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Learning to Swim with Miss Harmony


Miss Harmony with two learn-to-swim kids La’Kara Morris and Indi Green. Photo TWH

Hot weather means the kids are keen to swim but knowing how to swim safely – for everyone – is vital.

Fortunately, swimming classes can now be taken in Brewarrina and Bourke.

A life-long lover of swimming, Harmony Starchild has been teaching people to swim for over 15 years.

Harmony moved from Queensland to Bourke three years ago and has turned her passion into a small business, Miss Harmony Swim School.

She holds swimming lessons at both the Bourke and Brewarrina pools for babies up to adults, and also runs Aqua Aerobics classes.

Harmony said that it is important that kids learn to swim when they are young.

“I focus on water safety as well as the swimming strokes and the important thing is getting children confident in the water,” she said.

“I have a lot of kids that have never learnt to swim, and they are starting with the basics like putting their faces in the water.”

Two eight-week blocks of lessons will be held at both pools, with the first block having just started.

“It’s a seasonal thing of course, so now is the perfect time to start swimming with the temperature heating up,” Harmony said.

Teaching children to swim has long been a passion for Ms Starchild, even more so after she lost her daughter in a drowning accident.

“It’s so important that my program helps kids to understand what their bodies are capable of in the water,” she said.

“I don’t use floaties or anything like that in my lessons. It’s all about getting the kids confident with themselves and improving their abilities without having to rely on anything else.”

Harmony’s lessons have been extremely popular, with 126 kids taking lessons at Bourke and 24 at Brewarrina.

“I’m at the pools five afternoons a week, and until two o’clock on Saturday and Sunday, as well as running Aqua Aerobics in the mornings and evenings on some days,” she said.

“I understand how important learning to swim is – we’ve got river systems around us and people become very complacent around water.

“Kids from the Outback might go over to the ocean and they’ve never seen it before. They can’t swim properly, and some can’t get themselves from the simple rolling position. If something happens, and they can’t swim a short distance, they set themselves up for trouble.”

“With my squad swimmers, we do things like swimming with clothes on, treading water and carrying out rescues.

“My bigger kids are swimming up to three kilometres a day. They’ve done well over the last couple of seasons.”

Anyone interested in joining the learn-to-swim classes can contact Harmony on 0488 256 482.

Harmony also runs Aqua Aerobics Classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6.30pm to 7.15pm, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6am to 6.45am and on Saturdays from 7am to 7.45am.

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