Aquatic Education Programme

The Aquatic Education Programme (AEP) is a ‘learn to swim’ programme operated by Lakes Leisure’s Aqualand Swim School in Queenstown and the Wanaka Community Swim School in Wanaka.

The programme equips children between the ages of five and 13 with key skills to help them swim, survive and stay safe in and around our local waterways and is tailored to meet the needs of each participating school.

It aims to improve New Zealand’s swim statistics and get kids to start thinking about safe and enjoyable activities on the water.

Practical lessons in water safety include how to wear life jackets, safely enter and exit the pool, awareness of river safety and survival swimming techniques such as side stroke and elementary backstroke.

Kids are also taught to never swim alone and to always let someone know where they are going when around water. Children can relate skills learnt in the pool to what they do at home and on the weekends with family and friends.

To date participating schools have included Queenstown Primary, St Josephs and Arrowtown Southern Lakes Christian School, Makarora Primary, Wanaka Primary, Garston Primary, Holy Family School.

If you are interested to find out more about the AEP, please contact aquatics manager Alex Calwell on 03 450 9120 or alex@lakesleisure.co.nz

Programme Sponsors

Thank you to the following businesses for their continued and valued support of the AEP:

Kawarau Jet for providing practical boating safety lessons
NZSki for providing transport for students from school to Alpine Aqualand, making the programme more affordable for families.
New World Wakatipu for funding a new dinghy and life jackets for the inaugural programme.

Key Swimming Facts*

In the period 2004 to 2008 there were eight drowning deaths in the Central Otago region. All of these drownings occurred whilst participating in recreational activities, for example boating, swimming or fishing.

In 2008 just one in five 10-year-olds can swim 200m – the benchmark for being able to swim and survive in the water.
Only 50% of Year 6 kids can swim 25m and just 37% can swim 50m.
Proficiency in each of these measurements is down on average by 10% from 2001.
This downward trend in children’s swimming ability will result in New Zealand’s drowning rates returning to levels of the 1980s by 2020 if action is not taken.
By 2030 we can expect drowning rates of around 150-180 drownings per annum if no action is taken.
School teachers believe the quality of children’s swimming skills has steadily declined.
Almost 50% of teachers have not had any swimming / aquatics training in the past six years and many question their ability to teach swimming skills to the level required by the curriculum.

*Source: Water Safety New Zealand