Learn to Swim Stage 7: Skills development and improvement

Learn To Swim Stage 7 focuses on fully developing all four swimming strokes, as well as building stamina and improving diving skills.

Introduction: Swim England Learn To Swim Stage 7

In Stage 7, swimmers should develop a quality stroke technique for up to 100 metres, incorporating the skills they have learnt throughout the stages and combining them to develop a linked routine.

They should successfully complete an obstacle course, which combines a variety of skills they have learnt from Stages 1 to 7.

Swimmers will have developed a range of skills in previous stages and these are now brought into a sequence.

By the end of this stage, swimmers will be able to swim 25 metres of all four strokes to Swim England’s Expected Standards. Swimmers will also be able to complete a continuous swim of 100 metres using three of these different strokes.

When they have reached Learn to Swim Stage 7, swimmers can also achieve their 50m and 100m Distance Awards.

Alongside that, they can achieve their 25m Awards for both backstroke and front crawl.

Learn To Swim Stage 7 Key Outcomes

By completing the Learn to Swim Stage 7 Award, swimmers will be able to:

  1. Push and glide and swim 25 metres backstroke (performed to Swim England expected standards).

  2. Push and glide and swim 25 metres front crawl (performed to Swim England expected standards).

  3. Push and glide and swim 25 metres breaststroke (performed to Swim England expected standards).

  4. Push and glide and swim 25 metres butterfly (performed to Swim England expected standards).

  5. Perform a movement sequence (linking skills with strokes and sculls) of one minute duration, in a group of three or more, incorporating a number of the following skills:
    Sculling: head first, feet first
    Rotation: forward or backward somersault, log roll
    Floating: star on the front or on the back, tuck float, create own
    Eggbeater: Moving, lifting one or both arms out of the water

  6. Perform a sitting dive or dive.

  7. Push and glide and swim 50 metres continuously using one stroke (performed to Swim England expected standards).

  8. Push and glide and swim 100 metres, using a minimum of three different strokes (performed to Swim England expected standards).

  9. Tread water using eggbeater action for 30 seconds.

  10. Complete an obstacle course (using minimum of four objects) with feet off the pool floor throughout.

Once they have completed this stage, learners can move on to The Learn to Swim Stage 8 Award which is part of the more advanced Aquatic Skills Framework of the Learn to Swim Programme.