November is a super exciting month for Puddle Ducks Bristol & Bath as we are adding a mighty FOUR new teachers to our team! Jodie, Sam and Lisa will be teaching Swim Academy (ages 4 and up) from the end of the month, with Manda joining in a few weeks' time. You can see just how excited they were to finish their Puddle Ducks training with our wonderful Tina (second left) in the picture above.
Find out all about our new recruits below!
Lisa
"I’ve always loved being in the water and feel being able to swim is a really important life skill. Enjoying the water is really important and must be fun.
After having my own children and helping them to learn to swim, I decided I would love to help other children learn too. I took my STA level 2 teaching award qualification last year and have been teaching for the last six months.
I can’t wait to start teaching for Puddle Ducks and will be based at DW Fitness First on a Sunday morning. I am really excited about getting to know the children and their parents and helping them on their swimming journey. "
FUN FACT! Lisa has been lucky enough to dive in the Maldives and snorkel in St.Lucia, swimming with sea life including turtles, sharks and manta rays!
Sam ![]()
"My daughter first started swimming with Puddle Ducks as a baby in Derby and then we moved to the South West and carried on our classes here. My daughter is now 5 and swims with Swim Academy at Stonar School pool.
The opportunity came up to become the Poolside Assistant at Stonar, and because Puddle Ducks has always been part of our lives, it was the natural first step for me. Once I became part of the family, I decided to take the plunge as a teacher, literally! I quickly realised that I should have started teaching ages ago!! The support and encouragement from everyone has been amazing!
I really can’t wait to start teaching, I love seeing the relationships that teachers develop with the families and thinking that I could be part of a child gaining water confidence and a new skill is what really inspires me.
Fun fact - Sam's previous jobs include working for Disney in Florida and being Cabin Crew!
Jodie![]()
"I saw a Puddle Ducks swimming class being taught at my gym pool and thought it looked like a really a great lesson, so I made it my mission to find a Bristol and Bath vacancy! I'm really excited to be working at Winterbourne International Academy on a Sunday. Actually, I am most excited about teaching children to be safe and comfortable in the water as it's where I love to be myself!"
Fun fact: I worked in Tenerife last summer on a marine conservation program with whales and dolphins!
Manda
"Swimming has always been a big part of my life and I’m very grateful to my mum for all the time she spent in the water with us when we were kids and for all that time at the poolside in later years.
My children learnt to swim with Puddle Ducks and from their first lessons I was highly impressed with both the standards of teaching applied and the level of care given from the Puddle Ducks teachers and poolside assistants. I thought then that I’d like to teach with Puddle Ducks but needed to wait until the time was right.
I qualified as a swimming teacher in 2000 and I’m now really looking forward to being part of a professional team teaching children to be safe, confident and happy in the water so that they can enjoy water-based activities for the rest of their lives.
I will be teaching at St Mary Redcliffe in the New Year."
Fun Fact!
"The village primary school that I went to had an open air tank pool in the back playground. We could only use it in the summer and I remember on hot afternoons, longing for our teacher to say we could go swimming. Back then, the whole class, about 25 of us would all jump in together, scrambling over the sides to see who could get in first, with just our class teacher watching from the edge. Oh my goodness, it was fun but I don’t think they’d invented health and safety in the ‘70’s!"