School-Age Swimming
JCC Swim School
Our swim school welcomes swimmers of all abilities with the goal of creating water-safe, capable, and confident swimmers taught by our top-notch team of nurturing, creative and experienced instructors. From parent + child classes starting at 6 months old to drop-off classes for children 2.5-14 years old as well as private lessons for swimmers of all ages, the JCC Swim School can meet every need. We provide our families with a warm, personalized experience and empower our swimmers to become brave and strong in the water as well enabling a lifelong love of aquatics! We are proud that our Aquatics leadership have been specially trained to integrate a social/emotional lens on children’s instruction, which aims to teach fundamental skills in a safe and joyful environment, using swim to build physical and emotional strength and self-esteem both in and out of the pool! Ask us more about how JCC Aquatics is distinguished from other swim schools.
School-age swimming classes
Our Beginner 1 class is for children becoming more comfortable in the water and are working towards independent swimming. Water safety is the priority in this class and time is spent on back floats, front floats, and breath control.
Skills:
1. Water Safety
2. Bubbles/learning to submerge
3. Floating
4. Flutter kicks on back + belly
5. Safety swimming: jumping and returning to the wall. Jumping and rolling to float.
Our Beginner 2 class is for children able to swim short distances on their own. In this class there is a continued focus on water safety with the addition of treading and sequenced breathing to achieve longer distances of independent swimming.
Skills:
1. Bobbing to the bottom of the pool, pushing back up, learning longer breath control
2. Learning independent belly + back floats
3. Glides, introducing streamline arms
4. Basics of Freestyle: Kicking and Arms.
5. Basics of Kicking on their back
6. Safety swimming - Jumping in, swimming to the wall. Jumping in, rolling to their back, swimming back to the wall. Floating on their back for 30 seconds and recovering back to the wall.
Our Intermediate 1 class builds on our Beginner 2 class with more emphasis on independent swimming and introduction to proper stroke work. Time is spent on arm and leg coordination for both freestyle and backstroke, with a focus on proper kick technique and side breathing.
Skills:
1. Floats with rollovers
2. Glides with rollovers
3. Proper straight leg flutter kicks on belly + back
4. Freestyle - arms/pull/kick with Side Breathing
5. Independent jumps and getting back to safety
6. Introduction of Backstroke - back kicking with proper arm technique
7. Introduction of Elementary Backstroke
8. Safety swimming - jumping off the side rolling onto their backs, floating for 30 seconds, recovering with freestyle/side breathing back to the wall
This class builds on skills learned in our Intermediate 1 class. Mastering the timing for side breathing in freestyle is a main focus, along with an introduction to breaststroke and dolphin kick. Advanced freestyle and backstroke drills are used to produce more efficient swimmers.
Skills:
1. Freestyle with Side Breathing (25m)
2. Backstroke - perfecting arms/kick/pull (25m)
3. Treading for 1 minute
4. Perfecting Elementary Backstroke
5. Sit down and knee dives
6. Introduction of Breaststroke (starting with kick then arms)
7. Introduction of Butterfly (starting with kick then arms)
8. Safety swimming - sit down dive off side into breaststroke 15m followed with 45 seconds of treading followed by dolphin kick back to the wall
For our Advanced swimmers, all four competitive strokes (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle) are practiced in each session. Butterfly and breaststroke arms are introduced as well as advanced drills and techniques to support freestyle and backstroke. This class focuses on swimming longer distances and endurance. Swimmers are expected to be able to swim full lengths of the pool multiple times for all drills and exercises.
Skills:
1. Fine tuning Freestyle with side breathing (50m)
2. Fine tuning Backstroke (50m)
3. Fine tuning Breaststroke (50m)
4. Fine tuning Butterfly (25m)
5. Introduction of Sidestroke and perfecting the stroke (25m)
6. Elementary Backstroke (25m)
7. Treading (2 mins)
8. Open turns
9. Flip turns
10. Standing Knee Dives
11. Safety swimming - Knee Dive into Butterfly (25m), followed by Backstroke (25m) followed by Breaststroke (25m) followed by Freestyle (25m) followed by 1.5 minutes of treading water
(Swim Team Advanced Readiness) Club partners with our USA Swimming Certified Coaches to provide a competitive swim atmosphere for advanced swimmers. The STAR Club is geared toward swimmers who want to work on strength, stamina, and proper stroke technique as well as competitive starts, turns, and other racing skills. In the STAR Club swimmers are introduced to being coached and are required to try out for proper placement. (Choose 1,2 or 3 practices a week)
The Penguins Adaptive Aquatics program features small instructor to student ratios and dedicated instructors. This progressive program features multiple classes at Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced level swimming. All swimmers will have a formal intake and pool assessment before being placed in a level and group that will best suit their goals and offer the support to ensure their
Private Swim
If you're interested in private swim lessons at the JCC, click here.