Maximum practice time in the swimming lesson is essential for faster acquisition of swimming skills. Great swimming teachers always look for ways to ensure that maximum practice time is achievable during swimming lessons. As a swimming teacher how can you best achieve maximum practice time in your classes?
Tip #1 Group children by ability
To ensure maximum practice time, teachers must ensure children are in a group according to their ability level. An easy way to group children together is breaking them into swimmers who need to learn to float, learn propulsive skills and need to perfect breathing skills.
Swimming teachers can work closely with the administration staff to get the best class fit. But remember, this should be on a professional level. No child or parent should feel uncomfortable if they are in the wrong group. The best way to avoid this is to assess children before they commence the swimming program and progress children once they have achieved the class goals and objectives.
Ensure you keep communicating with the administration staff. Do not tell the parents that their child needs to move up before a suitable class time is available.
Tip #2 Conduct lessons in a suitable environment
You should conduct swimming lessons in a suitable environment that allows for maximum practice time. This means you should avoid strategies where you take children one at a time. If children are bored whilst they wait for their turn, they can become disruptive. It can be very dangerous if you turn your back on other children in the class.
Achieving maximum practice time will take organisation skills to either arrive early to set up your teaching space with platforms of benches or moving around the pool to the most suitable location. For example, we would recommend using shallow water for non swimmers or beginners where they can stand independently.
Tip #3 Teach children to circle the lane
It is important that children learn how to circle the lane, move over and go. You should instill this concept during their first few swimming lessons. But remember, children will need constant reminders about this expectation. If you teach the idea from an early age, it makes it much easier for swimmers to progress through the program.
Wave formation is another useful pattern to use during swimming lessons. In this instance the entire class moves together and the teacher has great supervision of all students. Similarly circuit activities where the class is moving around the pool can also be effective. But remember always place yourself in a position of strength so that you can supervise the class and communicate with all students.
Tip #4 Review your lesson
At the end of every swimming teaching shift, we encourage you to review lesson plans to see where you can improve. Not every lesson will run exactly to plan. Swimming teachers must be flexible. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from other instructors or even involve the parents to help you deliver the best possible lesson.
Remember we are all continually learning. Follow this quote from Michel Legrand “The move I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realise the less I know”.
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