Swimming Level Information

Puyallup High School Pool has partnered with American Red Cross to bring you a revised Swim Program that places an increased emphasis on water safety and drowning prevention as the basis of swim and water recreation.

Parent and Child Class
Pre-requisites: none. Designed to help young children become comfortable in and around the water which lays the foundation for future aquatic skills. If available, this class will be held in the activity/therapy pool. Swim diapers are required if not potty trained.

Preschool Program for children age 4 & 5
Throughout these three levels children are taught basic aquatic safety and swimming skills, all the while increasing their comfort level in and around the water.

Preschool Level 1: Pre-requisites: none. Focus is on introducing the child to the aquatic environment while helping gain basic aquatic skills.

Preschool Level 2: Pre-requisites: back float for 3 seconds – front glide for two body lengths. Focus is on developing more comfort in and around the water while gaining more independence.

Preschool Level 3: Pre-requisites: front and back glide for two body lengths, back float for 15 seconds, swim on front 3 body lengths. Focus is on gaining basic swim propulsive skills.

Learn to Swim Program for Children 6 & Older
The Learn to Swim program is designed to help participants achieve maximum success.  Learn-to-Swim courses are based on a logical six-level progression that helps swimmers of varying ages and abilities develop their water safety, survival and swim skills.

Level 1 - Intro to Water Skills: Pre-requisites: none. Focus is on helping participants feel comfortable in the water while building swimming readiness.

Level 2 – Fundamental Aquatic Skills: Pre-requisites: perform 5 FULL bobs with blowing bubbles, back float for 5 seconds, and front glide for 2 body lengths. Focus is on building proper body position and coordination of arms and legs in order to perform various strokes, rotary breathing and treading water.

Level 3 – Stroke Development: Pre-requisites: swim 5 body lengths of front stroke and elementary stroke, perform 5 rotary breathing bobs, and tread water for 15 seconds. Focus is on coordinating breathing to the side while swimming front crawl as well as learning various other kicks.

Level 4 – Stroke Improvement: Pre-requisites: swim 15 yards front crawl with side breathing and elementary stroke, 15 yards of scissor kick, dolphin kick and breaststroke kick and tread water for 1 minute. Focus is on building on skills previously learned through guided practice.

Level 5 – Stroke Refinement: Pre-requisites: swim 25 yards of front crawl, and elementary stroke while demonstrating open turns, swim 15 yards backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and sidestroke, and tread water for 2 minutes. Focus is on providing further coordination with refinement of swim strokes while increasing swimming distance with the use of flip turns.

Level 6 – Fitness Swimmer: Pre-requisites: swim 50 yards of front crawl and elementary stroke, swim 25 yards of backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and sidestroke, demonstrate flip turns while swimming and tread water for 5 minutes. Focus is on continued refinement of the strokes so participants swim them with ease, efficiency, power, and smoothness over greater distances while incorporating the use of a pace clock and skill sets.