Last term, Northland Swim For Life Instructors Jana Barclay and Jo Duff delivered the Northland Swim For Life Programme with St Francis Xavier School in Whangarei.  It was the first time the school used the portable pool for their aquatics programme for their junior syndicate.  Check out some great milestones achieved.

Observations from Teachers

“A mum commented that her child had learnt more in the 3 weeks of swimming at school than he had at after school lessons”.

“One of my little ones had never been in a pool before and was shaking with anxiety about getting into the pool.  By the end of the lessons, he was smiling and happy to put his head under the water to blow bubbles and attempt to float.  It was fabulous to see him gain confidence to get in and out of the pool”.

“The teachers are fantastic at keeping the children focused.  They structured the lessons to meet the needs of all the children, from those learning to blow bubbles to those ready to swim 15m”.

“A series of positive, fun lessons promoting water safety.  The children loved it”

Observations from Northland Swim For Life Instructors

“As a first time instructor assistant to the Northland Swim For Life Programme, I was very impressed and proud of the responses by teachers, they became friends with us, they thanked us, praised us, so many positive comments about how beneficial the programme is for their students.

My favorite part of delivering the SFL programme to the school was spending that one on one time with students that had low levels of confidence, the ones who had never swam before, the very scared ones.  Spending only a short time with them, I had them floating unaided, and most of all submerging and leaving the class happy and confident.  This was brought home on a few occasions when parents/family of the children were present during some of the lessons and you could see the expressions on their faces of amazement as to what their tamariki were achieving.”   Jo Duff – Swim For Life Instructor

“There were many achievements during our time at St Francis Xavier.  It helped that we had additional instructors in the pool which allowed lots of one on one with the less confident students.  A class of year 2 (Room 2) students began the programme with 19 that could swim 5m and at the end of our programme, 15 of those students managed to swim 15m.  A year 0/1 (Room 3) class had 8 students that could not submerge in the beginning and after a few lessons, 5 of them could.  In that same class, 3 started off being able to float confidently, and then achieved a 15m swim afterwards. Room 5 was a new entrant class, 13 could not submerge however after the programme, 10 could submerge and 8 out of the 13 could float.  Finally we had a student who was blind however so happy to be in the water and try new things; overall we saw lots of student’s confidence grow which was fantastic.”   Jana Barclay –Swim For Life Instructor

Pictured - portable pool with pool cover on