Lifeguarding

theres a course called an NPLQ which lasts a week and will cost you about £200. If you're lucky an employer will pay for it or part of it. You wont earn much more than any other part time job. About £4,50-£6 per hour for part timers at gyms and leisure centres but private work where you wont get as much work will probably give £10 per hour ish.

But am I right in thinking it's less competitive because you need a qualification? When I asked at my local leisure centre they said lifeguards could pretty much state what hours they wanted to work and were given them.

Yep I'd say that's true, all the leisure centres in my area are always looking for lifeguards and it's casual ie you can choose when you work (within reason obviously...if everyone wants to work sunday for example you might not get the shift you want, but its pretty flexible where I work).

Shadowrow is right, the qualification is the NPLQ, its about £200 and lasts to years. You might be able to get an employer to pay for some of it the first time, I didn't, but they will almost defo pay for you to re-take the test after the 2 years is up, as long as you go to staff training. Being a lifeguard isn't bad at all as a part time job, very flexible, I used to work pretty much full time in the holidays and once or twice a week during term time. I'm doing it full time atm, not quite so good, but I get to live in the south of france so who cares!

Do you have to take it every two years, or is it just a once check up?

I PASSED! woop!

split into 4 sections : Theory, CPR, Pool and First Aid.

Theory: Questions on pool operations, scanning, and such like. Easy, especially if your assesor is laid back, ours werent strict at all.

CPR: Resuscitation on manikins. Learn it, as its possibly the most important thing to learn.

Pool: Where you do your timed swims, retrieving a manikin from the deepest part of your pool ( which becomes the maximum depth pool you can work in i think- for me its 2.75 metres), rescues and spinal injury management- thats the second most important thing to learn.

First Aid- Self explanatory- they'll tell you to respond to a first aid situation, do a secondary assesment of a casualty, and answer a bunch of questions. Again, the more laid back the assesor is, the easier theyll make it for you.



Nothing's too difficult if your memory is half decent. The main things you need to be careful with are CPR and the spinal work, they are the most severe things, and so to be assesed as competent, you need to treat it as such.

Sorry for the detail. Any more questions, feel free to ask!

Thanks!

One more thing. This sounds stupid, but would you be allowed to wear goggles in the pool? I wear contact lenses, and as such I can't keep my eyes open underwater without them swimming away...