We have a strong conviction that at school swimming needs to be taught as a survival skill, not as a swimming gala or racing skill. Fiji, as other Pacific Islands are, is surrounded by water and this makes it critical that our children are confident in and around water.
We have three survival scenarios that we consider need to be considered for teaching our children:
- Surviving a rip tide.
- Surviving a capsized or sinking boat.
- Surviving a fast flowing river.
So our children work hard at things such as: shallow water entry (to enter murky water); treading water (to wait to be rescued); swimming under water (to get under and away from spilt oil or petrol on the water); and to duck dive (to dive under wreckage).
At the end of the year we check to see how well our children can do outside of the relative safety of the pool. We either have them swimming in and through surf, or we have them crossing flowing rivers with moderately strong currents.
If children want to take part in swimming competitions, we encourage them to join a swimming club. But at MIS, we are keen to keep our focus on survival.
Below is a video that we constructed demonstrating how we teach duck diving skills.