From treading water to swimming uphill: A comprehensive and innovative assessment program for teaching swimming in Belgian primary schools

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every child should learn to swim as a recognised life skill. Which swimming skill or stroke to learn first is not the most important question. What is important is to teach children to learn tasks or techniques which allow them to they feel safe. Emphasizing foundational principles of motor development and focusing on safety in and around the water are paramount. Beginning in 2016 school swimming lessons in Flanders (Belgium) were given a new focus in all educational institutions. Foundational competence tasks replaced the focus on acquiring competitive swimming strokes as the primary objective. As part of this process, our instructional methods began to include the use of practicing in deep water. This paper identified didactic and pedagogic screening practices of the revised water safety program and highlighted the importance of simplifying the teaching and learning methods as much as possible. One important didactic innovation used by the authors was to categorize swimming exercises using a color-coding scheme.