Slow Start Swimming

This year my Grade 4 swimming classes are either directly after lunch break or after language classes, where students are coming from a variety of different classrooms. At the start of the school year, swim lessons started when everyone was out of the changing room and ready to go, but I noticed this was taking at least 10 minutes, and sometimes quite a bit longer. This was really reducing the teaching time of the lesson, especially as the lesson slot was 45 minutes, which included changing before and after swimming, instruction time and a free swim at the end. This resulted in reducing to a minimum or cutting out the free swim altogether, but I believe that students should be given a free slot each time to practice and play in the water.

The remedy - a slow start to the lesson, based on the slow starts I have have seen and read about in many Elementary classrooms. At the start of the lesson, as soon as the bell goes I open the pool gate and the students know they have 10 minutes of changing and free swim time before the lesson activities start.

Students use this 10 minutes in a variety of ways. Some dip their toes into the water, as they gradually enter the pool; others dive straight in and swim a few laps; some practice skills that we have covered; while most play with their friends - Marco Polo, tag, relays, jumping and diving in and this week, one student brought in waterproof uno cards to play!

From the student point of view this change in structure means that they have a guaranteed free choice time every week. This has resulted in many students arriving already changed ready to jump straight into the pool and everyone getting to the pool much earlier. And from my point of view, we have actually increased the instruction time of the lessons - so everyone wins!