Avon School District

Water Safety and Preparedness Programming
Tiered Approach to Awareness, Instruction, and Practice

Over the past several years, school administration and staff have been working to enhance curriculum, programming, and partnerships so that the students of Avon School not only have the opportunity to learn water safety skills and emergency preparedness, but experience, train, and practice the skills first hand.

All students of Avon School learn about water safety and preparedness in spiraling phases of physical education and health curriculum. Instructional experiences that go well beyond required state standards with water safety objectives and training aligned with the United States Lifeguard Association and the American Red Cross. All students will experience classroom lessons and cohort assemblies where they learn about general safe water practices in their home, in pools, and around all open bodies of water.

To expand upon classroom and assembly experiences, all students in grades kindergarten through eight will participate in an off-campus, field trip-style experience at the Neptune Aquatics Center. This field trip will focus on Water SAFE skill training conducted under the guidance and direction of professional lifeguards. Students learn and practice targeted water safety skills as they relate to pool, beachfront, river front, and open bodies of water. The programming is designed to reinforce positive experiences around safe swimming habits and routines. The experience affords students the opportunity to hone basic water safety survival skills and techniques through observation and practice under the guidance of experts while in a controlled indoor pool environment. In addition, middle school students participate in a second field trip component to Water SAFE Skill Training, this time in the actual ocean under the supervision of professional lifeguard staff.

The layered series of instructional and practice experiences address the top reasons why children drown in the United States and across the globe. The experiences are designed to build knowledge and technical skill sets that will help students maintain their own safety in any body of water.

• Ocean-based Water Safe Skill - Instruction, Application, and Practice