Dos and Don’ts of Teaching Swimming from 2016 Nordic Baby Swimming Conference

As the UK starts to warm up, I cast my mind back to a wonderful cold icy few days in Stockholm at the end of last year when I went to the Nordic Baby Swim Conference organised by the Swedish Swimming Federation and Nordic Swimming Federation. Attended by nearly 200 people from 14 different countries including Australia and the USA, the conference is geared towards swim teachers and swim school operators who teach infants, toddlers and preschoolers (0-4 years old). It was a great opportunity to meet my peers and visit couple of reputable swim schools in Stockholm (Trampoolin & SS04).

The aim of the meeting was two fold:

Firstly, how to improve the quality of teaching in an aquatic environment for young children and secondly, teaching toddlers; how swim lessons could be moulded around the needs of toddlers (2-3 years olds)

It’s no brainer that by adding more fun in lessons children enjoy themselves more and are more engaged in the activity. However, there’s a careful balance to ensuring lessons are fun whilst not allowing the teaching quality to slip.

At the end of the day, most parents don’t view swimming lessons only as another source of entertainment for their babies and toddlers. Young children, specially toddlers, are there to learn something too, so, the focus of lessons should be on teaching kids how to swim in an engaging way.

There were plenty of insights provided by different baby swimming practitioners and swim school operators from different countries on how, over the years, they have added value and fun to their programmes without compromising the quality

Experts Insights into Baby & Toddler Swimming – Opinions from Around the World

Torill Hindmarch (Norway)

Torill is the recipient of the 2014 Virginia Hunt Newman International Award .

She explained why forceful submersion should be avoided in teaching swimming because it can potentially do more harm than good. Pushing kids under the water has not be shown to be successful in fast-tracking swim ability.

Ulrika Faerck (Denmark)

Ulrika’s presentation on how to bring creativity into your learn-to-swim programme. Inspired by Walt Disney, Ulrika (founder of Swimmix) had created different and rotating themes for her toddler swimming classes at her boutique swim school in Denmark.  She showcased the best examples for creating a ‘WOW’ factor at her swim school.

From backdrops on the pool’s walls to special toys and props, the level of energy, time and resources invested in the delivery of her swim school’s swimming lessons was impressive.

Her ‘WOW’ factor recipe was simple: Try to create a well-designed, joined up and fun programme and have a team of trained and enthusiastic swim teachers who can deliver the programme.

Last year, I had the pleasure to visit Swimmix in Denmark and saw Ulrika’s lessons in action. On that week, their theme was: ‘Going to Space’ (see the backdrop in above picture).

Lena Andersson-Stenquist (Sweden)

Lena is a well-respected educator in the Swedish swimming community and she oversees a large learn-to-swim programme at Helsingborg SS. Helsingborg SS established in 1907, is one of the largest swim clubs in Sweden. It offers from baby and toddler classes all the way to club swimming.

Lena talked about the importance of teaching and practicing the fundamentals of swimming. Her message was that all the basic skills of swimming like blowing bubbles and streamlining have to be included and practiced regularly at all levels. So, even young children have to spend sufficient time in every lesson to learn and practice the fundamentals. There are no shortcuts in swimming.

Judy Watts (AUS) & Monica Anzueto (Mexico)

Babies and toddlers love music and nursery rhymes. So many swim teachers add songs in the classes for extra fun.

Judy and Monica provided some practical tips and advice on how to mix swimming movements with nursery rhymes to  make lessons more joyful.

After all, in ‘Parent & Child’ classes keeping parents engaged is as important as their children.

Here’s an example of how we mix nursery rhymes in our baby swimming classes at Blue Wave Swim School.

Jim Spiers (U.S.A)

Jim is the owner of New York-based SwimJim Inc swim school. His swim school teaches all ages from babies to pre-competitive level.  Jim’s philosophy was in swimming, everything has to be taught thoroughly from the start.

He believes children as young as 2.5 years old can actually be taught streamlining and correct body position in water. From the clips played at this presentation, reaching certain milestones very early seemed possible at private lessons.

I don’t personally agree that 2 year olds are ready for a hard-core swimming lessons. Bur, I do agree with the concept of teaching everything correctly in private lessons from the beginning to improve efficiency and usage of time.

At Blue Wave Swim School, our approach is that all skills needed to become a competent swimmer have to be taught and practiced correctly from the beginning.

Erin Seal-Grande (U.S.A)

Erin has done an extensive amount of work with special needs children at her Florida-based Seal Swim School. The takeaway message from her talk, was when it comes to teaching swimming to children with special needs, teachers must be patient and creative.

Teachers should try to work with children based on what a child can do rather than focusing too much on their physical or mental limitations.

Prof Robyn Jorgensen (Australia)

The lead academic for the recent Australian study which investigated the effect of early swim lessons on children’s growth and behaviour. Robyn’s keynote address was based on her research on 7000 children in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. She presented the key findings of her research with  countless new findings about early swimming (0-5 years) and children’s growth.

She is in the process of furthering her research to identify the exact characteristics and components of quality swimming lessons and I, for one,  cannot wait to hear more about her future research.

In the world of teaching swimming and especially baby swimming, things change quickly. Yesterday’s desirable becomes today’s essential.  That’s why it’s important to stay up-to-date with latest research, science and shared learning.

Please get in touch if you have any questions about this blog 

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