20 Oct 2025
Intergrating our Awards into our Stage Criteria
You may have noticed already, but we’ve introduced our Distance, Water Safety and Learn to Dive Awards into the criteria you see on appDot.
This means that from now on, parents and swimmers will be able to easily see which awards are being worked towards and which ones can be ordered for collection. It’s a great step forward in helping everyone follow progress and celebrate achievements along the way.
Awards Already Collected
At the moment, we don’t have a record of who has already earned which awards, so on appDot all awards that children have received currently appear as “not marked.” This will be updated over the next couple of months as swimmers achieve or re-achieve these awards during lessons.
Aligning Awards to Stages
The awards included under each stage have been carefully selected to help push swimmers’ progress and ensure that awards can continue to be achieved as they develop. This approach allows us to recognise swimmers who are actively improving in their lessons, while keeping their development structured and rewarding.
We’ve made this update so that awards are directly linked to criteria, meaning parents will be informed as soon as an award has been achieved and the criteria has been met. For example, when a swimmer moves from Stage 3 to Stage 4 and earns their 25-metre badge, their instructor will need to tick it off before the award can be collected. This ensures every award is earned at the right time and reflects each swimmer’s current ability.
This process was already existing, but we found a way to make it even better. To see what awards are under which stages, have a look at our ‘Which Awards’ page on our website.
New Notifcations
This new process also makes it easier for our teaching team to keep families informed. When awards are achieved, instructors can now clearly identify which swimmers have met the award criteria and which may still be working towards it.
Indepth Information
We’ve also included a downloadable PDF for each award, allowing parents to see the specific details of what is required to achieve that award. This helps everyone understand exactly what skills and standards we are looking for. If a swimmer has not yet met the full criteria, the award cannot be purchased until it has been achieved.
Reason For Change
We’ve introduced these changes to make information about our awards more open and accessible. Our aim is to help parents stay well informed about the awards we offer, support instructors in delivering consistent assessments, and help swimmers understand what they’re working towards each week in lessons.
More Information
For more information about Assessment Week and how we award achievements, please see Assessment Week Details.
We’re really excited about this change and hope it makes tracking progress clearer and more rewarding for both swimmers and parents. Thank you for your patience while we update everyone’s progress over the coming months.
