Swim Safe Advisor Alannah Jury visits Great Barrier Island schools

State Kiwi Swim Safe advisor, Alannah Jury spent a couple of days this month with schools on Great Barrier Island, each with different ways of boosting water confidence in their students.

At Okiwi School during summer the students are lucky enough to have Sue Lancaster, a former swim teacher at Sue Mayo Swim School and whose grandchildren now attend Okiwi School, visit for a month and help teach them to swim.

Sue has been helping students at the school gain confidence in the water for the last seven years and has also provided the school with swimming caps and goggles.

The school is split into eight groups according to their ability and spend 30 minutes in the water while the rest of their class continues in the classroom. The senior school use the rope of the pool cover to divide the pool to avoid crashes.

Some parents of the children at Okiwi School have even been using the school pool during lunch time to learn to swim and will swim to a new pontoon at Point Fitzroy (5km from Okiwi School) for a deep water challenge.

The pool at Kaitoke School could not be used when Alannah visited as it was being rewired so it can continue to be solar heated but the students enjoyed learning and doing dry land exercises with Alannah instead.

The teachers at Kaitoke School were also excited to learn activities that they could do with their students throughout the year, especially some activities that they can do in the classroom on rainy days to help burn off some energy and teach important skills.

Mulberry Grove School use the ocean for their lessons as the school boarders the beach and they do not have a school pool. Lane ropes are used to stop the students from going out too deep.

Students are in the water most days at Mulberry Grove School as they are lucky enough to also get sailing lessons at school.

Image: Kaitoke School