Paul Sadler Swimland – since 1972

The Survival
Specialists
ZERO DROWN TOLL

We provide swimming lessons for all ages. We’ve been delivering cutting edge teaching and training methods since 1972 and are recognised worldwide as a leader in aquatic education.

We run babies swimming classes from 4 months old, children’s learn to swim lessons and adults swimming lessons. We also offer private classes. Our program focuses on teaching survival skills at every level.

We have learn to swim schools in Australia, Canada and Vietnam. We employ over 800 staff across 19 swim centres and we currently teach over 35,000 children weekly.

We are proud of our reputation of being a ‘best place to work’ and believe that having happy staff is important to help ensure your family receive an amazing experience.

Paul Sadler Swimland has been the recipient of more than 25 industry awards in Australia and USA.

Our Team

What makes us different to other swim schools!

We do things differently to get different results.

Our goal is to teach children the skills they need to be safer swimmers. We do that by teaching them the survival skills they need at each level. We teach children to tread water, to get to the edge of a pool and get out, we simulate falling into the deep end and how to recover so if they were to fall in they have a base knowledge of what to do.

We assess each child during every swimming lesson, so there’s no waiting around in the wrong level. As soon as your child has acquired the skills of their current level they will be moved up.

We make sure your children have maximum participation time in every lesson, which also helps them progress faster.

We use teaching aids to minimise stress, which maximises the movement and fast-tracks learning. Low tension levels have been proved to result in an increase in coordination, so we encourage low tension through the use of teaching aids.

When to start & stop lessons

We offer swimming classes from 4 months old all the way through to adults.

At 4 months old, babies are able to regulate their body temperature for the duration of a 30 minute class. It is a great time to start water familiarisation and a great opportunity for parents and carers to connect with their babies.

The long term benefits to children who start swimming lessons young are huge!

Research suggests that early swimming lessons can lead to better physical, cognitive and linguistic development in children. A study conducted in 2013 by Griffith University, which ran for three years and surveyed almost 7,000 parents with children under five, examined whether participation in early swimming lessons impacted subsequent milestones in child development. The results showed a clear connection between children who participated in early swimming lessons developing a range of physical skills and meeting a number of developmental milestones earlier than their peers.

We offer 4 & 5 month old babies to swim for free, so there’s never been a better time to start lessons.

When to stop lessons can be an equally confusing question for many parents and we often hear parents say ‘I’ll stop lessons when my child can swim’. This however, is quite an ambiguous statement, which means different things for different people.

Studies show that many parents overestimate their children’s abilities in regards to swimming and therefore exit swimming lessons too soon. We often find parents exit lessons too soon, only to find that by the time their children finish primary school, their skills have declined.

Our Swordy 1km swims are not only a GREAT achievement, but also a great indicator that your children are proficient swimmers and a goal to aim before exiting lessons. That’s why we’ve made Swordy 1km an achievable goal for all our swimmers and we’ll help your children reach this.

Our team

Our Paul Sadler Swimland team is our greatest asset! We pride ourselves in having a dedicated, passionate team with world class skills.

Teachers

Our teachers are motivated, knowledgeable, well-organised and caring. They are nationally accredited and qualified through independent accreditation programs as well as having undergone a thorough in-house training program. Our training program see the team gain an average of 200 hrs of in-house training before they teach a swimming lesson, so even our least experienced teachers are of the highest quality. 

All our team follow in depth lesson plans that compliment the exclusive certificate system. Teachers are trained in the skills of swimming and survival, the strategies of how to teach these skills, and are motivated to continually evolve and improve.

We also offer our team up-skilling & development every 3 months – it’s one of the things that we do differently, so you get the best results.

Teachers in Training

Our ‘Teachers in Training’ undergo an extensive training program under the supervision of a Deck Supervisor in order to prepare them to become a Paul Sadler Swimland teacher. You may have one of the trainees assisting in your child’s class, which is a great help!

Deck Supervisor

We have Deck Supervisors, who are some of our most experienced team members on the pool deck. The Deck Supervisor’s role is to support the teacher, keep you up-to-date on your child’s progress and answer any questions you might have.

Customer Experience Team

Our customer experience team are friendly, professional and motivated – quality customer service is their number one priority! They are there to ensure you have an amazing experience and to lend a hand if you can’t find something through your online portal.

What makes us different to other swim schools!

As a teenager, Paul Sadler was an accomplished high school swimmer. In a situation that was not uncommon in his era, he turned his hand to teaching swimming to supplement his family’s income.

Paul’s passion for teaching children influenced his choice of career and he was soon qualified to teach physical education and special needs children. As an educator, Paul focused on the psychology of teaching and value of structured programs. He soon applied this knowledge to the teaching of swimming, and began developing what is now one of the world’s leading learn-to-swim programs.

Paul Sadler Swimland was formed in 1972, when Paul established what was likely swimming’s first public-private partnership by renting the pool at his first school, Moorabbin West Special School. Through the 1970s and 80s, Swimland progressed gradually while much was being learnt, developed and established. This progress continued, slowly and steadily, until the mid 1990s, when Paul realised he could accelerate the program’s growth by “duplicating” himself. The strength of his methodology came to the fore as multiple sites taught lessons that looked the same, whether Paul was there or not.

Today in Australia, over 25,000 children learn to swim at Swimland every week. Swimland has also expanded around the world, operating multiple sites in Canada and Vietnam.

Over the years, Paul Sadler Swimland has been the recipient of more than 25 industry awards in Australia and USA. Our most significant award was the recent induction of Paul Sadler into the Australian Swim Coaches and Teachers Association Hall of Fame, a designation reserved for the legends of swimming in Australia.

The Swimland Foundation

At Paul Sadler Swimland we are passionate about reducing the drowning toll and reaching our goal of Zero Drown Toll.

To help us achieve this, we’ve established the Swimland Foundation.

The Swimland Foundation is a charity set up to help provide aquatic education for those who would otherwise not have exposure to swimming lessons. Throughout the year we run fundraising events, like our Annual Treadathon, that raises money for the Swimland Foundation.

All money raised through the Swimland Foundation then goes towards actively meeting our goal of drowning prevention.