Lessons We Offer

Our Children’s Swimming Programme

We have been providing children swimming lessons in southwest London since 2010. Our swim lessons cover all ages and swimming abilities, from babies as young as 4 months and toddlers all the way to school-aged children who can swim all 4 strokes and ready to join swimming clubs.

Based on the age and swimming ability of the swimmer, the below is the brief description of the type of swim lessons that you could consider booking for your children.

Under 3’s Swimming Lessons

Baby Swimming

children aged 4 months to 1.5 years old:                           

Baby swimming is very popular in southwest London. We class children as babies when they are aged 4 months to 1.5 years old and you can consider booking baby swimming lessons which is also known as ‘mummy & me’ or ‘parent and baby’ classes.

Baby swimming lessons at Wimbledon college, south west LondonThe main aims of our baby swimming classes are to promote water confidence, and have fun and parents are expected to be in the water with their babies- however, grandparents or nannies are welcome to be in the water to replace parents. Baby swimming classes are group lessons.

Baby swimming lessons are particularly useful if you are a parent and want to know how to hold your baby safely in water without feeling anxious. In our baby swimming classes all parents (adults) can touch the bottom of the pool at all the time so, parents are not expected to be confident swimmers themselves to participate in our baby classes.

If you wish to learn more and have details of activities that we do in our baby swimming classes, please click here.

Toddler Swimming Classes (from 1.5 years old up to pre-school):

Our toddler lessons could be a natural progression from baby swimming lessons. However, you and your toddler can join our toddler swimming lessons without any previous baby swimming experiences.

Our toddler swimming lessons are carefully structured to provide a nice balance between swimming-related activities like kicking with floats, and teaching water-safety skills (like climbing out of the pool) and fun group activities like playing games. Parents can expect to follow the instructions of a qualified swim teacher who runs each lesson to practice the basic skills of swimming through fun activities with their kids.

Our toddler swimming classes provide a solid foundation for learning to swim. So, when your child turns 3 years of age and can do swimming lessons without you in the water, they can nicely glide into our preschool beginners class.

Swimming Pool in Putney

Pre-schoolers Swimming Lessons

Age: 3-4.5 Years Old

Lessons Without Parents in Water

From 3 to 3.5 years old, children can attend swimming lessons without needing to have their parents in water with them.

In our small group children’s swimming lessons (1:2 or 1:3), groups are based on the swimming abilities of children

Pre-schoolers normally start at the beginners level.

Below is the information explaining the different stages of our small group lessons for pre-schoolers based on swimming skills.

teaching pre-schoolers to swimPre-schooler Beginners

After age 3 years old, children can have swim lessons without their parents being in water with them, if they are happy to be in water without a parent and ready to follow instructions from a swim teacher.

The majority of children aged 3-3.5 to 5 years old when they start their swim lessons, need to start in our beginner’s lessons.

We normally provide 1:1 or small group swimming lessons option for beginners level which has only 2 or 3 children per lesson.

What we do in these lessons:

  • Our pre-school beginner’s lessons offer children their first experience in the water without a parent.
  • Beginner lessons are for teaching the basic skills of swimming (fundamentals) like kicking with floats on front and back, balancing body in water, and blowing bubbles.
  • Pre-schoolers who are joining our beginners small classes should be happy to be in the water and ready to follow instructions from swim teachers without their parents.

For pre-school beginners who are nervous, private (1:1) is recommended, to have more attention from a swim teacher. We highly recommend parents to consider private lessons at the start, for children who are particularly unsure about swimming without having a parent in water.

 Pre-schooler Beginners+

A 3 year old is doing a swimming lessons at Blue Wave Swim School

These lessons are suitable for children who are normally at least 4 years old and have already had swimming lessons before as a toddler and fully water confident and can put face in water, blow bubbles and swim with no flotation device or direct adult support for a short distance like 3-4 meters.

  • To assess if your child is fully water confident this is your check list:
    • Can your child move in water up to 5 meters on front and back without touching the bottom of the pool (it doesn’t have to be done with a recognisable swim stroke).
    • Is your child happy to put face in water and blow bubbles and take his/her head under the water
    • Do you think your child can pick up objects like sinkers from bottom of the pool (the shallow end of pool) confidently
    • Is your child O.K to get into the pool and exist the pool safely and confidently
    • Can your child make a supervised jump in the pool with or without an adult support
    • Can your child kick legs on front AND back with a float like noodle

If you can tick at least 4 out of 6 of the above checklist, please contact us about our children swimming lessons for beginners+ level.

School-Aged Children Swimming Lessons

5 years old and above

School-aged children with no formal swim lessons experience, need to start at beginners or beginners+ level. however, those who started swimming lessons at 3 years old, with consistant lessons, they normally should be at one of the below stages:

Improvers

These classes are suitable children who:

    • Can swim 8-10  meters Front Crawl and Backstroke/Back crawl (strokes should be recognisable but not fully polished)
    • Are able to push off from the poolside and glide both on front and back and kick (flutter kicks) at least for 8 meters.
    • Can jump and/or dive safely (either from sitting or standing position) and confidently in the deep end of the pool.
    • Travel in water confidently at least 8-10 meters in the deep end of the pool (where not possible to touch the bottom of the pool) without any floatation objects.

A child is swimming front crawl at blue wave swim School in LondonImprovers+

These lessons are suitable for children who:

    • Are able to swim 25 meters Front Crawl and Backstroke with good technique as well as ability to do Breaststroke and dolphin (butterfly) kicks.
    • Can dive safely in the deep-end of the pool, tread the water for at least 30 seconds.
    • Swim least 50 meter continuously with recognisable strokes (for example swim 25 meter of Front Crawl and 25 meter of Backstroke).

a child swimming backstroke

Advanced Swimmers/ Pre-club level

In our advanced classes or 1:1 lessons, our focus is on perfecting swimming technique as well as building stamina for swimming laps.  Children are at an advanced level if they

    • Are able to swim at least 25 meters of 3 strokes; Front Crawl, Backstroke, and Breaststroke with good techniques.
    • Swim 100 meters continuously with recognisable swimming strokes (could be a mixture of 2 or 3 strokes).
    • Can Swim Butterfly for a minimum of 15 meters.
    • Can perform surface dives and pick objects up from the bottom of the pool in depth more than 2.00 m.

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