Swimming lessons

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yidette46

Hi,
My daughter is almost 5 and has Downs Syndrome. I was wondering if you might know where I could find one to one swimming lessons in the Clacton/colchester areas of Essex. I have tried group sessions but she didn’t cope well with it. Any help or advice would be gratefully received. Thank you in advance.

Jean_OT

Hi @yidette46

Thanks for your query, swimming is a great activity for promoting fitness and well-being. Being able to swim is a fantastic life-skill for people of all ages, especially if it comes with some basic tuition on being water safe in a verity of environments.   

Sorry we do not hold a list of swimming instructors able to provide one-to-one lessons but I have some suggestions of contacts that you could approach to try to identify a suitable instructor.

First of all, do check with your local pool, often there will be instructors that hire the facilities privately, that the pool can put you in touch with. 

The Essex local authority are running a big promotion aimed at enabling everyone to get more active, it would be worth posing your question to their project co-ordinator: 

https://www.activeessex.org/contact-us/

Often coaches at swimming clubs will be open to being commissioned to provide one-to-one lessons.

You can find a list of Essex based at: 

http://www.essexswimming.org/wp/2015/03/useful-links/

If you specifically want to find an instructor with experience of teaching disabled people you could check with you nearest swimming club for disabled people if any of their instructors can offer one-to-one. You can find a list of swimming clubs for disabled people at:   

https://www.ableize.com/recreation-sports/disabled-swimming-clubs/

Another organisation to check with is Halliwick, they train instructors specifically to work with disabled people

https://halliwick.org.uk/

Hope this helps, do let us know how you get on.

Jean