The Tea Gardens Public Swimming Pool was busy from the 11-21 January as the NSW Sport and Recreation held its annual Swim and Survive classes.

These classes are an initiative of Royal Life Saving and teaches a range of skills and knowledge to develop swimming , water safety, survival and basic rescue skills.

They are intensive swimming lessons as they operated for five consecutive days and then four consecutive days the following week.

The classes are designed for children aged 5-14 and Tea Gardens, Hawks Nest and Bulahdelah families took the opportunity to enrol their children in either Wonder, Courage, Active 2 or Active 3 classes.

The swimming pool water was a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius most days but only a few families braved the cold day on Friday 15 January where the day time maximum temperature was 15 degrees Celsius.

(The water was still a warm 24 degrees Celsius!)

Lauren Ireland was employed by NSW Sport and Recreation to conduct the lessons and she also taught these lessons last year.

She presented all the children with a log book at the end of their classes indicating what skills they had learnt and were competent at.
As their website states:

“Swim and Survive is a comprehensive swimming and water safety initiative of Royal Life Saving that seeks to increase the swimming and water safety skills of all Australian children in order to prevent drowning and increase participation in safe aquatic activity.”

The opportunity to enter the water nearly every day during these school holidays was embraced by many local families.

These intensive swimming lessons have been operating at Tea Gardens Public Swimming Pool for a number of years now and are set to continue if the enrolment places are filled.

By Rachel REITSMA