Academy

Maxwell Swimming Club starts with the Bronze Squad. Once the swimmers have progressed they will travel through into Silver, Gold and Platinum respectively. The academies focus on the LTAD (Long Term Athlete Development pathway) solely learning the FUNdamentals. In the academy it is crucial that we are laying the foundations down correctly so that as the swimmers get older and progress the building blocks can lay firmly and be able to grow so that full potential can be reached. This is done through refining all four of the technical strokes, building stamina and skill acquisitions through turns, dives and underwater development. We follow a six week cycle of work and at the end of that sixth week we have an assessment week. This is where we assess the swimmers ability and this plays a key role in seeing if swimmers are ready to progress through into the next group. You can find more information about this further down the page as well as more details about our splash galas.

Bronze

This is our first entry into the swimming club environment. Swimmers will enter into this group from local swimming lesson providers and we will introduce them into a club environment. The swimmers swim for 1 hour, once a week. In this group swimmers will be expected to swim one length of each stroke and have a basic understanding of skills required around the wall. Swimmers will also get a chance to compete in our club friendly Splash Galas as a chance to see how a competition is run but in a smaller, controlled environment.

Silver

The Silver Squad is the second stage of our entry point. Swimmers can enter into this stage from our Bronze squad or from swimming lessons. They will swim twice a week for 1 hour.  In this developmental stage swimmers will be progressing the skills already taught and will be expected to swim 50m on each stroke. They will also be taught how to do basic turns on each stroke and will continue to build on their stamina. Swimmers will also get the chance to compete in our Splash Galas putting their skills and technical ability into a competitive environment.

Gold

The Gold squad is our third stage of the academy. During this level swimmers are enhancing their skills, streamlining and strokes. We are still developing and building stamina and swimmers should be aiming to swim 100m on each stroke with the correct turns in place. Splash galas and some Level 4 competitions can be entered to put the things they have learnt into practise under race conditions.

Platinum

This is our final stage of the academy program and the FUNdamental stage of the swimmers development before they progress into our Learning to Train program beginning with our Junior Development Squad. In this group the swimmers will be refining the stroke technique and skill acquisition and will be trying to hold them over progressive distances and under pressure. The distances swam will start to increase from 100m to 200m to prepare them for that next competitive environment. The competition levels open to this group are the Maxwell meets, level 3 and level 4 meets as well as Splash galas.