Economic strains from ‘the COVID years’ meant an alternative was needed to replace Gore district’s aquatic education model. Previously, each primary/intermediate-aged child in the district received ten free lessons every year.

Aquatic Services Manager Martin Mackereth says the local community was under increasing financial pressure. “We are incredibly grateful the new funding model was agreed in 2020. Made possible through the support of Gore District Council, the Mataura Licensing Trust and the Gore Pakeke Lions. Their investment means our aquatics programme is reaching as many young people as possible.”

Fee Bottcher got onto the starting block as Aquatic Programme and Swim School Coordinator in early 2022. Fee’s first move was listening to feedback from schools, parents, and swimmers. Many parts of the community live on farms or lifestyle blocks, with the Mataura River running through the middle of both Gore and Mataura townships. The one-hour drive to the coastline or across to southern lakes means locals have a large variety of open water environments to dip into.

“From listening to the community, my take was – we don’t need to scare kids into water safety. Sadly, our community has tragically lost several young lives to drowning. We don’t need to tell them what the worst-case scenario is – they have all experienced it within their wider whānau and community.

“Fishing, swimming and boating are a big part of life for Southlanders. My goal was to have a programme that our people could participate in, no matter what level of water experience and confidence they come to the pool with. We want them to leave feeling safer and more confident when they go out into those open water environments.”

From many years working as a lifeguard, Fee saw firsthand the low-level of ability for people to demonstrate survival backstroke or sidestroke.

“This made me want to put more of a focus on survival strokes and treading water into our programme. And repeating these skills every year.

“I believe encouraging independence is hugely important. Kids who do not have the ability to be independent don’t feel safe. If they don’t feel safe, they either avoid it completely and miss out on all the associated benefits, or they don’t know their ability so they can’t make safe decisions.”

The Gore Aquatic team looked to Water Skills for Life to help refine their local aquatic education programme. The workshops Esther Hone ran recently on “real world” activities were very helpful.

“Open access to all the information is so helpful to keep validating the direction I wanted to be going and the competencies we need to be sure we are covering,” says Fee. “It has given us capacity to expand and grow the programme we are delivering.”

Fee and Martin describe their local programme and Water Skills for Life as similar, but also different. Variations include their approach to assessments . . . and a focus on gumboots.

“Our starting point is the expectation that everyone is attempting the competencies, and for our instructors to identify any students who did not attempt them for whatever reason.

“We have been very lucky that several schools having identified students who were struggling compared to their classmates. These kids are then ‘shoulder tapped’ for additional learn to swim lessons through different school programmes.”

Priority activities in 2024 focus on reach and throw rescues, lifejackets, and a rip activity.  Students talk about how to identify a rip and what to do, before attempting to swim against a bungie and experience what it would feel like to be caught in a rip.

Seaweed activities and a gumboots obstacle course are important local content in the water survival education. “Half of our community live in their gumboots! If they are at the river, they will most likely be in gumboots. We developed this based on hearing from students who had fallen into the river while they were fishing and how their gumboots “sucked me down” or their tight-fitting gumboots had floated so they were unable to stand up.”

Fee says two-years into their redeveloped programme she is more convinced of the need to incorporate water safety into all learn to swim lessons.

“Supporting these students and seeing them make such huge progress in ability and confidence over the last couple of years has been such a delight for our team.

“I am incredibly grateful we have the opportunity to deliver water safety that is accessible for the young people in our community, and I am so proud of the wonderful team we have delivering it as well.”