In the swim
Once upon a time Ian Thorpe and Brooke Hansen were just like any other child starting their first swimming lessons. Rebecca Tucker talks about Australia’s learn-to-swim culture and its long term benefits.
Debbie Gill could talk underwater about how important swimming lessons are for infants and children. But it’s the stories parents tell her that best illustrate the AUSTSWIM presenter and swim centre owner’s point of view.
Take last summer for example. A dad from Debbie’s Geelong centre recalled how his 2½-year-old daughter had got into trouble in Victoria’s Murray River during a family trip. As dad prepared to jump in and rescue his little girl, she ‘popped up, turned on her back and kicked to the edge just like she learned in swimming lessons’.
Before, Debbie says, the dad had begrudged the cost of swimming lessons, questioning their value. He was considering cancelling the lessons. ‘Now he says he’d pay three times as much,’ she says.
Swimming lessons can mean the difference between life and death in a continent surrounded by water. More than 80 per cent of the population lives near the coastline and the rest are not too far from inland lakes and rivers.
According to the Royal Life Saving Society Australia’s National Drowning Report 2002, 251 Australians drowned in preventable incidents between 2001-02. Of those deaths 44 were children aged four and under.
Most parents who enrol their children in swimming can pay up to $5,000 for more than 10 years of lessons. Considering the statistics, the potential alternative is a far higher price. So it frustrates Debbie to know it’s one of the first things parents give up to cut costs.
AUSTSWIM, the Australian Council for the Teaching of Swimming and Water Safety, is internationally recognised for its training program. The council is based in Melbourne, with offices in each Australian state and territory, and is increasingly being used as a model overseas.
Debbie, who runs the Geelong Aquatic Centre with her husband Geoff, recently presented at an AUSTSWIM teacher-training course in Singapore. ‘AUSTSWIM reaches other countries because as a model in Australia it’s been really successful,’ Debbie says.
The AUSTSWIM model has become integrated into most Australian swim school programs in recent years.
Prospective teachers, who are tested on their swimming capabilities, must complete a weekend course before passing an exam. They then have to complete a set number of hours in the pool with a qualified instructor before taking a class alone. Even then they are tested on their lesson performance before receiving the final tick of qualification.
Teachers must hold a current CPR certificate, updated every 12 months. AUSTSWIM qualifications are updated every three years, in between which time instructors must have taught for a certain number of hours and have completed professional development courses. Teaching swimming is not just a dip in the pool. ‘The number one thing is that teachers are trained in the water.’
Royal Life Saving Society Australia national education and training manager Penny Flint believes babies as young as one-day-old get some benefit from the water. At this age, swimming lessons certainly aren’t necessary, but bath time is like a preparation for the pool. Small actions such as gently splashing water on a baby’s body and face, swapping them from front to back and using cue words all help make bath time a fun and natural experience.
Penny recommends parents enrol their babies in an infant aquatic program at about six months. ‘By this stage they’ve got better body and head control, they’ve had their first lot of shots and they’re ready for a public pool,’ she says. They also are too young to have learned to fear water.
Penny says swimming lessons at this age aren’t about learning to swim; they’re about learning water confidence by enjoying the water and teaching parents about water safety. They also provide special bonding time between parent and child as the baby develops trust.
Sure, Penny says, some parents can take their children to the pool without paying for lessons, and that’s not necessarily a bad option, but it’s not always realistic either. And swimming lessons shouldn’t be started at six months, taken for a term and then dropped out of for another three years.
Swimming, learned properly and continuously, is a life-long skill that once taught is easily regained after periods of absence. But it obviously takes several years to go from a baby being held by a parent to a child safely swimming the length of the pool. Penny recommends children continue lessons at least until the end of primary school to give them ongoing confidence and skills.
Sadly though, says Debbie Gill, many parents take their children out of lessons at around eight or nine-years-old, often before they’ve advanced to level three where they’re swimming the length of the pool. ‘People sometimes have the idea that swimming half the length of the pool is safe,’ Debbie says. ‘You’re not really a safe swimmer until the end of level four, when you can do all the strokes and swim 300 metres.'
‘It’s like learning to ride a bike; once you’ve got the hang of it you’ve got it for the rest of your life. ’Then the fun really starts, Debbie says. Swimming can be about far more than water safety. And swimmers don’t need to have Ian Thorpe’s genes to make a splash.
At Geelong Aquatic Centre, they start as young as five months while others are still doing laps into their 60s.
More than 200 children are enrolled in the Go Swim program – a national concept designed to keep children in sport. Once or twice a week, children spend an hour swimming in a squad.
Every month they run time trials. Then there are the swim carnivals where children as young as six swim competitively. ‘It’s a step down from swim club but we have kids who are 16 and 17 still in it,’ Debbie says. ‘It’s a great program and it keeps the kids in sport. We’ve had Kieran Perkins and Gian Rooney visit; it’s very much a fun thing.’
Swimming lessons are a vital part of water safety but they do not automatically ‘drown-proof’ a child. The Royal Life Saving Society says water familiarisation is just one of the necessary components to prevent toddler drownings.
Other important factors to remember include constant adult supervision, pool fencing and resuscitation training.
by Rebecca Tucker
Resources:
For more information:
Royal Life Saving Australia (click on the Infant Aquatics duck)
This article first appeared in Australian Family Magazine, November 2004. Updated July 2009.
Copyright Australian Family 2010. All rights reserved. WARNING: This publication and website information is intended as a first point of reference and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional advice from a qualified medical or other relevant professional.
