Bærumsvømmerne offers high-quality swimming training at all levels for children and young people. Our goal is to make children able to swim and also experience safety and enjoy by being in the water. Swimming, whether you do it as competitive swimming or for the sake of training, is something you can enjoy throughout your life.
Our teaching is organized to secure that each individual child will get the most out of the lessons and be able to achieve the goals as quickly as possible. Every week we offer swimming and technique training for around 1200 children, young people and adults.
Bærumsvømmerne – a part of the Norwegian Swimming School
In Bærumsvømmerne, we work according to the Norwegian Swimming Association’s course ladder and procedure, the Norwegian Swimming School. We first focus on basic skills such as diving, floating, gliding and progress in the water. Gradually, we focus on technique in the four types of swimming. The pedagogy is based on recognized research and lay the foundation for learning good swimming technique.
To learn to swim takes time, and the child needs to enjoy being in the water to be able to learn to swim. This is why we focus on learning through playing. For the child the exercises will be fun and playfull, but there is always a purpose with the exercises. Always a new elements to learn, that will make them master swimming easier. Having fun makes us dare to try new things.
Getting to know the water
The very first thing we learn is to get to know the water and diving. Being safe in the water is the first step for many, and a key element for learning the different types of swimming. We focus on having water in the face and being able to dive under water. This we learn in the whale level.
Learning to float
When the children feel safe, able to dive under water and dare to jump even from the pool edge, we start to teach them to float. They learn to float on their stomachs, backs, as a star and as an arrow. Floating is important to be able to learn self-salvage, and it is important to be able to relax in the water. Floating on your back is especially important. If you get tired in deep water, it is important to know how to rest. It is simply energy efficient. In addition, we also learn to turn from side to side. Turning is the start of learning good breathing technique in crawl (we breathe to the side), and that we also develop good balance in the water. This level is called the turtle.
Progress in the water
At the next level, we continue to work with the balance and introduce progress when kicking from a wall or leg kick. We start with crawl and back leg kick, simple straight up and down movements with the legs.This level is called a penguin.
Coordinated crawl and back strokes
When the child feels safe in the water, and they are able to do leg kicks, we introduce arm strokes. The simple exercises that we have worked with are now joined together to a whole. This will make the child develop the right technique faster. We introduce breathing technique, diving exercises and the start of turns, and end up with crawl and backstroke swimming. These exercises cover two courses, seal puppy and seal.
Coordinated breast strokes and beginner level butterfly
When the child has learned crawl and back technique, we start teaching breast strokes and butterfly strokes. 
These two types of swimming are more complex and require more coordination. It is important that the child is ready for the challenges, as it is easy to learn the wrong technique. Especially in breaststroke swimming is a challenge. We still focus on improving the technique of crawl and backstroke, but also work with butterfly kicks and breast technique. At these levels, it is also more training-oriented with adapted lengths and they are offered to participate in their first swimming competition, which is the BSV Cup. An internal club 
competition with prizes for everyone from courses. We focus on the above at the levels Sea Lion, Dolphin and Shark.
Swimming ability
In Norway the government have defined when a person is able to swim. The definition is important and lets us know the main goal for our swimming school. To be able to swim means:
«To be able to fall out in to deep water, swim 100 meters on your stomach and along the way pick up an object with your hands, stop and rest -> float on your stomach, roll over, float on your back, in total for 3 minutes. Then swim 100 meters on your back and get ashore ».
We have implemented this in our swimming school. The first thing we learn are techniques and skills that make you work as energy-efficiently as possible to get progress in the water. Once the techniques have been developed, we continue to work with quantity and length training. The better technical skills we have developed, the less energy we use on swimming. The principle is important in our teaching. It is only when the child is ready that we increase the lengths. When the children have completed the Seal level, they are able to swim. At this level, children can swim good crawl and back technique and are ready for longer distances.