This is an opportunity for your child to start their own short 1 second independent swim between your teacher and you without using our keyword ‘ready go’. We use gentle encouragement to promote your child leaning in and under the water from a sitting position on your knee and paddling and kicking towards your teacher.
Why do we do it?
This amazing core skill has 9 different stages to it, all introduced slowly over the course of levels 3 to 8, and is another fun way we promote independent swimming. Not only that but an important lifesaving skill teaching your child to recognise when they are about to go underwater and hold their breath quickly. Something useful at bath time too!!
The first stage (introduced in Level 3 Swans) is to start by sitting on parent’s knee and leaning forwards into the water. These concepts are designed to challenge your child appropriately as they get older. You can look forward to;
“More jumping please”
What is wonderful about this fun skill is that children often enjoy the jumping forward excitement so much they manage a short independent swim without even realising they have done it. Children start asking to do this skill in each lesson as they love it and quite often it’s a teacher’s go to trick if the class needs a break from something tricky as it always lightens the mood