Tips for children who are a little more advanced.

Learning to swim doesn’t just happen during your child’s swim school lessons. If your child can already float on their back and torpedo on their front, there are many things you can do to help your child advance their swimming skills.

Skills that need to be practiced regularly with the help of parents include:

• Kicking – correct kicking action is essential for your child to gain efficient forward movement. Your child needs to perform short, fast kicks with their feet close together. This skill can only improve with practice (at swim lessons and the local pool).
• Talk about swimming actions with your child to help them better understand what we are asking them to do in the pool.
• Get your child to pretend to be a windmill in front of the mirror. This can help them better understand freestyle arm action.
• Talk to them about how they need to lift their head out of the water when they’re swimming doggy paddle. This helps them get their breath so they can then blow bubbles.

Learning to swim isn’t just about what we do in our pool – your support at home will certainly help your child advance and gain the skills they need to be safe in the water.

Why is Leopold Swim School’s water so fantastic?

We get asked continuously if our pool water is salt water. The reason for this is because when you walk into our swim school there isn’t that strong chlorine smell. In actual fact, our water is chlorinated. However, as we take alot of time to get our water perfect, the results show it is gentle on your children’s skin and their bathers dont get that terrible chlorine smell. But, how is this achieved? By using two chemicals called hydroXan and hydroSan. These chemicals allow us to keep our water safe and clean but without the harsh odours. Leopold Swim School’s pool is also tested every couple of hours with a machine and is also sent away to ecowise once a month to be tested for bacteria, which always comes back with a perfect result every time. The water is looked after and scooped day after day by Shane, who puts a lot of effort into our final result which is perfect looking water with a nice warm inviting temperature to go with it. Thanks Shane!!!

Swim Lessons Save Lifes

Lately in the news we have heard how adults have drowned this summer. Swim lessons are a gift for life, the skills they learn will last forever.

So what does ‘Layers of Protection” mean?

No measure can ever guarantee that children are safe in, on and around water. It is only human for adults to sometimes lapse in their supervision of children in the home or while out and about. Children can and do find ways over fences. Children who have had swimming lessons can still drown. For this reason the SwimSAFER message promotes the application of various layers to protect children from drowning – if one layer ‘fails’ then there is another behind it that may save their life. The layers of protection are:

 

Supervision

Correct supervision entails:

• Constant visual contact
• Being within arm’s reach of a non-swimmer and under 5′s
• Not being distracted by anything eg. ringing phones and doorbells
• Being ready to respond quickly

Barriers

• The pool must be fully isolated from the house by a four-sides complying fence.
• Self-closing and self-latching gates are used.
• The fence and gate are checked regularly to ensure they are in good working order

Swimming and Water Safety Skills

 

For young children, the basic swimming and water safety skills include:

• Water familiarization, where small children explore and become comfortable in water environments, developing a respect for the water.
• Gaining confidence through various water activities which include and lead into “safe entries and exits *breath control *submersions *floating *propulsion with arms and legs *turning * and backfloating.
• Developing the ‘strokes’ so that your child can efficiently cover much greater distances. The whole ‘learn to swim’ experience should be positive; free from fear of force, with a focus of skill acquisition and safety around aquatic environments.

As your child gets older, the chances are that they will be exposed to potentially hazardous water situations that will require them to be ‘stronger’ swimmers. Swim Australia recommends that children are able to reasonably comfortably complete a 400m swim before they are deemed to be able to swim well. As this ability is developed, they should also be learning a variety of rescue skills.

 

Emergency Action Plan

In immersion incidents, every second counts. Having an Emergency Action Plan in place can reduce panic and save vital time. Consider the following:

• If a child is missing, check the pool and other water hazards first. Seconds count!
• Have a phone poolside for emergency use only.

In the case of an emergency, dial 000 … or 112 from mobile phones.

All the layers of protection need to be employed at the one time. Layers of protection are outlined by Swim Australia and endorsed by Leopold Swim School

Debunking the pool length myth: size really doesn’t matter

There’s a common perception out there that effective squad training can only be done in a large-length pool – wrong!

It’s not the length that matters, it the technique being taught.

You can have a squad training in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but unless they’re being taught correct technique, they might as well be learning in a wading pool.

At the Leopold Swim School we run an excellent learn to swim program teaching our Squad swimmers great technique, which enables them to be strong in the water. Pool length should not hinder swimmers if the program has been designed for this outcome and executed correctly. At Leopold Swim School, we believe that children should be taught to swim with the correct technique from the start – we pride ourselves on our program and stroke technique.

For children to be ready to end their swimming lessons, they need to finish all swimming levels and do a year of squad to feel comfortable and confident in any situation.

Leopold Swim School squad swimmers achieve a distance of around 1 km in a 45 minute session, but it takes time to develop this kind of fitness. But it’s worth it! Swimming is a skill that can enable your child to participate in the following sports: competitive swimming, yachting, water polo, surf lifesaving, boating, rowing, fishing, surfing, snorkeling, diving, deep sea diving and socialising.

Parents please do not hesitate to come and watch a squad session one night. Just ask reception for details or

call 5250 1457.

Give your Children a long, healthy life

All parents want their children to be fit, healthy and happy, which is why it’s important
to establish healthy habits early – including exercise and involvement in sport.

Swimming is a sport that can be started at the very young age of 6mths and enjoyed well into old age.

It’s also the only sport that exercises our heart, lungs and all muscles in our body
with no side effects. Swimming is the perfect sport to help your child to
develop motor skills ( for the young) and coordination ( for the older child).
Once your child gains confidence in the water it is likely they will always
have it. Swimming is the perfect sport for all the family to enjoy.

As parents, we need to get our children into sport so that they don’t end up with health problems caused by weight gain and
little exercise.

Swimming is gentle but effective with a splash of fun it wins hands up.

So lets start our children young and teach them to be fit, healthy and to enjoy
every gift that life has to offer.

Help prevent a drowning tragedy these Christmas School Holidays

Hooray! Before long the
Christmas holidays will be just around the corner! Have you made any plans for
your Christmas holidays yet? I’m sure that you all deserve a
well-earned break and that many of you are planning to get away with the family
for fun times.

Most holiday
destinations are close to water – whether it be beaches, lakes, rivers or
resorts with pools. It’s also a fact that many families centre their family
leisure time around the water with boating, jetskiing, surfing, kayaking,
fishing and swimming in the ocean popular pastimes.

However, amazingly
enough – despite our love of the water – not everyone knows how to swim well
enough to be able to get themselves out of trouble if the unexpected occurs.

We sometimes get
feedback from parents who believe that once their child has the bare
swimming basics, that will do. But in fact, they’re actually putting their
child in a very dangerous situation.

They’re giving
themselves – and their child – a false sense of security.

Nobody can predict a
dangerous current, unexpected large wave or a fall into water that is much
deeper and colder than expected.

Did you know that a
child needs to be able to strongly swim 200metres to save themselves from a rip
at the beach – something that occurs all the time! A child (or adult) with the
swimming bare basics is not going to be able to save themselves in this
situation.

If you truly want to
enjoy your holiday, you shouldn’t have to fear the water or worry about
drowning. You may say that there’s always a life jacket, but remember, it can
only help to a certain extent.

‘Prevention is better
than cure’ and you can give your family the skills to ensure that they have the
knowledge and skills to get themselves out of trouble when the unexpected
occurs.

 Swimming can
really be a life-saver.

If you require any
swimming lessons for yourself or your family members, kindly visit or call the
centre on 5250 1457 to book in today!!

Part 2 Why do we teach children different swimming strokes?

The Advantages of Each Stroke

Breaststroke
Once learnt at a basic level it can be performed with the head staying above
the water all the time. This gives excellent visibility and avoids breathing
difficulties.

Backstroke                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Because it is swam on your back there is no breathing difficulties. A swimmer
can breathe the entire time they are swimming and therefore become less tired.
They can also then cover a longer distance. It is also advised as an exercise
that can relieve back problems.

Freestyle
This is the fastest and most efficient stroke if performed correctly. It
enables swimmers to cover further distances quicker and by using less energy.

Butterfly
This stroke is mostly used in competition only as it is very tiring.
Performing this stroke is very fast but takes a lot of energy. Children enjoy
learning this stroke because of its similarity in movement to the way a dolphin
swims. They have a lot of fun learning this.