{"id":22693,"date":"2019-01-17T11:50:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22693"},"modified":"2019-01-24T18:05:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T23:05:34","slug":"swim-to-survive-takes-plunge-to-keep-kids-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/swim-to-survive-takes-plunge-to-keep-kids-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Swim to Survive takes plunge to keep kids safe"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roll. Tread. Swim.
\nJust three little words can help give kids the basic skills they need to survive an unexpected fall into water, according to Sport Aurora and the Lifesaving Society, who launched a new season of the Swim to Survive program Thursday afternoon at the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex (SARC).
\nAmong the first to get their feedback this year were the Grade 3 students of Vanessa Moore of St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School, who made the trip to the SARC to help fill in the blanks between those three words: Roll into deep water, Tread water for one minute, Swim 50 metres.
\n\u201cThey have been so excited about this \u2013 beyond words excited,\u201d said Ms. Moore, watching the students as they were split into groups, each with an instructor, based on their respective skill levels in the water. \u201cThey have been very curious about it because they don\u2019t really know what to expect.\u201d
\nFor Sport Aurora, Activate Aurora, and the Lifesaving Society, it is all about awareness.
\nSwim to Survive was first launched as a joint initiative last spring and made available to both local school boards. While the Lifesaving Society has previously operated this program both within and beyond York Region, a grant was pursued by Sport Aurora to help offset the cost of delivery while the Town donated the required pool time.
\nIn Aurora, 10 elementary schools are involved, for a total of 420 Grade 3 students who will be learning these survival skills over the next four months.
\n\u201cThere are three major components in this Swim to Survive, which is rolling into the water, treading and swimming,\u201d says Adrian Wong, Recreation Supervisor for Aquatics and Fitness, for the Town of Aurora. \u201cFor the most part, the Swim to Survive standard is Roll into the Water, which is an unexpected fall into the water and being able to fall into the water safely, similar to how in other sports you learn how to fall safely. Then you learn how to tread for one minute and that is to essentially figure out your orientation and where you\u2019re at, so whether you fall off a boat, whether you fall into a backyard pool, figure out where there is a point of safety and then you would swim 50 metres.
\n\u201cMost drowning cases happen fairly close to shore within 50 metres and I think that is based on statistics and they have created the Swim to Survive Standard. If you can do all of these skills, roll and then tread and then swim in the following sequence, you will be safer. You can pass the standard and if you were to fall into the water you will be able to self rescue.\u201d
\nMr. Wong comes by his passion for the program honestly. He describes his student self as \u201cthat awkward 10-year-old kid who really didn\u2019t know how to swim and had to put a life jacket on for everything.\u201d As new Canadians, he says his parents weren\u2019t aware that swimming lessons were an option and he credits a school swim program that redirected him and set him on a path to becoming a lifeguard.
\nBuilding kids\u2019 awareness of these skills at a Grade 3 level is fundamental to the program, notes Sport Aurora\u2019s Ron Weese. Experts, he says, look at this as an \u201cimportant time to get children involved and engaged in water activities\u201d while teaching them how to be safe in and around the water.
\n\u201cIt is a time when children are most inquisitive about water,\u201d says Mr. Weese. \u201cThe reason why Sport Aurora and Activate Aurora is in here is to promote physical activity in all environments and water is a very important environment. We hope out of this they will be able to swim, they won\u2019t be afraid of the water, they can get in and out of the water safely, and then maybe they will start a learn to swim program, or participate with the ducks or another competitive swim program. At the end of the day, if that kid is invited to a pool party, you want them to participate fully and feel comfortable and confident.\u201d
\nAdds Mr. Wong: \u201cIn terms of drowning statistics, children ten and under are considered to be a high risk. Looking at Grade 3, it is an optimal time and opportunity where we would get them engaged so hopefully we will be able to make a difference that way.\u201d
\nWhile Swim to Survive\u2019s philosophy can be summed up in three words, Mr. Wong says the program\u2019s measure of success can be summed up in just one: \u201cAwareness.\u201d
\n\u201cThe whole point of Swim to Survive is to build awareness. It is not realistic necessarily to expect that someone is going to come in and within three one-hour periods turn into a stellar swimmer who will be able to save lives, save themselves and whatnot, but this is an exposure program,\u201d he says. \u201cWe will be handing out certificates at the end of the three-day sessions that will essentially say whether or not they pass the standard. If not, it has a redirecting mechanism and we recommend you go to swim lessons to continue on your journey of learning how to swim.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Roll. Tread. Swim. Just three little words can help give kids the basic skills they need to survive an unexpected fall into water, according to Sport Aurora and the Lifesaving Society, who launched a new season of the Swim to Survive program Thursday afternoon at the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex (SARC). Among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019-01-17-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5U1","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 13:56:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}