Are you looking to make your lessons more engaging and prepare your students for life around water beyond the pool? The Water Skills for Life e-learning module provides a clear and straightforward guide to enhance your teaching approach, boosting engagement, impact, and competence. The programme delivers essential skills through a structured, age-appropriate curriculum, enabling clear progress tracking and ensuring students are well-prepared for real-world water situations. Best of all, it is easy to access, free to use, and designed to cater to various age groups.

Schools First

By the end of school year 2

Every young person in New Zealand should have the opportunities, skills and knowledge of basic awareness of potential water-related hazards and how to minimize risks in different water situations.

Students should have a good understanding of the importance of testing for depth before entering the water and be able to select the correct entry method based on the water depth and activity they are engaging in. Students should feel at ease moving through the water while submerged and continue to refine their breath control. Students should demonstrate improved personal buoyancy skills, including the ability to float on their back in a stationary, motionless position for at least 1 minute.

By the end of school year 4

Every young person in New Zealand should have the opportunities, skills and knowledge of understanding rules, hazards, and risks associated with various water environments, including closed water areas and open water locations.

Students are expected to demonstrate their ability to move 15m non-stop using any form of propulsion. Demonstrate their application of skills to scull and tread water for at least 3 minutes and be capable of performing the personal buoyancy sequence - lifejacket in deep water

By the end of school year 6

Every student in New Zealand should have the opportunities, skills, knowledge and behaviours to be aware of the rules, hazards, and risks associated with various water environments, including closed water areas and open water locations, well-rounded knowledge of water safety, be capable of making informed decisions in real-life situations and should be able to recognise an emergency situation in and around water.

Students are expected to demonstrate their ability to move through multiple water environments with varying challenges using any form of propulsion and be capable of performing the safety of self and others sequence, which involves reacting appropriately to an emergency situation in deep water while considering their own safety first.

By the end of school year 8

Every student in New Zealand should have the opportunities, skills, knowledge and behaviours to grasp the rules, dangers, and risks in moving water, waves and currents. The ability to make safe decisions when engaging in water activities and continue to build their knowledge about hypothermia and its risks to understand how to protect themselves in different weather conditions.

Students are expected to demonstrate their ability to recognise an emergency, signal for help, and perform a reach/throw rescue effectively and confidently in more challenging water scenarios such as simulated ocean, river and lake environments. Additionally, students should demonstrate their application of skills while clothed for a set time such as float and signal for help, scull and tread water while moving through simulated currents and waves.

Drowning is the number one cause of recreational death and the second highest cause of death as result of unintentional injury among young people aged 1-24 years. In 2019 the 10-14-year old age group had the highest number of ACC claims for water related injuries and there were almost 6,000 water related injury claims for children aged 0-14 years, (ACC, 2020).

With this in mind, the focus of interventions in order to achieve the end outcome of culture change for this age group is delivery of the Water Skills for Life (WSFL) programme. This programme helps establish broad, fundamental competencies for life-long water safety.

Protect Our Future

Schools First

Only 27% of New Zealand schools provide a minimum acceptable combination of eight or more water-based lessons of 26–30 minutes’ duration per year. The minimum should in fact be 10 lessons of at least 30 minutes.

Faced with the reality that more children are leaving school without the necessary water safety skills, should we accept that more children will drown, or address the issue, starting in schools?

Survival Skills

Traditionally, children may learn-to-swim, although even this skill is in decline. The assumption is that swimming skills are also survival skills, however this is far from true.

Water Skills for Life is made up of seven competency areas that contains 27 core skills, establishing broad fundamental competencies for life-long water safety.

Knowledge Is Power

Our programme gives children the skills and knowledge they need to assess risks and make smart decisions around water so they can stay out of trouble and survive should they get into trouble.

Programme Delivery

Children are taught Water Skills for Life at their school, either by their schoolteacher or swim teacher at a community pool.

The Water Skills for Life programme helps build the capabilities of the swim teachers and schools to help them deliver water skills learning experiences for students across a broad and diverse range of abilities, ages, and cultures.

Community Impact

Water Skills For Life partners with Swimming New Zealand and other providers, to deliver the programme, with funding support from Water Safety NZ, Sport New Zealand, the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board and ACC.

Our Responsibility

We are committed to safeguarding Aotearoa's future by lifting water survival competence.

The programme equips children with the skills to identify risks and make informed decisions to be safer in and around water. By raising awareness of potential hazards and encouraging responsible behaviours, it instils vital survival skills from an early age, helping individuals navigate aquatic situations safely. The result we are after is fewer drownings whilst maintaining Kiwis love, connection and use of the water.