Teaching children vital safety skills in the water

Thursday, 24 November 2022

Pheobe Singleton, left, and Ice Breaker Aquatics swim coach Piper Humphreys during one of the club’s swim safety sessions.

As summer and the allure of cooling off in a pool, river or ocean approaches, and with it the risk of getting into trouble, a Palmerston North swim club is working to sharpenchildren’s skills in the water.

Ice Breaker Aquatics has beenrunning water safety drills and skills for Swim Safer Week, while November is also New Zealand water safety month.

The week is focused on building vital water safety skills to help children become safer and smarter in the water.

Ice Breaker coach Piper Humphreys is running sessions for children in the pool at Palmerston North Boys’ High School, which include fundamental and development skills, and building on the abilities the children already had.

Swim coach Piper Humphreys, rear, teaches Lewis Faulkner water safety skills.

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She said it was an important issue given the four drownings in the Manawatū River last summer, and people would soon be getting in the water again.

Ice Breaker Aquatics swim coach Piper Humphreys runs a water safety drills and skills lesson.

There were two double drownings in the same place in the Manawatū River on December 30 and January 2, the same spot where a man was dragged from the river in September by a group of rescuers.

“What they are learning [in these classes] is basic water safety stuff so they can be safer as they grow up and so when they go to water holes or go to the river with a group of teens they know what to do to survive.”

Humphreys said the skills they were learning could be applied anywhere, whether the children were in the pool, at the beach or river.

Some of the skills Humphreys was teaching included how to navigate a rip tide without losing too much energy, swimming through waves, rescue training, how to bring people to safety, seeking help, communicating with someone in trouble, and turning them over in the water.

“It’s one thing to be a good swimmer and swim in a lane roped off with a black line when the lane rope breaks up the wave.

“As soon as you’re in open water it can be a completely different situation.”

Humphreys was a competitive swimmer for about 13 years and was now coaching.

The club ran a similar training course in December, the week before the Manawatū River drownings, and Humphreys received a lot of good feedback from parents about what the children had learnt.

Water Safety New Zealand chief executive Daniel Gerrard welcomed a swim school running these kinds of lessons and said learning to swim was the start of the pathway.

“The good thing about teaching these youngsters they’re often taking the messaging home.

“We know that older males are likely to be these guys, someone’s uncle, or father or grandfather, they’re the ones that need clear messaging about behaving appropriately around the water.”