The Fulton Swim School team has been helping Kiwis learn to swim since 2005 when we opened our swim school in Franklin. Since then we’ve opened locations all over the country, so we know just how important it is that every young Kiwi learns to swim!
Why All Kiwi Kids Should Learn to Swim
It’s ingrained in us from a very early age, the importance of learning to swim. It’s easy to chalk it up to New Zealand’s geographic location; of course we need to learn to swim since we live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! But have you ever wondered if there’s more to it than that?
Fulton Swim School started as a single swim school in Auckland 18 years ago and since then we’ve grown to offer swimming lessons from six locations (Watch this space, we have more locations coming soon!). Over the years we’ve helped countless Kiwis learn to swim and educated families about the importance of learning to swim, no matter what age you are or where you live in New Zealand. Here’s what it boils down to:
Safety
Let’s start with the obvious one! Learning to swim is a crucial life skill.
We will all end up in a body of water at some point during our lives, whether it’s the neighbour’s pool, the local swimming hole, or one of New Zealand’s beautiful rivers or beaches. In the event of an emergency, being able to swim, or even just stay afloat until help arrives could quite literally be the difference between life and death.
What if you don’t like water? It’s easy to think that you’ll get to a certain point in your life where you could avoid the need to swim, if you wanted to, so why bother learning? Just like first aid, no one wants to have to use it, but if you find yourself in a situation where it could be beneficial, you’ll be glad you know how to do it.
You can’t plan for an emergency - you just never know when you might need to jump in the water to help someone. Having learnt to swim and feeling confident in the water is the best way to keep yourself and your family safe and minimise the risk of a water-related accident.
Recreation
Especially this time of year, it feels like every birthday party, family get-together, BBQ and fish ’n’ chip night takes place around a paddling pool or beach. We all want our little ones to feel included and excited to participate in all of these gatherings, so it’s essential that they feel comfortable around the water.
Learning to swim is the perfect solution if your child is nervous about participating in events where splashing, paddling and swimming are encouraged!
Taking part in learn-to-swim lessons, kids are celebrated for every milestone they reach! Learning to swim is a big deal so, at Fulton Swim School we make sure to congratulate swimmers on every success. We dish out oodles of high-fives, thumbs-ups and smiles! We also award ribbons and digital certificates and get children to ring the achievement bell so that everyone can congratulate them on their accomplishments!
Not only will lessons help your child to feel confident participating in social gatherings around the water, they will also help your child to make new friends and open up a world of new water-based hobbies to explore!
Happiness
Money can’t buy happiness. But it does enable you to invest in swimming lessons and improve your child’s life-long health and happiness, and we think that’s just as good.
Swimming regularly has been proven to have a whole range of incredible benefits for physical and mental health and also for children’s development. Plus, it’s super fun!
Learning to swim at a young age isn’t just a valuable life-saving skill, it also helps to set your child up for a lifetime of confidence within themselves, self-assuredness in new situations and friendships that may well follow them into adulthood. Check out what one of our parents had to say about their daughter learning to swim with us:
“Before starting lessons with Fulton's my daughter had a fear of submerging any part of her face under water and had little confidence in the water. Watching her water confidence develop over the lessons has been magical. She loves diving under the water now. She started fully submerging just after a few lessons, she was over the moon about it. I am so very pleased we started the lessons with Fulton's, as the teachers there really care.”
Respect for our environment
Water is one of our most precious resources. We are incredibly lucky as Kiwis to have access to fresh, clean drinking water and numerous bodies of water to swim in and enjoy! Learning to swim is the only way to make the most of some of the beautiful and special places New Zealand has to offer.
Learning to swim gives us the opportunity to appreciate Mother Nature and all of her taonga, to connect with our heritage, our traditions and our environment.
At Fulton Swim School, we see first-hand how learning to swim gets children excited about the places they could go, the adventures they could have and the beautiful water-based animals and plants they could find!
We’re very proud to be helping the next generation of oceanographers, marine biologists and nature conservationists find and grow their love for our planet by learning to swim and growing their confidence around the water.
If you have a budding aquatic-life activist or a freshwater ecologist in your midst, why not bring them down to your local Fulton Swim School so that they can learn to swim and stay safe and secure the next time they’re out there exploring the water?
If your child feels uneasy in the water, sign up for our learn to swim lessons and let our wonderful swim teachers help your child to gain confidence in the pool, or simply pop in for a visit during our open hours - we can’t wait to meet you!
