Back to School

Schools are back for 2024, and parents everywhere are heaving a sigh of relief, or missing the summer holidays, or a strange mix of both! Time to get back into the routine of school
and after school activities. Here’s a fun fact, and yet another reason to prioritise children’s swimming lessons – did you know that children who are learning to swim also do better at
school?

A study conducted by Griffith University suggests that swimming children are not only safer, but smarter. The research conducted over four years concluded that children who swim demonstrate more advanced cognitive and physical abilities than other children and indicates that swimming children have many advantages when starting school.

Lead researcher Professor Robyn Jorgensen said “While we expected the children to show better physical development and perhaps be more confident through swimming, the results in literacy and numeracy really shocked us. The children were anywhere from six to fifteen months ahead of the normal population when it came to cognitive skills, problem solving in mathematics, counting, language and following instructions.”

In addition to achieving physical milestones faster, the swimming children scored significantly better in visual-motor skills such as cutting paper, colouring in and drawing lines and shapes. Professor Jorgensen added “On average, these children were eleven months ahead of the normal population in Oral Expression, six months ahead in Mathematics Reasoning and two months ahead in Brief Reading. Most amazing was the difference in Story Recall (17 months ahead) and Understanding Directions (20 months ahead).”

We have some morning swimming lesson places opening up at both of our centres this month as our preschoolers go off to kindergarten, so now is the perfect time to book your baby, toddler or preschooler into weekday morning lessons. Mornings are very focused on young children, with no school aged children in the centre, and set your child up for a good lunch and afternoon rest after the exercise and mental stimulation swimming lessons provides.

Many children and parents will also experience their first school swimming carnival in the coming weeks. Encourage your child to take the plunge – a high student participation rate makes for a fun and exciting day for all, and with the number of children reaching the fifty metre freestyle swimming milestone declining, it is sad to see less and less competitors in these races each year.

Good luck to all and race well. If your children are not yet in swimming lessons, make this your year to start their swimming journey and begin to work towards the recommended swimming milestones!