Does your child need a boost in the pool? Summer swim intensives could be the answer. We chat to Joanne Efendi, Aquatic Supervisor at Goodlife Swim School, to find out more.
Why do swim intensives work for rapidly building swim skills?
Swimming intensives are a great booster for swim skills as they are essentially half a term of swimming in one week. It ‘fast tracks’ their skills ; it is a well-researched fact that a short burst of intensive learning accelerates motor skill development.
What is the difference between swim intensives and regular swim lessons?
When children swim daily intensives for a week, their teacher will pick up the lesson from the day before. Skill retention is greater and, therefore, teachers can teach new skills earlier, rather than having to wait a week between lessons. Each week, students may take a good portion of their lesson to warm up to where they were the previous week. At Goodlife, like our weekly lessons, our intensives are taught by the same teacher to ensure familiarity and to build trust between the teacher and student. This also enables the teacher to get to know each child and be able to deliver our program based on individual children’s needs.
What progress would a child expect from an intensive swim program?
Every child is different in how they develop and retain their skills. But if a child is on the cusp of graduating to a new level, intensives will help them to perfect their skills. The same goes for a child that has had a term out of the water. An intensive week of repetition on skills development will usually see a return of their skills from where they left off previously.
What recommendations do you have for returning to lessons after a long break?
I would definitely advise considering enrolling children into intensives after a long duration out of the water. There is no land-based activity that can substitute for swimming lessons. Even if skills have not suffered, their ‘swim fitness’ will have surely dropped. Swimming is an entire body workout, impacting on the cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular systems. It tones muscles, builds strength and is known to help children that suffer from asthma by building lung capacity and learning to control breathing.
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