Kids swimming lessons in Dubai

A child who can swim ten metres of neat freestyle but cannot turn around and get back to the wall is not yet water-safe. Rehan teaches the self-rescue sequence early: roll onto your back, float, breathe, turn, swim to the edge, hold on, climb out.

The World Health Organization lists teaching school-age children basic swimming and water-safety skills among the measures that reduce drowning, and drowning remains one of the leading causes of death for children in this age band worldwide.

Four to eight is the age where group lessons lose the most time. In a class of six, a child spends most of the hour queueing at the wall. In a private lesson, the same hour is all theirs.

It also means the lesson can change direction mid-session. If a child cracks breathing on the third attempt, Rehan spends the next twenty minutes on it rather than moving on because the plan said so.

The progression is roughly this, though every child moves through it at their own pace.

A child who is frightened of the water is not a problem to be solved quickly. Rehan starts wherever the child actually is, which sometimes means the first lesson never goes past waist depth.

Because the lesson is private and usually in the child's own pool, there is no audience and no comparison with a faster classmate. That removes most of what makes a nervous child dig in.

Children at this age lose skills quickly if they only swim once a fortnight. One lesson a week, plus any normal family pool time, holds progress well.

Rehan tells you after each lesson what to practise, and it is always something simple enough to do in ten minutes without turning family swim time into a training session.