Year 1 Swimming Lessons

On the Thursday (last day at St Francis) I went up with Year 1 to take each class for a swimming lesson. We took a coach to the local leisure center and when the children were changed sat them down to wait for the teachers the center were providing. There was some kind of mix up and some paper work went missing so no-one had any idea about which children should be in which ability group. This caused chaos and the other teachers and myself had to quickly assess each child and put them into three groups. When this was finally sorted I took the lowest ability group in the shallow end. I have taught swimming for several years and expected this to be a doddle. However, this was not the case as the children I had taught in out of school lessons usually had some kind of experience in the water. These children had none. The lesson did not go well as I expected the children to be able to do more than they could. Also, I didn't know any of the children's names which made organising and behavior management difficult.  

The second coach brought the second Year 1 class who were slightly better organised and has a better idea of who was supposed to be in which group. In this class I had about 14 children (double what I had in the first) so I expected this lesson to go even worse. However, this was not the case and the children were far better behaved. I also had a better idea of their abilities, so I was able to give them better suited activities. Instead of trying to get them doing anything that involved them taking their feet off the floor I just did water confidence games. This lesson went fantastically!   

This has taught me how it is important to be aware of children's abilities before trying to get them to do something that will prove to be too difficult for them.