Spotlight on Quality Swim Schools “ Water Babies, Wellington

Running out of four locations in Wellington Water Babies Swim School is one of the country’s first Gold accredited Quality Swim Schools.

Water Babies has been running classes for babies and toddlers in the UK for over 12 years and now teach over 43,000 babies and toddlers per week in the UK, Ireland, Holland, Canada and New Zealand. China is also starting up the first classes next year in Xi’an.

Husband and wife Kelly and Martyn Williams first joined Water Babies with their son in 2010 in Wales after hearing a great review from a friend.

Kelly said “I grew up in Wellington and  lived close to dozens of beaches so I spent most of my time either on, in or under the water - and wanted my children to be completely at home in the water too”.

The pair was quickly impressed with the swim school so much so that Kelly left her corporate role to become qualified in swim teaching and began working at Water Babies. When they decided to move back to New Zealand to raise their family Kelly worked passionately to start a Water Babies franchise here.

Both Kelly and her husband have now recently completed their Swimming New Zealand Early Childhood Swim Teacher Awards following fantastic practical assessments where they showed immense patience and wonderful encouragement to babies and their parents, many of whom had never been in a pool before.

“I’m delighted to be bringing this wonderful experience to lots of Kiwi families back in my home town of Wellington. I want to change the concept in New Zealand that babies can’t swim soon after birth - bringing them into the water much earlier is such an important lifesaving skill, an amazing bonding experience for them and their parents and is also a fantastic medium to allow them to exercise and build their stamina in a way that they just can’t do on dry land,” said Kelly.

Water Babies believes ‘that all children should learn to swim from as early as possible, so that they can have fun, bond with their parents or carers, and should they ever fall into water – have the best possible chance of surviving’.

Find Water Babies Wellington on Facebook or visit their website for more information.