Aramoho School students keen to survive in the water

Swimming New Zealand Swim Safe Advisor Cecilie Elliott spent a day last week with students from Aramoho School in Wanganui covering all aspects of water safety and survival skills.

The morning was spent with the senior students doing various water safety activities and understanding the importance of keeping themselves safe, both in, on and around the water.

This included discussing the importance of swimming between the flags at a beach, wearing a lifejacket if they were in any kind of boat, how to fit a lifejacket correctly and what to look for, the HELP position, the huddle and the students then had the opportunity to practice wearing lifejackets out of the pool.

With the Wanganui River so close and so many students who swim in it, the importance of how to swim in moving water was discussed. Swimming strokes such as sculling on their back, both feet first and head first, survival backstroke and sidestroke were some of the strokes that were demonstrated out of the pool.

Then broke into pairs and were given bamboo sticks and did mock rescues depicting someone in trouble in the river. They learnt who the most important person in any rescue was, what they would do first, what they would say and if and how they could help.

Before they got into the pool, dry land exercises and activities were done out on the school rugby field to focus students on good body position in the water to enable them to float, streamline and develop good core muscles.

This warmed them up and they were keen to get into the water.

They then practiced all the lifejacket activities that they did earlier and all the survival strokes in the water. They then changed into long pants and sweatshirts to swim in, showing them just how hard it is if they fell into the water with clothes.

In the afternoon the junior students did some dry land exercises out on the field followed by a swim.

The day before Cecilie arrived; Aramoho School had held a Fun Water Day for all their students, having lots of fun and activities with both staff and parents involved.

The two days showed the students just how much fun you can have in the water, but also the importance of keeping themselves safe, whether they are in it, on it or around it.