Learning to Swim - An Overview of Swimming Lesson Options

An Overview of Swimming Lesson Options

Swimming is an essential life skill and excellent form of exercise for people of all ages. Knowing how to swim improves safety around water and opens up opportunities for aquatic activities. For children especially, swimming lessons provide many developmental benefits.

With a range of swimming lesson types to choose from, finding the right swimming classes for your needs is key. The three main options for swimming lessons are private swimming lessons, group swimming lessons, and semi-private swimming lessons. Each format has its own pros, cons, teaching methods, and pricing. Understanding the differences will help you select the best approach for you or your child.

The Importance of Swimming Skills

Knowing how to swim provides confidence, safety, exercise, and fun in and around the water. Specific benefits include:

  • Water safety skills to help prevent drowning
  • Healthy physical activity that builds endurance
  • Social interaction
  • Development of coordination
  • Building listening skills by following verbal instruction
  • Overcoming fears and gaining confidence
  • Swimming remains an impactful sport for fitness, recreation, competition, and more. 

How To Choose Between Private Or Group Swimming Lessons

Deciding between swimming lesson types comes down to factors like learning style, budget, availability and teacher attention.

Private swimming lessons offer focused one-to-one training between the student and a swimming teacher. Group lessons allow for more socialisation and cost less per session, but have more students per teacher. Semi-private lessons fall in the middle, with two to four students training with a swim teacher.

Private Swimming Lessons

Private swimming lessons provide the highest degree of personalised attention, allowing the teacher to tailor everything to the individual student. These lessons are taught one-to-one, with a single student in the class.

Benefits of Private Swim Lessons

Custom Tailoring

Every student brings a diversity of abilities, confidence levels, and learning preferences to the pool. Private swim lessons allow coaches to assess these factors and craft an individualised approach. Teachers can get creative, adjusting techniques to keep students motivated towards mastering skills. 

Fully Personalised Instruction

The solo instruction of private lessons accommodates any special requirements or needs – everything centres around the single student. Those with apprehension around water often benefit from starting with private lessons to build confidence without added anxiety of peer pressure. The one-to-one attention also suits special needs students or those recovering from injury.

Faster Progression

With no other students to distract the teacher or split their focus, private lessons let teachers maximise their time with a single student. This facilitates faster advancement based on the student’s abilities and pace. More rapid progression keeps students engaged as they experience frequent success.

Flexibility

Private lessons offer flexible scheduling not tied to rigid group class times. The teacher and students can coordinate lesson times based on availability. 

Group Swimming Lessons

Group swimming lessons offer a budget-friendly way to learn with the camaraderie and shared motivation of peers in the same class. Most community swim programs and school lessons utilise a group structure to efficiently educate many students at once. Arrangements may separate preschoolers, school-aged levels, teens and adults into age appropriate clusters.

Benefits of Group Swim Lessons

The group lesson format provides a host of benefits including:

Cost Savings

The cost efficiency of group lessons makes this option most affordable and accessible for many families. Most facilities offer tiered per-session pricing based on the number of lessons purchased upfront. Some also provide member discounts to increase savings.

Accommodating Pace

Group swimming lessons progress at a moderate pace accounting for a diverse range of abilities across the group. Students progress steadily without feeling overwhelmed. The teachers keep less advanced swimmers engaged while also challenging faster learners. The blended pacing accommodates most students’ needs.

Social Experience

Learning and playing alongside classmates fosters natural socialisation for kids. Friendly competition and celebrations of milestones bolster morale and determination. The shared experience creates a fun bonding environment to look forward to.

Shared Motivation

Seeing fellow students master skills can motivate other swimmers to work harder on their own lessons, as they work towards their own achievements. Advancing together through lessons becomes a group effort toward mutual success.

Learning to swim presents a range of options, each with its own set of benefits. Private lessons benefit those with specific needs or seeking rapid progress. Group lessons, on the other hand, stand out for their affordability and the added value of learning in a social environment. 

Why Choose Us

Visit Just Swimming Near You

Aqualink Nunawading, Fraser Place, Forest Hill, VIC – 3131

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Tintern Grammar Cnr of Loma and Morinda Streets, East Ringwood, VIC – 3135

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Mt. Scopus Memorial College, 87 Station Street, Burwood VIC – 3125

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Wesley College, 620 High Street Road, Glen Waverley, VIC – 3150

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Older Beginners 9-15 Years

Learning to swim as an Older Beginner is certainly not uncommon, and Just Swimming celebrates anyone willing to learn, at any age. Every parent or guardian wants their children to be safe, especially around water and particularly when they are starting to spread their wings from 9 – 15 years of age. We also understand that starting swimming lessons as an older beginner in this age range would feel a little awkward if placed in a group with younger children. Being comfortable while learning to swim is imperative, and that’s why we allow for students to swim in a small class with a similar age group.

Once our students have competently passed all swimming skills required in our Turtle and Penguin levels, they will then transition into our standard levels to complete their swimming journey.

We conduct older beginner lessons at Just Swimming Nunawading, Tintern and Wesley swim schools and also extend an obligation-free swimming lesson. Our free swimming lesson is at no cost to you and will give you a chance to experience our bubbly teachers, fun classes and facilities. To find out more, give our friendly team a call on 03 9878 7055 or send us an online enquiry today.

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