Sheerr Pool on Penn Campus
3701 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
We Can Swim!
Lesson Groups
Our organization divides our students into four groups for differing skill levels: Minnow, Sunfish, Bass and Dolphin. Our goal is to see year by year progression from all of our students and would like all students to stay enrolled in the program until graduation from Dolphin, since this is the best way to ensure water safety. The best way for students to improve their skills is to practice, so be sure to come to lessons every week! Please visit the registration page to sign up!
Minnow
This group is ideal for our youngest students, usually in kindergarten or first grade. Members of this group will wear a life jacket at all times in the water in order to promote comfort in the pool, as well as begining steps to stroke instruction. Once a student is tall enough to stand in the shallow end, or shows competency to stay afloat without a life jacket, group placement will be changed.
Bass
After passing the sunfish requirements, children move on to Bass. The goal of this group is to further advance the skills touched on in Sunfish, while also getting the children comfortable with backstroke. The main objectives of Bass are floating on the back, body position of backstroke and mastering of freestyle. Once students are comfortable on their backs, and can swim halfway across the shallow end without assistance, they will move on to Dolphin.
Sunfish
This is our second level group, where students go once graduating from Minnow. In this group, students will remain in the shallow end, working on body position, kicking, and freestyle stroke. The goal of this group is to make children comfortable with basic freestyle and swimming with their face in the water. Once these goals are met, students move on.
Dolphin
Our final group is for our oldest and most advanced students. This group works solely in the deep end because students have shown enough swimming competancy to safely work in this area. This group will focus on treading water, water safety, jumps and dives. We believe that once a student can tread water for 5 minutes without assistance, they have the skills needed to be safe around the water and officially graduate from the We Can Swim! program.