Do you have any plans for you and the children this Easter break?
With the extra time to play with, we have dived in with another crash course for all three of our HydroKidz venues, for your child’s benefit!
What’s the Crash Course all about?
The crash course is a fantastic way to kick your child’s swimming skills into action, and boost their water confidence and ability, in a 1-week intensive course!
Designed for children between the ages of 3 and 12, our qualified and experienced swim instructors keep the kids busy during a 30-minute, daily lesson packed with drills and games, intertwined with the relevant Swim England stage they are at.
Your child will be assigned to one of 4 class types, based on current ability.
If you’re not sure what stage your child is at, why not take our short quiz?
Where do we teach?
We teach at three beautiful school venues, all with the relevant facilities.
Blue Coat School, Sonning (RG4 6SU)
Mary Hare School, Newbury (RG14 3BQ)
St John’s Beaumont School, Old Windsor (SL4 2JN)
When is the crash course?
The Blue Coat School and St John’s Beaumont School crash course is from April 8th-12th, 2019
The Mary Hare School crash course starts a week later, April 15th-19th, 2019
Here’s a quick glide through the class types - (with more info on this link here)
The Start class is designed for children who are new to the water or just starting to learn a life-long confidence with it. At this stage, the children will be going through the Duckling stages set out by the national swimming body, Swim England.
The Duckling stages comprise a whole host of elements that will put your child in good stead for their future swimming expertise.
Here are a few key areas that will be taught during the Duckling stages –
- A safe entry into the water
- Blowing bubbles at the water surface
- Submerging the face in water
- Kicking 5m with support and then without support
To see all the criteria, head over to the Swim England website here.
Setting a good foundation at the Duckling stages puts any child in a great position to push onto what are called the ‘Learn to Swim’ stages. The LTS stages are split into several sections, designed to reward your child for their continued development of the essential skills - confidence, competency and safety in the water.
The Beginner class is the first of these. Here the children will learn Stages 1 and 2 of the LTS curriculum. These stages consist of pushing and gliding from the wall, jumping in from poolside, and going from floating on the front or back to standing position, to name a few. Floatation aides are used during this stage to provide safety and stability as the children gather confidence in a slightly deeper end of the pool.
Once Stage 1 and 2 have been perfected, next up will be the Improver class, which looks to build upon the ever-increasing confidence and ability of each child. Floatation aides are now removed, which gives the children the chance to explore beneath the water by collecting dive sticks from the pool floor – this is often a favourite! On the surface, the emphasis is now to travel 10 metres without support to boost stamina, on all the key strokes – front crawl, back stroke, breaststroke and butterfly.
After this, the children are ready to dive into the Advanced class (stages 5 and 6), which looks at the real nitty-gritty of everything that’s been taught thus far: pushing and gliding straight into each of the strokes will be examined thoroughly to ensure everything is in motion and correctly conducted. This stage involves a number of strenuous tasks that will require lots of practice – but the rewards are worth it! Stages 5 and 6 also offer some crazy fun tasks that the kids love: treading water, shaped jumps into the water, forward somersaults and handstands!
There’s also a more serious but very important aspect during this stage: performing ‘shout and rescue’ drills for lifesaving purposes, as well as swimming in clothing – real life emergency scenarios with effective and safe responses to them being taught.
So, what are the benefits of joining the Crash Course?
We have had the privilege to have done a number of crash courses now, and have seen how so many children go away with a real sense of achievement at the end of the week.
This achievement is reflected on our (your!) online portal – outlining how far along the stage your child is at – a great motivator to keep plugging away in each and every lesson in order to level up! (What’s the online portal?).
The boost in confidence we see when the children re-join us for the new HydroKidz term is a real plus (not part of HydroKidz term-time lessons? Click here for more info).
We also have a few sneaky prizes to give away, too!
And finally, let’s not forget a key detail: It’s a splashing good time for the kids!
If you would like to get booked in please call us 0118 402 28 99 - there are some spaces still available.
