Vera and Leroy have been attending swimming lessons for kids at Little Splashes Aquatics. I’m happy to see their water confidence growing over the months, despite the break due to Circuit Breaker.
They started out at 4 years old (Leroy) and 6 plus (Vera) – considerably “late” for Vera, right? :P
Swimming is a life skill and definitely a good way to stay active in our hot sunny weather in Singapore. What made us enroll with Little Splashes Aquatics, knowing that there are several swimming centres for toddlers and young children? Read on for our honest review and experience with Little Splashes and their instructors at Siglap Community Centre!
Swimming lessons for kids: Little Splashes Aquatics
As a child, the float was very much my buddy for years! I only started learning to swim through formal lessons during primary school. For my husband, his dad pretty much taught him at the pool and he had to figure out how to move by observing his dad and other swimmers!
PSST: We’ve got a special promo code for you to enjoy a special discount for your kid’s swim class! Keep reading!
While we’re not exactly an active or sporty family, we do hope our kids can get some exercise. There are many benefits of swimming lessons for kids. I mean, it’s also a great workout when I was pregnant! Swimming offers a holistic workout, and stimulates motor, physical and emotional development. It definitely feels therapeutic in the water whatever age one is!
My other consideration (also a practical one) was that the swimming lessons for our kids would have to be near us! I can’t imagine the logistics of going back and forth traveling every week if classes are too far.
Little Splashes Aquatics (LSA) are located at 4 venues – Siglap, Yio Chu Kang, Jalan Selaseh and their newest one at KAP Mall! Yup, you’re getting first dips about their new school located at 896 Dunearn Rd #02-01C! It’s near the King Albert Park MRT station, and convenient for families in the Bukit Timah area! :)
The best part about learning at a private centre? There’s a huge indoor heated pool which means lessons go on regardless of the weather. An interesting point that our friends with kiddos who attend private swimming classes at the public pools or their condominiums advised us about! Did you know that lessons that are cancelled due to rain will still be charged?
Is there a right/best age to start? Babies from three months old can start with their parent-accompanied programme. In fact, this swim school runs classes for kids, teens and even adults and seniors too!
Our children’s experience as they learn to swim at Little Splashes
In the beginning, both had a certain degree of fear with water. Leroy didn’t like having water splashing down his face during baths, and Vera refused to put her head under water.
We like that water confidence and water safety are 2 key ideas that our school aims to instill in young learners. Now, they are accustomed to blowing bubbles underwater, swimming towards the steps or sides for safety (self-rescue skills), jumping into the water and swimming to catch their teacher. Learning all that through fun activities and play!
Backed with over 20 years of teaching experience, Little Splashes Aquatics believes in holistic learning. With their carefully crafted swim programme and curriculum which focuses on 5 key developments (physical, cognitive, emotional, temperament and language), their experienced instructors make water play a fun learning adventure!
Under the Children Learn-to-swim programme, there are 4 core stages before advancing to Pre-squad. That’s where the kids can join competitions!
While we are not aiming to turn them into Joseph Schooling, we hope they enjoy their 30-min sessions and have a splashing good time, literally!
There are many videos that I’ve pinned onto my Highlights – Little Splashes, so feel free to watch those as I chronicled their progress! :)
We’re happy to share our observations and review of our children’s swimming classes and instructors:
- Vera and Leroy started at the Children’s Foundation level, which is the stage recommended for 3 years old and above with zero swimming experience.
- They’ve attended 2 terms of this water sports and have since progressed to the next level, Children Basic. They are in the midst of mastering more confidence in basic survival strokes, building their psychomotor skills, stamina and muscle control and learning to be a problem solver with good concentration skills.
- There are visible weekly progress and improvements that we could see – I kid you not! Vera and Leroy are kicking better, jumping into the water with more gusto and are able to handle the bar bells on their own, swimming longer laps, instinctively blowing bubbles in the water, are able to swim to safety independently, learn to float on their backs and turn over to swim to safety and more!
- Class size is capped at 5 kids to 1 instructor during each swimming lesson for kids. Due to COVID-19, we’re now at just 3 or 4 students. I’d say it’s a good number and the coach can guide each child according to individual proficiency and pace.
- You might see that kids of varying ages in a class, and that’s because they’re grouped according to their abilities. For e.g. Vera could be at level 2.7, whereas Leroy is at 2.1 and they’re at the same timeslot.
- At each program, there are sub-levels too. Instructors keep track of each child’s progress and at the end of each term/every 6 months, he/she will advise if our kid is ready to progress to the next stage.
- We’ve had Teacher Jane and Teacher Jo as their main instructors, and Teacher Zul for their replacement session. Yes, there are 2 replacement classes for each term, and I appreciate such thoughtful arrangement that Little Splashes has. Case in point: some enrichment centres don’t allow any replacement. Or, only allow a shortened version of the class to be attended another day.
- Both of them like their coaches and I’ve to say that they have been both professional + friendly. They really do know how to communicate with kids, and that’s so important! Stern when needed, fun-loving when they play with the kids, which is great people skills to have! They’ve coined fun terms for different techniques that the kids learn – Vera and Leroy tell me about “monkey monkey” and “humpty dumpty” haha!
- All teachers are Scuba Schools International (SSI) and Austswim certified. They must undergo intensive in-house training before teaching.
Understanding our children’s progress at swim school
In case you’re wondering why Vera and Leroy are in the same class despite their age difference… Well, Vera was recommended to move to another level but we kept them in the same class due to logistics. HAHA. At the same time, she’ll get to build up her foundational skills before sharpening new ones, so we’re pretty cool with that!
The swim school does a 6-month review for each child and that can be found on the App. To be honest, I’m thankful for the quick chats after lessons (if we get to see their coaches out of water haha!), where they’ll share updates about each kid :)
Last but not least, Vera and Leroy are definitely more confident in pools! They look forward to their weekly lessons, and Leroy is sad when they’ve to leave the water! *oops*
In time to come, I’m sure they’ll be ready to brave the waters when we’re on holiday or at our friend’s/family’s homes. Maybe they will be ready to take some on some swimming tests to affirm their skills too! Yup, instructors will recommend kids to take the Swim Safer test certifications when they’re ready!
As parents, we are happy to see them swim like fish – although semi-aided for now! If you’ve been following us on Instagram, you’d also notice how different they were at the beginning versus now!
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T & Cs: Only for 1st timers. Valid till 31 Dec 2021. Applicable for trial swim class at any of their outlets.
Parents who are planning for some active fun, we hope these tips on outdoor play comes in handy! If you prefer to stay home due to the pandemic, find out how this tennis coach dad helps his kids stay active even when indoors!
Are you looking for swimming lessons for your kids? We hope our review on Little Splashes Aquatics offers some new insights on what goes on at class! Do share your thoughts about sports enrichment for your little ones too!
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