Babies & Toddlers
Firstly, and most importantly, you can not teach a baby to swim, leg and arm movements at this stage of development are instinctive and not done conciously.
However young babies who are doing baby swimming develop this ability sooner that those who don't. They can be as young as 12 to 18 months when they start to kick their legs or use their arms by choice, they still can't co-ordinate both.
In this young swimmer this co-ordination starts at about 3 years of age; where the child that hasn't been swimming starts this co-ordination at 4-6 years of age.
These young swimmers are also better at listening and learn to concentrate in a class situation, be it pool or the classroom. Our Baby and Toddler lessons are half an hour in length and we currently have sessions at Strensall, Stamford Bridge, New Earswick, Applefields(Burnholme) and the Royal York Hotel.
If we do not have lessons in your area, please register your interest here.
Qualifications
Marjolyn Hanselman is qualified to Foundation Level of the Birthlight Infant Aquatics Training Scheme. Marjolyn also attends the World Baby Swimming Conference to exchange ideas and techniques with baby swim school teachers from all over the world.
All of our baby lessons are staffed by two fully qualified teachers. We believe this allows the group to move forward together while the second teacher provides one to one tuition for those tricky moves or to calm a nervous parent!
It also allows new pupils to join midway through a session and catch up very quickly. Each teacher only teaches for for an hour to 90 minutes, they swap so each of our clients have a fresh teacher!
The teacher on the poolside acts as a life guard, but unlike a life guard they are observing the accentle dips that the parent/carer is doing and pointing this out to the adult with the baby.
We prefer that dips done are planned dips where we ask the baby's permission first and prepare them for the dip.
Toddler Sessions
Our Toddler sessions are for our older babies and nursery children. This is where we begin to introduce children to the concepts of swimming and basic stroke techniques.
Again, the focus of these lessons is safety and fun! Our lessons are full of games and toys which allow children to learn to swim almost without realising it!
Simple gestures such as reaching for a toy in a certain way, or splashing their friends with their legs, are easily translated into swim strokes when the time comes.
Just like walking, Mummy or Daddy is on hand to guide and support them before they take those first few shaky strokes by themselves. Our lessons are structured to allow children to achieve the STA 'First Steps' award scheme.
Just like our Baby lessons, we have two teachers in attendance for these lessons. We encourage non-swimmers of nursery age to attend a session of older toddlers to gauge their confidence before allowing them to join our main swim school sessions.
Our New Born to 16 week old lessons are only 20-25 minutes, as this is long enough for the very young.
