Summer Swimming Lessons for children
Summer swimming lessons offer a quick and effective way of teaching children to swim!
Learn to Swim Quickly
Each summer we change our usual format of weekly classes, and for the months of July and August we run intensive swimming classes for both adults and children of all abilities. Instead of coming once a week for a course of seven weeks, the students visit us for a class every day, Monday to Friday for one week. This intensive format has several benefits:
Lessons are tailored to each student’s ability.
Firstly the student generally makes quicker progress. This is because they don’t have time to forget what they have learned between one day and the next. They also don’t lose confidence in their abilities so readily. In fact students make such good progress that we would like to run intensive classes all year round! But unfortunately it is only feasible in the summer.
BOOKING TIPS:
*Make sure you know what ability group you need to book (See below!)
*If you are booking more than 1 person into the same time slot you will need to make a separate booking for each person.
*Make sure there is space in your chosen class for everyone at the same time and in the same week.
*Book beginners (Seahorses and Otters) first! These groups fill up very quickly.
*Not all the summer weeks are available for booking straight away- there would be too many! So if you can’t find a week and time to suit you, try again in a few week’s time- there will be different options on offer.
*Don’t book more than 1 week- your child may move up a group and make the second booking invalid and we may not have space in the right group. We can always try to book a second week at the end of the first when we know what ability group the child needs to be in.
Please see the descriptions of each ability below to help you decide on your child’s ability;
1st Beginner (Seahorses).
Seahorses are those who have no ability in the water at all. Here they are taught confidence exercises, safety issues and basic introduction to strokes with the aim of achieving movement through water without arm bands or floats and to get used to being completely submerged. Once a child can do this, they receive a certificate and can move up to the next group…..
2. 2nd Beginner (Otters)
Children in the Otters group will start off able to swim on their front without the need for arm bands or floats, albeit with little technique. They will need to be confident with submerging and blowing bubbles, but may not be able to swim on their back. Front crawl, breast stroke and swimming on their back are all taught in this class.
3. Improver (Salmon)
Salmon must be free swimming on their front and back and able to swim 7m continuously. Here complete strokes are taught and developed so that the child is able to swim comfortably and able to breathe while swimming. Other strokes can be introduced depending on the ability. Children are also taught to be comfortable out of their depth. Children can spend some time working through this group, so we subdivide it into Salmon 1 and Salmon 2, each with its own certificate.
4. Deep end Improver. (Dolphins)
In Dolphins, children can tread water confidently and they need to be fairly good at Front crawl, back crawl and breast stroke. These strokes are refined and other skills are developed such as Butterfly, Side-stroke, diving and underwater swimming. Children who have achieved a good standard here are ready to progress to life saving, lane swimming (advanced classes) or competitive swimming or simply be able to go and enjoy their new skill as they choose.
5. Advanced
In this group, pupils need to at least 8 years old and be competent in 3 of the 4 main competitive strokes (i.e. freestyle, breast stroke and back crawl). They should be able to swim 16m continuously in each stroke comfortably. The fourth competitive stroke developed in advanced swimming classes is the butterfly. Children should also be competent in side stroke, as apart for the butterfly, stroke technique is not taught in this class. Here the pupils will learn the basics of competition swimming and will also develop their water safety abilities.
Convenient Classes
At this time of year when people are often heading away on holiday, it is more convenient to do your swimming classes in one week instead of missing classes while you’re on holiday
Cheaper Swimming Lessons
A one week intensive course is shorter and therefore cheaper than our usual seven-week courses.
In most other respects our intensive swimming courses are the same as our other courses. Each class is 45 minutes long, each class is structured for optimum learning, and the instructors are highly qualified and full of enthusiasm.
Some students just do one intensive course, others choose to do two or more over the course of the summer.
Children’s classes are generally run in the mornings and afternoons, adults in the evenings.
Children’s intensive summer classes cost €65 per course.
Summer swimming lessons will commence on June 30th and continue through into August. Please email info@thewaterschool.ie for more information.
BOOKING TIPS:
*Make sure you know what ability group you need to book
*If you are booking more than 1 person into the same time slot you will need to make a separate booking for each person.
*Make sure there is space in your chosen class for everyone at the same time and in the same week.
*Book beginners (Seahorses and Otters) first! These groups fill up very quickly.