Yes, it probably appears that ALL I talk about these days is swimming and I’ll admit, that is true.  With the heat of the summer, the availability of children’s time because they are off school and the fact that I’ve promised myself that I would put my children in swimming because it’s a survival skill.  This argument of course can be further argued that many people don’t know how to swim and survived (and are still surviving) - however, my thoughts are that I want my children to know how to swim at an early age and continue to follow through on it until they can decide for themselves.  Yah, mean mommy again trying to create over achievers!  BAH!

Anyways - let’s talk about the Stanford itself (rather than the discussion on the activity).  I was pretty surprised at the service provided by the staff.  For starters, registration was pretty easy and strange.  They offered me a start date 2 days later (I called on the Saturday and they told me I could start the following Monday!).  They also asked me to pick a time - any time between 8:30 AM and 8:30 PM - erm, they have no schedule?  As it turns out, there aren’t many students enrolled in their toddler’s class I imagine - or they have toddler classes every hour.  Regardless, if you book the 8:30 AM session, you get $100 HKD off - so since my kids are early risers, I booked them early.  This meant that Vanessa ended up getting a private lesson with the teacher (due to lack of enrollment) - so it’s great!!

We’re paying $1600 HKD for 12 classes (3 days a week for 4 weeks) for private swimming lessons in a near empty pool!  There are 4 other older students that swim the full laps while Vanessa gets to enjoy the shallow end and a whole lane to herself with a dedicated Gor Gor swim instructor.  It’s fabulous! 

The facilities aren’t bad.  I haven’t been to the change room/shower because we live 2 minutes away and just walk Vanessa over in her bathing suit and robe and slippers (as most kids in the area do).  The pool is probably 25m in length and has about 4 swim lanes with a limited shallow end.  However, in general, it’s relatively clean and there is a sitting area just outside of the pool for parents to watch (through a glass windows).  Some of the instructors do speak English, but are probably more comfortable in Cantonese - again, this is probably due to the high amount of non-Chinese students in the school and area.

On the first lesson, they taught her how to blow bubbles, they taught her how to kick and then use the floatable noodles to swim.  More than I’m able to teach her in a month!  And just after 2 lessons, she’s more confident in the water and definitely has some bragging rights to her swimming ability - it’s a start.  More importantly, she loves it!  So, I guess it is a win-win situation.  Will I continue to enroll her there during the school term?  We’ll see - if the class size is suitable (3 children max), I will consider it.  I’ve heard that the Stanford swim school in KIS can get pretty dense, but so far from experience, it’s got a reduced population - it must be the early hours that we’re booking because at the 9:30 AM class for toddlers, there are 2 kids.  Go figure!