Early water confidence key to safety, say Salisbury swim school
Baby Squids has been speaking out during Drowning Prevention Week
Last updated 11th Jul 2023
Gaining confidence in the water from an early age will support learning to swim, says a swimming teacher in Salisbury.
Laura Skilton, who owns a Baby Squids franchise, says being comfortable putting your face can make a huge difference in becoming a strong swimmer.
This week (17th-24th June) is Drowning Prevention Week, a Royal Life Saving campaign to make people more aware of the dangers posed by water.
Laura told us: “From an early age, there's a couple of elements that we feel are really important. Safety obviously being one, but also learning water confidence. So, learning to be happy with their faces in the water will help support swimming from an early age.”
Figures released showed 25% of primary school children moved to secondary school, without learning to swim.
Get water confident early
At Baby Squids, they work with children and parents to build confidence in the water from birth to 4-years-old, with fun at the heart of what they do.
They teach children how to enter the water safely, how to float, as well as helping them build muscle strength by holding on to the side of the pool.
Laura told us it’s important for children to be comfortable from an early age in the water, especially when it comes to getting their faces wet, which can aid learning swimming techniques around age five or six: “If they are not confident at that point, you have to start from the beginning so you can get five or six year old that's never been in the pool and they have to start from where a baby would start because they have to get over that some of those things.”
This has been more pronounced following the pandemic, with many children missing out on those early confidence building blocks.
Assess the risks
There are several rivers that run through the City of Salisbury and its surrounding areas, as well as decent access to beaches on the coast.
Laura warned us that even the most experienced swimming teachers cant predict what can happen when ‘wild’ swimming:
“For those who are older, and you know how are independent and can just go in the water, you just must be very aware that, you know, it's difficult to understand the dangers.
“So, you shouldn't swim on your own. You should make sure you've got people with you, and you should really just assess the risks before you go in the water.”