (our indoor pool has come a long way since then!)

You’ve come full circle! What made you want to become a swim teacher?

Becoming a swim teacher was a total happy accident!

My mum actually sent me a state government ad offering to train swim teachers for free and told me to forward it to my friends who might be interested, but I decided to apply too! It definitely took everyone by surprise, being a swim teacher was nowhere near my radar as a part time job but it is one of the best things to ever happen to me!

I absolutely love my job, it has been a complete whirlwind since I became qualified but it has completely changed my life for the better.

Swim teaching is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable jobs you could find. The best feeling for me is seeing the kids improve - it never fails to surprise me how quickly they can learn, and that sudden ‘click’ moment when they eventually understand your corrections is incredibly heartening to see.

Swim teaching doesn’t feel like work to me - we have such an incredible group of teachers here and I enjoy it so much that getting paid is just a nice bonus!

Swim teaching has also opened up so many opportunities for me. In such a short time, Beatty Park has fostered my career, training me to teach all of our classes (including Parent & Baby classes and our Angelfish disability program) and to be a supervisor. I am so thankful to everyone here for the incredible opportunities and friends I have made.

We're super proud of Sarah and can't wait for her to pass the torch to one of her students one day!

Get in touch with us today to learn more about Swim School. 

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