A nod to the Olympics – with a colourful twist
While water safety is a top priority at Dean’s swim schools, the other key lesson that the Olympic champion wants to pass on is that swimming is fun.
He credits much of his enthusiasm for the sport to the fun drills and head-to-head challenges he did while learning to swim with the Maidenhead Marlins. With Dean writing out the course programmes for his schools himself, many of these methods are also put to use with his students.
“I always want an emphasis on healthy competition, kids going head to head, enjoying competition, things I loved doing when I was growing up,” he told the Yorkshire Post. “If there’s a challenge at the end of the lesson, they naturally become more comfortable in the water without thinking about it.”
There is a game element to Dean’s lesson plans where students earn Olympic-themed rewards for reaching different tiers of learning.
“We have the five stages, and when they move from one, they get the corresponding cap,” Dean told the Maidenhead Advertiser. “The colours of those caps are the five rings of success, a small nod to my Olympic experience.”
For his part, Dean is already dreaming of the swim caps he will wear at LA28, which he expects to be one of the biggest Olympics for his sport.
With more than 1000 days to go until the Opening Ceremony, Dean is already training hard for those Games but also remembering to savour a new sense of accomplishment as the head of a swim club that is trying to put bad statistics to rest.
“I go back to my local pool in Maidenhead and see hundreds of kids doing the lessons, all with Tom Dean Swim School on their caps, and people come up to me in town with the medals they’ve got from our swim schools,” Dean told the Yorkshire Post. “I can’t imagine anything more rewarding.”
