How swim lessons help your child to learn at school

If your child is having learning difficulties at school, your first instinct might be to pull them out of their existing extracurricular activities to ‘give them more time’. This makes sense in theory, but not always in practice. In this post we’ll explore how swim lessons help your child to learn at school.

Giving your child more time to learn isn’t the only way to help with their progress at school. In fact, stopping regular physical activity, like swimming lessons, may actually reduce your child’s capacity to learn.

How swimming helps with academic learning and brain function

One of the great benefits of swimming lessons is that it stimulates your child’s brain function. While your child exercises, connections are made with brain neurons, and this improves their ability to learn.

In fact, it’s been shown that the more inactive your body is, and the more time spent in a sitting position, the harder it is for your brain to process new information.

Why not combine tutoring with swimming lessons?

Tutoring is a great way to ensure extra time and attention can be put towards learning. And it’s effective at improving your child’s academic performance. But remember that your child’s ability to learn is based on more than just time.  It also involves their overall physical and mental health, as well as brain function.

So your child has started (or is about to start) tutoring sessions to help with their learning? Great, but that doesn’t mean you should cancel other classes like swimming lessons. In fact, quite the opposite. We’d highly recommend your child continue their swimming lessons and remain active during this time.

Weekly swim classes work well in combination with tutoring classes to improve your child’s schoolwork. And for maximum benefit (and mental stimulation), the ideal time for a swim lesson is 24–48 hours before a tutoring session.

Swimming lessons don’t ‘take time’

When academic issues arise and your child’s learning becomes a big priority, you might feel like other activities are ‘taking time’. In other words, that your child’s ability to learn is based solely on the time they have. So anything that could potentially take time away from schoolwork is seen as negative.

But because swimming lessons can have such a positive impact on the brain and your child’s ability to learn, they don’t take time, they actually ‘give time’.

How? Swim lessons create a healthy headspace in which your child can learn effectively and efficiently—often speeding up the learning process itself. Hence, giving time.

If you’d like more information about the swimming lessons we offer at Hampton Swim School, contact us.