Pakowhai School committed to Water Skills for Life

Staff at Pakowhai School in the Hawkes Bay are enjoying seeing their students thrive in the water after a term of teaching Water Safety New Zealand’s Water Skills for Life initiative.

The school’s principal, Paul Bremer, and staff are committed to making sure all their children are safe in and around the water and were keen to learn how to teach the Water Skills for Life competencies to ensure they are providing a quality aquatic education at their school.

After a visit from Swimming New Zealand to take them through the competencies and some tips on teaching these to their students they saw some great improvements from their students in the water over their latest swimming season.

During the summer months, the students were in the school pool every day with the swimming programme based on the Water Skills for Life initiative and getting children to try and achieve as many competencies as possible.

In a follow-up visit to the school Swimming New Zealand Education Advisor Karen Dalldorf saw children who would not venture into deep water at the start of the term now confident to jump or dive in at the deep end and swim to the shallow.

Those who were not even getting into the pool at the beginning of the year are now far more confident and even submerging on their own.

Life jacket sequences added to their achievements especially for those who had never had one on before.

By the end of the session with Swimming New Zealand all children were happy to jump in from the side and rotate onto their back to enable them to float and move to the opposite side of the pool.

Pakowhai School is a Kiwi Swim Safe School and are supported in their school aquatic education programme by Swimming New Zealand. If you would like to know more about becoming a Kiwi Swim Safe School, click here.