As a swimming instructor, you’ll know that swimming lessons don’t work by just throwing your students in the deep end and hoping that they figure it out with enough repetitions. The lessons that you construct serve as the building blocks that allow them to excel in the water. Students don’t go from not being able to swim right to seamlessly back crawl lengths of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. There's a process that involves teaching foundational skills, such as becoming comfortable in the water, building techniques, and perfecting speed and efficiency in various strokes. This process requires you to structure your lessons into incremental building blocks. You can begin teaching lessons tackling water confidence, breathing and submerging basics, front paddle, and arm movement introduction, and then getting around to back float and glide practice will ensure that no stone gets left unturned, and they will develop into confident swimmers.
Lesson Plan 1: Water Confidence for First-Time Swimmers
A great exercise to practice when constructing your lessons as a swimming teacher is to try to remember back to when you first started out swimming. While it might be second nature to you nowadays, we’re sure you’ll recall that this wasn’t always the case. There was likely a time when you, too, were intimidated or uncomfortable outside the shallow end of any pool.
So, you’ll need to approach your lessons delicately and start by accomplishing the basics to prevent your students from feeling overwhelmed, no matter their age. Before you get into any of the technical skills you’ve picked up over the years, it’s important to start by building your confidence in the water. And as a certified instructor, having up-to-date First Aid training ensures you're fully prepared to handle any minor accidents or emergencies that might arise during these early sessions.
Level: Absolute Beginners
This is the perfect idea to start your swimming lesson plans for beginners of all ages! Let’s face it, there are countless reasons why someone might not know how to swim. They could, of course, be children who haven’t swam before, but they could also be older learners or those who have a fear of water.
Would you believe it if we told you that it’s a fear that can be passed down through families if not properly dealt with? Well, taking the time to teach this lesson could very well extinguish this fear in your students, and what an accomplishment that would be.
Equipment: Pool Noodles, Floating Toys, Watering Cans
To ensure that you’ve got everything that you need to give this lesson, you’re going to need to make sure that your pool is equipped with noodle floats. These are the long foam floats that are generally found in all private swimming pools, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your hands on some. These are essential as your students may have a hard time staying afloat and can rely on these floats to feel comfortable in the water.
For younger students, floating toys can also be handy to have, as they’ll help keep them involved and take their mind off fear. If you’ve got students who really don’t take to water too well, then watering cans can help get them used to water sensations in a controlled way.
Teaching Points
First things first, to introduce your students to the water, you can even start off these lessons with gentle face splashing at the pool's edge.
It will be up to you to read how they respond and determine whether or not to progress to pouring water over their head with watering cans.
Remember, just because the objective is to get them comfortable in the water, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take other teaching opportunities that present themselves.
For example, this would be a great point to advise your class to blink rather than eye rubbing, so that they don’t irritate their eyes and cause any unnecessary discomfort.
Once you're confident that your students are responding well to these steps, you can work on getting them comfortable with having the water level up to their chests while standing inside the shallow end of the pool. The edge of the pool is going to be their safety net in this exercise, as they can hold onto it, moving up and down, before moving up to using the noodle float.
In your lessons, you can work on developing their breath control, which can be done both inside and outside of the pool. Great exercises to try out would be to incorporate bubble-blowing as well as some land-based breathing exercises. By combining fun and effective techniques, you can support learners in mastering this essential skill, setting a strong foundation for more advanced swimming strokes and overall water safety, helping you become a better swimming instructor.
They’ll soon progress to exhaling into the water, starting with just the lips touching the surface and slowly advancing to submerging the mouth and nose. See, part of getting your students confident in the water isn’t just about spending time in it, but having them develop the skills that instil confidence in their ability.
A fun fact - swimming instructors typically earn a competitive salary that varies based on experience, location, and the employer, with many earning between $30,000 and $50,000 annually.
Lesson Plan 2: Breathing and Submerging Basics
If you’ve got yourself a class of students or private clients who are comfortable in the water, then here’s a lesson plan that will be a great return on their time. This lesson will revolve around breathing control and submerging, which is the next step in any well-designed set of swimming lessons. When we say it’s a great return on your students' time, we mean that the skills developed will translate into a wide variety of techniques they’ll be focusing on further down the line.
Proper breathing involves exhaling fully underwater and inhaling when the face is above water, typically through the mouth for quicker air intake. Submerging involves gradually acclimating to the water and learning to control breath while under the surface, often through practices like blowing bubbles or holding one's breath.
Level: Early Beginners
This plan works best for students who have moved past their original water fears but need clear guidance. So, if your students are at a stage where they can jump in the pool and splash around without any difficulty, then it might just be time to start them off working on that breath control.
Equipment: Buoyancy aids, sinkers, floating toys
Vuoyancy aids are going to come in clutch when you’re drilling using proper technique, such as breathing over the shoulder. However, it's the sinkers that are really going to add to their enjoyment of the lesson. The sinkers, after all, are what give students a reason to go underwater, and they also present countless opportunities for some fun games to keep the class engaged.
Teaching Points
In your lesson, you can have your students hold onto a float and move forward, kicking their legs with a strict focus on proper breathing. Make sure to pay close attention to each student to ensure that they have everything nailed down before progressing any further.
Once you’re confident that everyone is comfortable, then you can introduce the underwater beach games, where students can retrieve the sinkers that you throw to the bottom of the pool. These are the kinds of foundational activities you'll learn to structure and adapt when you enroll in a swimming instructor course.
Lesson Plan 3: Front Paddle and Arm Movement Introduction
Another idea for your next swimming lesson would be something a little more advanced. Nonetheless, the lesson will teach your students the fundamentals of moving efficiently in the water.
You’ll find that most students you teach can move from one end of the pool, moving their body, whether that's the doggy paddle or just moving their limbs randomly beneath the water.
However, this is far from optimal as far as technique is concerned. So, let's see how you can bridge the gap from their starting point right up to the intermediate level with this next lesson plan.
Level: Beginner Swimmers
This lesson works best for swimmers who are already comfortable moving in the water. They’ll need to rely on many of the skills that will have surfaced in the preliminary lessons, like proper breathing work. Notice how the building blocks start coming together?
Equipment: Kickboards, Buoyancy Belts
In order to ensure that your students have all that they need to get started working on their front crawl, you’ll want to do a quick stock check and make sure that you’ve got a kickboard and a buoyancy belt for each student. Kickboards are going to be essential as they’ll assist the swimmers to practice those leg movements in isolation. The belts secure around the waist and keep the body balanced in deeper water to practice effectively.
Teaching Points
Even if some students claim to already be able to swim, make sure to start everybody off holding the kickboards so that you can focus on developing the right kicking technique. Remember, it’s much harder to shake a bad habit than it is to teach a good one, so even if you’ve got some students with some lessons under their belt, keep an eye on their form and see if there’s anywhere they can improve. Teach them to kick from the hips, creating small splashes with loose ankles. Understanding how to identify and correct these foundational techniques is one of the key skills you'll develop when training to become a certified swim instructor or as a certified swim instructor.
Many instructors at this stage begin to throw in some "catch-up" exercises that get students using the floats and single-arm pulls to maintain steady leg movement. Then, when it comes to arm coordination, you can rely on the old "1-2" count pattern and drive home the importance of proper hand position with fingers together. Of course, once you’re confident with how they are progressing, you can choose to ditch the floats and have them front crawl without any assistants.
Lesson Plan 4: Back Float and Glide Practice
If you’re still looking for lesson plan ideas, then this will surely pique your interest. If you’ve got yourself a private swimming lesson or a group at the intermediate level, then back floating is always a favorite. This one really gets students on board as it teaches skills that they can depend on in survival situations, driving home the practicality of your lesson.
Level: Intermediate
This lesson is suitable for those who are intermediate-level swimmers. They’ve got plenty of hours clocked in the pool whether that be during practice or on vacation, they are confident they can hold their own in the water.
Equipment: Noodles, Kickboards
To conduct this lesson without running into any hiccups, you’ll need to ensure that you’ve got some noodles and kickboards at your disposal. Notice how heavily these pieces of equipment are used in swimming lessons? That’s why you can find them at just about any pool or leisure center.
Noodles help beginners gain confidence and learn basic swimming skills, while kickboards focus on improving kicking technique and strengthening leg muscles.
Particularly if it's their first time back floating, noodle floats provide a great sense of security while they grapple with learning the right technique. Kickboards provide some great support for the head and help when it comes to developing the right back kicking technique.
Teaching Points
A great place to start your student's lesson is to have your student start off against the wall of the pool. You can support their head, slowly tilting it back until their ears touch the water. The next step would be to have them form an "X" position, spreading body weight for better stability and have them practice some gentle back kicking.
Once you’re happy with everything you’re seeing from the students so far in the lesson, you can begin to throw in the gliding. This will involve having your students push off the wall, gradually reducing support. A key part of the learning that you should be aiming to drive home to your students throughout the class should surround relaxation and body awareness.
Conducting Your Next Swimming Lesson
After your reading, you should have several lessons that you can try out in your future classes. As a certified swimming instructor, you have a degree of freedom in how you approach your lessons, so do make sure to exercise that. If you want to chop and change any components, feel free to do so. Students will pick up on how invested you are in the lessons and feed off the energy you bring to each class.
Let these lesson ideas serve as a carbon copy of your next class or simply as inspiration for whatever games or activities you can muster up to foster the learning environment you want for your students. These lessons offer a great balance between engaging exercises and spending time on the fundamentals. You’re students will no doubt develop into well-rounded swimmers with no weak points.
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