The four fundamentals of Swimbabes
The four fundamentals of Swimbabes
Unfortunately, drowning is still the leading cause of death of children aged between 1 and 4 yrs old. According to the Royal Lifesaving Society Drowning Report update produced in 2024 the number of child drownings has doubled over the previous 4 years. At Swimbabes, it’s our mission to get as many children as possible swimming by the time they start school. We have been teaching children to swim for over 20 years and throughout that time there has always been the same 4 fundamental skills that underpin everything that we teach in all our lessons.
These are:
Floating
Kicking
Turning
Holding on
Floating
Learning to float on your back is one of the most important life saving skills that both adults and children should be able to do, even from an early age. It is also very important to be able to remain calm whilst floating, try not to panic, (that’s sometimes when things can go horribly wrong) and try to breath normally.
Every year the RNLI launches a summer campaign called “Float To Live”, where they remind the public the importance of floating on your back should you find yourself in difficulty in the water. By floating on your back with your head tilted backwards and ears submerged in the water, this exercise gives you precious time to gather your thoughts and decide what to do next. You can also move your hands and legs about gently if you need to, this will help you stay near the surface. We all float differently so it’s always worth practicing and understanding what the correct technique for you is. Once you have your breathing under control you can either call for help or swim to safety.
Kicking
Kicking is one of the main components of several swimming strokes, a good leg technique is fundamental to a swimmer and determines how efficiently they move through the water. Being able to move your legs correctly whilst travelling through the water is a skill we introduce to our swimmers from a very early age, and this skill is taught both whilst swimming on their back as well as their front. This skill continues to develop as your little one moves through both our Swimbabes and our Swimstars programme.
Turning
Being able to turn yourself round in water goes hand in hand with many other lifesaving skills that we teach at Swimbabes. Should the unfortunate ever happen, and you or your child suddenly finds themselves in water then it is imperative that you or they are able to turn round to swim back to safety. We introduce this skill from our early intermediate level through our underwater turn activity, where children learn to turn to their parent whilst being under the water. They then build on this skill and develop it further with our turn to hold on activity, where little ones learn to turn under the water and hold on to the poolside. Once they have progressed to our more advanced levels our swimmers are able to turn to the side from either a jump into the pool or a drop entry which is carried out by your teacher.
Holding on
Our final skill is “Holding on”
Being able to hold on securely to a person or even an object such as the poolside, a woggle, a rope, or even a lifesaving reach pool is another skill that we will teach your little ones at Swimbabes. In the event of a real-life situation happening, it’s important that little ones know once they have reached a place of safety it is important to be able to hold onto an object correctly and safely as they may have to do it for a long period of time. Our swimmers are always encouraged to swim and hold onto either the poolside or a parent’s closed arm at the end of every swim, this helps to reinforce this skill at the end of every activity.
All these skills plus many more are delivered in a safe and fun environment where little ones can feel totally supported and encouraged to learn by our fully qualified teachers. This in turn helps them to build up their knowledge and water confidence for a lifetime of happiness in the water.
SWIMBABES – skills for life