I have been involved in swimming and teaching swimming all my life. I entered my first competitive gala at the age of 5 and swam throughout my childhood. Previous to teaching with Swimkidz i studied Psychology and Criminology at Cardiff University and went on to become an A level Psychology teacher for a while before leaving to teach Psychology and parenting to male Prisoners. Soon after the birth of my eldest daughter Jasmine I decided to take her to baby swimming classes and fell in love with the whole concept and magic of it all and so re evaluated my career and retrained as a baby swimming instructor.
I went on to running a successful baby swimming franchise but with the birth of my second daughter, Amelia i decided i needed some time to spend with my family. However, within a year of having Amelia i started missing the excitement and joys of seeing all those little babies learning to swim so started teaching for Swimkidz, my family business in Wales. Within months I was running Swimkidz Wales and haven't looked back since! Teaching swimming to babies from birth to ten is simply the best job in the world.
I feel extremely privileged to be part of such a magical journey of bonding, fun , excitement and learning a vitally important life skill. And even after 7 years of teaching baby swimming, i am still amazed at the excitement and emotion of it all. As well as being a fully ASA qualified teacher i also hold lifesavers award including infant specialism, aquacise qualification and have completed the Swimkidz in house training programme.
Extras from Tasha's Profile on Mojo mum's:
Duties: Overall management of the business, teaching swimming lessons to babies, toddlers and older children (from birth to ten years).
Hours: Flexible working hours, generally 40-50 hours a week.
Childcare arrangements: I've got one daughter in school and one in playgroup. I now have a team of teachers at Swimkidz who can work all the hours when my children are not in school so I can care for them. My husband helps out when I need him too, which is great!
What I love about work: The best part of my job is knowing that I am helping all the babies learn a vital lifesaving skill. Also, being part of the special bonding time between parents and their babies and seeing lots of happy smiling faces is very rewarding.
What I find difficult is: Admin! My business has grown very quickly and I wasn't quite ready for the massive increase in swimmers from one term to the next which meant I had to quickly seek and train new teachers to work all the hours we had to offer.
My working life would be easier if: I had a full time office manager!
Work/mum life balance: I find that this job, unlike no other I have ever had, allows me the flexibility to work around my children. This means that if my daughters have a school concert or parents evening I can now attend which is really important to me.
How having children has changed the work I do: Before I had my oldest daughter, Jasmine, I was working in a prison teaching psychology and parenting courses. However, after having Jasmine I found my whole outlook on life had changed and found the work I was doing increasingly more difficult. After taking Jasmine to a baby swimming class I decided that I would like to go back to my childhood love which was swimming and start teaching swimming. Within months I had trained to teach baby swimming and changed my career. A decision which has led to me to running my own successful baby swimming company in Wales.
Fantasy job / If I wasn't doing this: I'd be a criminal psychologist. This was something I always wanted to do and even studied criminal psychology at university. Although, I really love my job too and the clients are so much nicer than the ones I would have dealt with if I had carried on my original career path!!
Mojomums helps mums get their mojo back - what advice would you give to mums who feel they have lost theirs?
It's never too late to find your dream job! After I had Jasmine I felt very depressed at the thought of going back to work and when I actually went back I didn't really want to be there. However, I decided to retrain and totally change my career path and I haven't looked back since! Now with two daughters I find the time to be a working mum and spend quality time with them as they are growing up which is so important.
