WaiSwim upskill their teachers

Christchurch’s WaiSwim swim school recently got their learn to swim staff to attend a Swimming New Zealand education course focused on teaching school age children and adults.

The Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) NZSCT School Age and Adult Award course was run by Education Advisor Cecilie Elliot and is designed for swim teachers to extend their knowledge of teaching swimming to school age children and adult swimmers.

It is recognised that different teaching styles and skills are required to teach a fearful or inexperienced adult and teaching adults new skills often requires a completely new approach and this is especially true when teaching swimming.

In all cases, it is important to firstly understand the expectations of the child and/or adult and then plan the teaching from there. Whether they wish to learn to swim to be safer and enjoy the water, to keep fit or to compete, the foundation aquatic skills need to be mastered first.

This course covers some of the recognised skills and drills, however, teachers who attend this course will continue to extend their knowledge with experience and research to fully understand and meet the needs of the children and adults they are teaching and who want to learn to swim.

Prior to the course, the teachers all completed a pre-course assignment and will now complete two more written assignments, twenty hours swim teaching (with school age children and adults), write ten consecutive lesson plans for school age children and ten lesson plans for adults, complete their First Aid certificate and be assessed taking a school aged class and an adult class to be awarded their Teaching School Age & Adult SNZ National Certificate.

Cecilie Elliott said that all of the swim teachers at WaiSwim who attended the course participated well in both the classroom and pool sessions. Jacinta Cairns, Kaiapoi Aquatic Centre Co-ordinator, said “she thoroughly enjoyed the course”, with the other teachers all commenting that they had learnt a lot and gained more skills and confidence.

The WaiSwim learn to swim programme is offered at Kaiapoi Aquatic Centre and Dudley Park Aquatic Centre, Rangiora.

WaiSwim is a registered Quality Swim School with Swimming New Zealand. The focus of their programme is to provide children and adults with a strong foundation of balance and body position in the water and then building on these skills.

They believe learning to swim is a life skill and they continually upskill their swim teachers to ensure they are providing best practice to their customers.

If you would like to know more about this course or to enrol visit the Swimming New Zealand website or contact your nearest Education Advisor.