Water Safety and Swimming Skills

This lesson gives an introduction into water safety and swimming skills. Talk about these subjects with your team before you hop into the pool.

Dry Training (Theory)

1. Water Safety Principles:
   Discuss with your class the various issues around water safety. Explain how to stay safe on the beach and why training and fitness are a good precaution.
   1. Introduction to the pool, emergency procedures and exits
   2. Swimming Pools and their rules
   3. Safety at Home
   4. Beach Safety and Lifeguards
   5. Tides, rip currents and waves
   6. Lakes, Rivers and Canals
   7. Weeds, weirs, quicksand, mud
   8. Drowning Chain and Education
   9. Keeping Warm

2. Sun Safety Principles:
   Consider with your class the various ways to protect from sunburn, like lotions or clothing, sun protection factor (SPF) and how wet clothes lose some protection because they can become more transparent.

3. Cold Water and Hypothermia:
   Talk about the effects of cold water, why clothing should be kept on and what the effect of layering is. Explain the dangers of wind chill and hypothermia, with tips how to avoid it.

4. Signals:
   Explain the various signals used on the water, especially any distress signals.

5. Swimming skills
   Explain in detail the different swimming strokes and related skills.
   1. Swimming strokes for different purposes
   2. Swimming in clothes and why we practice this
   3. Effect of clothing Layers
   4. Treading water

Practice

1. Basic Safety
   Start in swimwear (T-shirts and shorts or jeans)
   1. Safe entries and exits
   2. Introduction to swimming in clothes
   3. Practice effect of more clothing layers
   4. Lifejackets and buoyancy aids.
   5. Surface Diving
   
   
2. Swimming Strokes
   When performed correctly, the sidestroke and breaststroke enable the swimmer to move through the water quickly and efficiently. Heavy clothes will force your class to do the strokes right, or they get nowhere. Enter the water at the deep end using the stride entry, and swim 4 lengths with each stroke.
   
   
   1. Backstroke
   2. Breaststroke
   3. Front Crawl
   4. Sidekick (sidestroke)