Where you can get free swimming lessons for kids under five in NSW through Learn2Swim Week
Hollie Dunn is urging parents to take advantage of free swimming lessons being offered across NSW for under-fives after her 20-month-old daughter drowned in their backyard pool.
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EXCLUSIVE: Legendary swimming coach Laurie Lawrence fears COVID-19 lockdowns will lead to a spike in summer drownings with Australian kids missing out on lifesaving swimming lessons.
Swim schools across NSW are now working with Poolwerx and Lawrence’s Kids Alive program to offer free swimming lessons to under-5s for Learn2Swim Week.
Lawrence, founder of the Kids Alive swim safety program, said in its seven years of operation the program has never been more important than now.
“This year I think it’s going to be a bigger drowning season because of COVID, everyone has been locked up, kids haven’t been getting their swimming lessons,” he said.
“It’s amazing what you can teach little kids in a week. They learn respect for the water because they start to know the difference between deep and shallow water.
“They learn through experience that ‘I can’t hold my breathe for longer than 10 seconds’, ‘I better get back to the side’ or ‘I can’t swim without an adult’.”
His comments come after the Royal Life Saving National Drowning Report revealed 19 children under five drowned in Australia with 12 of these in backyard pools last year.
Hollie and Craig Dunn, who lost their daughter Aria after she drowned in their backyard pool in Campbelltown in 2016, say they will never heal from losing her at just 20 months of age.
But they are determined to do everything they can to stop the tragedy from happening to others.
They are backing Learn2Swim Week as part of Smiles 4 Aria, a charity they founded in her memory to raise awareness and lobby the government for free kids swimming classes and adult CPR lessons.
Mrs Dunn said it’s never too early to teach children about water safety.
“Teach them that you can’t be around water without an adult by a certain age because it can be dangerous and we don’t want to scare them but we need to get them to understand about the dangers of water,” she said.
Aria was meant to be asleep that tragic summer day on December 11, when she squeezed through a dog door and climbed over the pool fence.
“It was a summer day; it was going to be our first summer in the house. The kids loved the water and that’s one of the reasons we bought the house, for the pool,” she said.
“She was meant to be asleep. My husband had gone to check up on her and that’s when he found her ted bunny on the carpet near the back door on the ground and he went outside and that’s when he found her in the pool.”
The family had welcome news with the arrival of Noah a year ago – a little brother for their eldest son Jett, 8. But the pain of losing Aria will never go away.
“I’ll never be healed, I’ll just learn to live with what has happened and just make sure that my kids are well aware of (water safety), especially my eldest son Jett, because he was at the event,” she said.
Learn2Swim Week starts September 25 to October 4. Sign up at
FIND FREE SWIMMING CLASSES IN NSW/ACT HERE:
All Coast Swim Stars
Jump N Swim Academy
Southern Swim School
ACM swimming
Annette Kellerman Aquatic Centre
Aquakids Swim School
Auburn Ruth Everuss Aquatic Centre
Bubble & Giggles Swim School
Fitness Edge Swim School
Great Lakes Aquatic and Leisure Centre
Harbour Swim School
Holsworthy Aquatic Centre
Ignite Swimming
Jump Swim Schools Villawood
JUMP! Swim Schools Cabramatta
Jump! Swim Schools St Marys
Ku-ring-gai Fitness and Aquatic Centre
Kurri Kurri Aquatic & Fitness Centre
Lakeside leisure centre
Laurie Lawrence Swim School – Banora Point
Macarthur Learning to Swim
Macquarie University Sports and Aquatic Centre
Manning Aquatic Centre Bathurst
Manning Aquatic Leisure Centre
Michael Whitlam Aquatic Centre-Miller
Rifkin Swim School St Ives
Royal Life Saving Aquatic Academy
Sans Souci Swim Academy
Singleton Gym and Swim
Splish N Splash Acquatic Training
St George Swim Academy
Swimsters
Swimz Guildford
The Meadows Swim School
TJ’s Swim School
Tomaree Aquatic Centre
Whitlam Leisure Centre
Wings on Water Swim School
Tamara’s Mobile Swim School
Swim Dynamics Swim School
ACT
Active Leisure Centre – Swim School
JUMP! Swim Schools Fyshwick
Stellar Swim
Originally published as Where you can get free swimming lessons for kids under five in NSW through Learn2Swim Week