Aqua Dragons project helps children learn to swim

A new wave in teaching swimming has been rolled out in Carmarthenshire leisure centres.
Aqua Passport is an interactive website that helps keep school age children interested in swimming by diving into the imaginary world of the Aqua Dragons, play games and see their progress turn into online trophies.
Forming part of the Learn to Swim scheme, it also gives parents the opportunity to track their child’s progress in the pool online.
The aim is to help children develop into competent swimmers with an understanding of water safety and personal survival skills.
Executive board member for regeneration and leisure, Cllr Meryl Gravell said: “It’s so important that children learn to swim at a young age and it’s an essential life skill. The programme is fun and keeps children motivated throughout their swimming journey. Each child builds their own dragon and as their swimming skills improve they are able to develop it further.
“Children who are on the Learn to Swim scheme are automatically registered on to the programme which also has the added benefit of parents being able to see their child’s progression.”
The new online programme developed by Swim Wales covers all areas of aquatics at every stage of the National Plan for Teaching Swimming. Swimming instructors use a tablet to keep class registers and to record each child's progress during a lesson.
With instant connectivity, this information can be available to the child and the parent when they log in to the Aqua Passport website after the swimming lesson.
On the website, parents are able to see how their child is progressing, lesson by lesson. They also have access to a list of the goals their child is working towards and video clips showing each of the skills their child will learn.
The Learn to Swim scheme is available in Llanelli, Carmarthen, and Amman Valley leisure Centres, and Llandovery Swimming Pool. Sessions are held in Llanelli on Tuesday to Friday, 4-6.30pm and Saturday morning 9.30am-1pm.

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