Teachers retain duty of care for their students at all times. As part of this responsibility, school staff must assist water safety instructors to understand and monitor student health and wellbeing. 

Individual student needs 

School staff must have an understanding of each student’s specific individual needs before students are allowed to participate in water safety programs. Each student must have: 

• parental consent through completion of the water safety consent form (PDF 81KB). A copy must be given to the instructor-in-charge for reference. Without this form, students will not be permitted to swim
• their medical conditions, consent forms, and daily attendance recorded on a class list for reference in an emergency
• provided staff with complete details of any important medical information, including health care plans where necessary
• medication readily available where applicable.

Health care plans

Where necessary, a health care plan should be available on site for reference in an emergency. For confidentiality reasons, the school does not necessarily need to provide a copy of the health care plan to the instructor-in-charge, but should be able to provide sufficient relevant information to the instructor quickly.

Schools should use the water safety consent form (PDF 81KB) to determine the need for health care plans and note that all first aid will be based on the information available.

During classes

During swimming and aquatics classes, teachers should:

• actively support instructors to manage student behaviour and medical issues
• inform instructors-in-charge of specific student needs
• provide first aid and medication as required, may include performing safety watch duties for a student with specific medical conditions
• manage and store medication appropriately with clearly marked student identification
• supervise all travel to and from the centre
• supervise students and instructors during the program at all times 
• answer parent enquiries and make sure parents are acting according to the guidelines
• manage all aspects of changing and accessing toilets during the program (including situations where the general public may be accessing these facilities at the same time)
• understand their role in an emergency.