Pre-Schoolers

Your child needs to feel comfortable with their head being underwater. We won’t force any child’s head underwater. Nor try to trick them to do so before they are ready.

This is an essential skill for your Starfish tot. It can lessen panic should your child accidentally fall into the water. It also allows them to learn to swim in a horizontal position. Doggy paddling is way too tiring, and a stronger swimmer is a safer swimmer!

If your mini-me finds themself in deep water, there won’t always be a wall close by for them to swim to or something to hold on to. By developing buoyancy and breath-holding skills, we’ll teach your child how to front float and back float.

Your Starfish toddler can be taught how to roll over on their back, breathe calmly, reduce the risk of swallowing water, conserve their energy, collect their thoughts and not panic. Allowing them to call out and wait for help or regain the energy they need to propel themselves to safety.

When your Jellyfish child is comfortable front floating face down in the water, they’ll love learning how to be a torpedo!

Through challenges and games, we teach tiny tots to be streamlined (horizontal) in the water. Head down. Arms straight in front. Holding onto a kickboard. Then kick, kick, kick. Learning how to move through the water like a torpedo, smoothly and at a good pace.

So how fast is a torpedo? (Just in case this comes up at your next school trivia night!) The Russian rocket-powered super cavitating (expialidocious?!) torpedo VA-111 Shkval is reportedly capable of speeds above 370km/h! We only expect your young torpedo to achieve their personal best!

Many skills need to come together for your Jellyfish or Goldfish to achieve their independent, unassisted freestyle swimming goals. A vast swim safety milestone.

Strong kicks without feet leaving the water – we don’t want them kicking the air and losing propulsion. Minimum knee bend so they use their upper leg muscles. Body streamlined in the water to reduce water drag. Straight over-arms at this stage (not bent) to encourage a full length of stroke and help your little fish to learn how to breathe correctly and efficiently, with correct head turn.

Your Jellyfish will initially be swimming freestyle without side breathing, chasing a 6m goal. As a Goldfish, they’ll be targeting 9m, learning to take a breath on the fourth stroke.

There’s a lot of science behind our curriculum. A strong focus on technique. There’s a lot to achieve, but the rewards are worth it. You’ll be so proud – and we will be too!

Griffith University conducted a study of 7,000 children under the age of 5, which showed that “children who learn to swim at a young age are reaching many developmental milestones earlier than the norm.“

The study concluded that children between the ages of 3 to 5, who had swimming lessons, were 11 months ahead of the average population in verbal skills, 6 months ahead in math skills and 2 months ahead in literacy skills. They were also 17 months ahead in story recall and 20 months ahead in understanding directions.

We can see the correlation between our Pre-Schooler Program and a primary school curriculum. Our lessons include a lot of verbal direction and counting. The constant repetition of the skills we teach helps build muscle memory. With water being a potentially dangerous environment, we are very focused on teaching a child to understand and follow directions. We’ve always known pre-school swimming lessons can give kids a head start at primary school.