SwimBefore you book
Is My Child Ready for the Test?
You have to commit three weeks before the assessment. Here is how to judge it honestly, before the deadline rather than after.
Registration closes three weeks before the assessment, and payment is not refunded because a child turns out not to be ready. So the judgement has to be made early — which is awkward, because three weeks is a long time in a child's swimming.
Here is how I would judge it.
The five questions that matter most
1. Can they do the survival half without goggles?
Goggles are allowed for the swim — the strokes and timed distances. They are not allowed for the survival sequences, which is everything else: entries, floating, treading, surface dives, hoops, rescues, swimming in clothing.
Not “could they probably”. Have you watched them do that half, goggles off, in the last month? If not, this is the first thing to test, because it is the most common reason children fail.
2. Can they do the distance in one piece?
25m at Stage 2, 50m at Stage 3, 100m across four strokes at Bronze. No standing, no lane rope, no rest. If they need a breather halfway, they are not there yet — and that is fine, it is a few more weeks of work.
3. Have they done it in clothes?
T-shirt and shorts up to Bronze, long pants for Silver and Gold. Wet clothing drags far more than children expect. One rehearsal in the actual kit tells you a lot.
4. Have they been in genuinely deep water?
From Stage 3 upwards, the sequence happens where a child cannot stand. Silver needs a surface dive to at least 1.8m with ear equalisation, then 3m along the bottom. Gold needs the same head-first, then 5m.
If your child learns at a condo pool — usually 1.0 to 1.2m, no deep end — they may never have done any of that. On the surface they can look completely ready.
Around three in five of the condo-pool students I assess fail on the surface dive or the hoops on the pool bottom. That is my own count. Ask their coach directly where they have practised going to 1.8 metres, and if the answer is nowhere, that is your answer on readiness. Covered in full in why children fail.
5. Have they practised the parts that appear only once?
The trouser float at Gold. Butterfly at Gold. Survival breaststroke and sidestroke at Bronze. And — for anyone taught before mid-2025 — the dive entries added to Silver and Gold on 1 July 2025. Ask the coach directly. Do not assume.
A rough readiness check by stage
| Stage | If they cannot do this, hold off |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 | Open their eyes underwater, goggles off, and find an object on the bottom |
| Stage 2 | Swim 25m without stopping, and do Sequence 2A goggles-off |
| Stage 3 | Swim 25m front crawl then 25m backstroke unbroken, and enter deep water goggles-off |
| Bronze | Four strokes at 25m each, back to back, plus 2 minutes staying up in deep water |
| Silver | A crouching dive entry, 50m front crawl inside 1:30, and a feet-first dive to 1.8m with 3m along the bottom |
| Gold | A standing dive entry, 15m butterfly, a head-first dive to 1.8m with 5m along the bottom, and making a float from long trousers while treading water |
Each stage page lists every marked item in the order the assessor works through it. Read your child's stage before you decide.
Signs they are ready
- They can complete the full sequence, in order, without prompting
- They have done the survival sequences with the goggles off, more than once
- They have done it in the clothing they will actually wear
- They finish with something left — not scraping through on the last metre
- They are not frightened of the deep end at stages that use it
Signs to wait
- Any survival-sequence skill they have only ever done with goggles on
- Needing a rest inside a distance that must be unbroken
- A stroke that is nearly, but not quite, the named stroke
- Never having practised in a pool where they cannot stand
- From Stage 3 up: never having surface-dived to depth, or never having equalised their ears
- For Silver or Gold: a dive entry they have never been taught
Waiting one assessment cycle is not a setback. Failing one costs the fee, the confidence, and usually more time than waiting would have.
If you genuinely cannot tell
That is normal. Most parents cannot judge a stroke from the poolside, and most coaches are not assessors, so they are estimating too.
This is what my check sessions are for. I run the sequence against the real criteria, in the right order, in the right kit, with the goggles off where the manual says they come off — the same way I mark it at an official assessment. You get a straight answer: ready, or these three things first.
Open to students of any coach, including children coached privately at condo pools by coaches who are not assessors.