Children’s Classes
We run children’s classes 7 days a week term time and can provide lessons for all abilities.
Each class is for 30 minutes and we have a maximum of 8 pupils per class.
We aim for our pupils to feel happy and confident in the water and progress strokes and technique
efficiently. We try to make our teaching environment as friendly and inviting as we can for our pupils
and we make our lessons fun.
Success should be rewarded too, so we follow the STA learn to swim program and present our pupils
with badges and certificates. These awards provide great motivation and highlight achievement.
Non Swimmers to Beginning to Swim
As we like children to feel safe in the water, particularly nervous swimmers, our instructors teach in the
water and have an assistant for all non-swimmer and beginner classes.
These classes mainly focus on helping children to swim front paddle and back paddle but we also
introduce breaststroke and spend a lot of time learning important skills such as submersion, balance,
rotation and propulsion which are the foundations of becoming an efficient swimmer.
Awards at this stage: Stanley and Octopus 1, 2 and 3 and 5 metres.
Beginning to Swim through to Improvers
When children consistently swim front and back paddle with ease and are confident submerging, we start to introduce the four main strokes; front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. Sometimes we still have an assistant or extra teacher to help children who are struggling with a particular skill or stroke. As children progress through the stages we also increase the distance they swim and the depth of the water.
We include many skills in our lessons such as diving, lifesaving, sculling etc which gives a good foundation for other water sports and disciplines in the future.
Awards at this stage: Goldfish 1, 2 , 3 and Angelfish 1, 2, 3 and distance awards.
Advanced Improvers
Once children can swim all four strokes at a good standard, we move them onto the Shark awards where
distance, stamina and technique is developed further. Starts and turns are also introduced along with
developing skills for life saving, water polo, synchro and competitive swimming.
Awards at this stage: Shark 1, 2 and 3 and distance awards
Once children are working towards Shark awards, they have the option to join our Life Saving Club.
STA Award Scheme
At the end of each term we notify you of any awards your child has completed along with an order form to
purchase their awards. These are awards for their achievements during the term for their swimming
strokes and skills.
Each school holiday we run an distance swimming session for children to come along and achieve
their next distance award. This is for distances over 100 metres (distances up to 100 metres
are tested during lesson times). Children can swim as far as they would like to go providing they swim a
recognised swimming stroke. At the end of the test, they are awarded with a badge and certificate.
