Our Treasured Tots programme has been designed with fun in mind, to ensure our youngest swimmers have access to structured aquatic lessons, taken by instructors with qualifications relevant to the child’s age and development:
Treasured Tots classes are a fun way to spend some quality time with your young child, offering classes for our youngest swimmers from around five months to three years. Activities are designed around the child’s physical, cognitive and emotional development, and designed to ensure the child has fun whilst learning vital water safety and emergent swimming skills.
It is a proven fact that children learn through play, and our Treasured Tots programme provides this opportunity, where children can experience the joy of water in a safe, warm and controlled environment, alongside other children of similar ages.
Babies are not born with a fear of water, so it is an ideal time to get them into a positive aquatic routine, where they feel safe and happy, ensuring they will learn to associate the pool and swimming with fun activities. Fear of the water can develop as a child grows if they have not been introduced to swimming as a positive experience, or if parents/caregivers exhibit anxious behaviour. We ask that the parents/caregivers keep positive during the lesson – as fears are easily passed onto the child.
We teach parents/caregivers the safe and stress free way to commence submersions when the child is showing signs of aquatic readiness – demonstrating that they have understood and learnt the submersion queue for breath control, and that they are completely happy in the water.
All Treasured Tots lessons contain activities to warm up, get wet, teach swimming/submersion cues and/or submersions (depending on each individual child), front work, back work, and all classes have a strong water safety focus - ensuring parents understand exactly what the focus is, and how to best achieve it in line with their own child's development.
Activities are based on the active movement philosophy to assist in the physical, cognitive and emotional development of each child.
Our classes involve singing – this is because singing is enjoyable and reassuring for young children, as well as it being a proven successful learning tool (when actions/activities are incorporated with music, they are learnt more readily). Children learn best through repetition, so activities are repeated during the lesson, and throughout the term’s programme. We encourage parents to practice activities with their children at home in the bath and shower between lessons, if they do not have access to a public pool to play in.
Babies are required to wear a swimming nappy whilst in the pool. Huggies Little Swimmers swimming nappies can be purchased from supermarkets.
