Starfish Aquatics Program Details

The implementation of the Starfish program has two main components; the core competencies and the benchmarks.  These explanations are meant for students or guardians of students, so that they can understand a bit more about the program.

Core Competencies
This is a list of skills that each student needs to master in a certain level.  They build upon each other, so that skills in Red need to be learned before those in Yellow.

Benchmarks
This is the final "test", a specific skill that shows the student is able to preform all the core competencies.  These are outlined in more detail in the specific level posts.

Safety Skill Benchmark
In addition to swimming skills, each level focuses on water safety as well.  This includes life jackets, self-rescue, calling 911 and treading water.  While each level has a specific safety benchmark, these skills are part of every lesson, teaching students how to stay safe in the water and react to emergencies.

Star Babies and Star Tots
This is equivalent to the Parent/Child class in Red Cross. The parent or caregiver is in the water with the child, and the instructor is there to show the parent skills and safety techniques to work on with the child.  The color levels are the same, with similar goals to the Swim School in an age-appropriate way.

Swim School
The five levels of Swim School prepare the students to learn actual strokes.  It starts with trust and submersion and moves through various body movements and positions.

Stroke School
This is where actual competitive swim strokes are taught.  Each level takes one of the four; front crawl, backstroke, butterfly, and breast stroke.  They focus on drills meant to make each stroke more efficient for competitive swimming.

Other Programs

• Swim School for Teens and Adults
• Starfish Swim Team
• StarFun and Fitness
• Home school and After school programs
• Parties
• Camps
• Scout groups
• AngelFish - special needs students

The Switch to Starfish Aquatics

The facility I work for has decided to make the switch from Red Cross aquatics to Starfish Aquatics.  http://www.starfishaquatics.org/

There are reasons for the change, but they're all at the administrative level.  What this means on a practical level is that all the previously trained Red Cross lesson instructors have had to do "cross-over" classes to become re-certified.  I've been teaching lessons for almost 15 years, and have done the "old" Red Cross, then YMCA lessons, and then the "new" Red Cross, and now Starfish.  The adjustment was fairly easy, but I'm still using some of my teaching techniques from RC.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The Starfish Aquatic program might look a little different from the outside.  Instead of numbered levels,  SA does colors.  The levels are also broken down into "Swim School" and "Stroke School". The goal of Swim School is to prepare students to learn competitive strokes in Stroke School.

The levels for both schools are white, red, yellow, blue, and green.  Skills in Swim School are geared towards body position and movement, not on specific strokes.  Stroke work is done in Stroke School, with each color level working on a specific competitive stroke, such as freestyle in White Stroke School, and butterfly in Yellow Stoke School.

The "lower" levels of Starfish look very similar to those in Red Cross; going under water, floating, blowing bubbles, etc.  The main difference is that Starfish focuses only on skills that will eventually be competitive swim strokes.  There is no sidestroke or elementary backstroke taught in Starfish.  More time is spent on preparing swimmers for good technique, such as swimming on the side and body rotation.

I am still a certified Instructor Trainer for Red Cross, and will still be able to write about Red Cross lessons, but I will also be adding Starfish to this blog.