School Aged Program

Our school aged program is designed for children and adolescents aged 5 and up and continues on from the skills our pre-school and prep age program. In this program the child enters the pool without their parent but are supported by the swim teacher.

Key features of our school aged program are: 

1. Skill revision: We revise and build on previous skills, supporting your child to enhance their ability to control their breath and trust that the water will always hold them up, provided they have not blown out the air inside their lungs.
2. Confidence building: Here we focus on enhancing your child’s confidence that comes from knowing they will not fall to the bottom of the pool and will always float on top of the water. 
3. Freestyle: Your child is supported to build their individual skills in arm and leg movements required for freestyle (crawl stroke). This involves teaching your child:
   • The correct leg movement (kicking)
   • How to bring their arms out of the water after their hand reaches their thigh at the back end of the stroke, then move their arms through the air and place their hand in the correct position to start the next stroke.
   • To maintain the correct leg speed while their arms work (timing)
   • The correct way to exhale their breath under the water, and then inhale the same amount of air.
   • To apply the newly learned breathing techniques and take a breath by turning their head to the side, without losing the timing their legs and arms. After you child demonstrates they can perform this skill for 6.25m, they can be easily applying this to longer distances (e.g., 12.5m). 
4. Other strokes: Once your child learns freestyle, we start to introduce other swim strokes. We routinely teach freestyle and backstroke to enhance skills and comfort in the water.
5. Stroke correction: At this stage we prioritise your child’s stroke correction to perfect their skills.
6. Distance: Once your child can show their ability to swim each stroke for 12.5m, they are supported to progress their skills to longer distances. Here we introduce into the program the skills for your child to swim up to 100m without stopping.