Floating to survive is a crucial water safety skill that helps you conserve energy, stay calm and signal for help in emergencies. However, water safety skills like treading water, safe entries and exits, and survival strokes are just as important. Our lessons teach these life-saving techniques, empowering children to confidently navigate aquatic environments and stay safe.
Key learnings in this article:
- Floating to survive is a vital water safety skill, but you shouldn’t rely on it alone.
- Beyond floating, it’s important to learn a range of survival tactics including treading water, safe entry and exit, survival strokes, and the National Benchmarks for Swimming and Water Safety.
- Regular swimming lessons can help you gain water safety and survival skills to stay safer in and around water.
- Learning these skills makes a real impact: A Kingswim student used the skills they gained in lessons to reach safety after accidentally falling into a pool.
Keep reading to find out how to float to survive, why it’s important to master a variety of water safety skills, and how you can develop these through swimming lessons.
What is floating to survive?
Floating to survive is a water safety skill that involves floating on your back in order to save energy, stay calm and call for help in an emergency situation. Children can learn to float from a young age, so it’s often one of the first water safety skills you learn.
How do I float to survive?
- Stay calm and breathe
- Lay on your back
- Spread your arms and legs out like a star
- Move your arms and legs slowly to stay balanced
- Signal for help by raising one hand and shouting for help
Following these steps correctly means you’ll be able to stay afloat for longer until help arrives.
What are common floating mistakes?
Tensing up, holding your breath, lifting your head too high or making unnecessary body movements can make floating more difficult, so try to avoid this as much as possible.
Why is floating to survive important?
Being able to float in water is an important skill because it helps you stay calm and conserve energy, potentially preventing drowning. When people find themselves in trouble, panicking can quickly drain your energy but by floating and remaining composed, you’ll have more time to signal for help.
This is especially useful in emergency situations where help may take longer to arrive. For example, if you’re far from shore or have fallen into a pool when others are not close by. Floating increases your chances of survival by giving you more time to wait for help to reach you, making it a great survival technique in those circumstances.
What other water safety skills should I learn?
While floating is important, it isn’t the only skill you should learn in case of an emergency. There are lots of situations where other water safety skills are required, and having a broad range of skills under your belt means you’ll be more prepared and confident.
Royal Life Saving Australia have identified National Benchmarks for Swimming and Water Safety, which children should achieve by a certain age in order to safely enjoy various aquatic environments and situations:
Water safety benchmarks for children from 0 to 6 years
- Identify rules for safe behaviour at aquatic environments at or near the home
- Enter and exit shallow water unassisted
- Float and recover to a standing or secure position
- Move continuously for five metres
- Submerge the body and move through an obstacle
- Identify people and actions to help in an aquatic emergency
- Perform a survival sequence to simulate an accidental entry
Water safety benchmarks for children from 6 to 12 years
- Understand and respect safety rules for a range of aquatic environments
- Float, scull or tread water for two minutes and signal for help
- Enter and exit the water for a range of environments
- Swim continuously for 50 metres
- Surface dive, swim underwater and search to recover an object from deep water
- Respond to an emergency and perform a primary assessment
- Rescue a person using a non-swimming rescue technique with non-rigid aids
- Perform a survival sequence wearing light clothing
How can I learn these water safety skills?
Regular swimming lessons are a great way to learn and practise water safety skills in a safe, supportive environment, with guidance and instruction from a qualified teacher.
We incorporate survival swimming into every lesson at Kingswim. Some of the skills we teach include:
- Survival strokes: Survival backstroke and sidestroke are designed for endurance and efficiency. These strokes help swimmers navigate challenging situations, conserve energy and even assist others in distress, provided they understand their limits and respect the conditions around them
- Treading water: Similar to floating to survive, treading water is a life-saving skill that buys you time to float, breathe, signal for help and survive. We teach this skill to help children build resilience and readiness, especially in unpredictable environments. This technique also increases your chance of being seen by rescuers as you remain in an upright position rather than floating on your back.
- Safe entry and exit: Children should always enter the water feet-first. This allows them to feel for the bottom of the pool and for any unexpected objects. It’s also important that children can safely get out of a pool unassisted, in case they ever fall in when no one is around to quickly assist. We teach children to use their elbows and knees to safely and independently climb out.
- Returning to the surface and finding the pool wall: If a child accidentally fell into water, they should be able to stay calm, return to the surface and find the pool wall. We help children learn how to hold air in their lungs to increase their buoyancy and gently push upwards, so that they can float to the surface safely. We also teach them to turn and find their way back to the pool wall, where they can either climb out or hold onto the edge tightly until they can be rescued.
Customer story: How water safety skills can save lives
One Kingswim family know first-hand how important it is to learn water safety skills. They shared with us an incredible story from their family holiday, where their son found himself in trouble but successfully reached safety.
The family were staying in a villa in Port Douglas, which opened directly onto a fenced pool deck. The children were seven, five and three years old at the time and, although they were not allowed through the pool gates without a supervising parent, unfortunately one day the unthinkable happened: their three-year-old son fell into the pool.
“I saw his little arms rise above his head as he fell – straight down – into the 1.4 metre deep water.”
Luckily, their son knew exactly what to do – and so did his siblings.
“In the three panicked steps it took me to reach the edge of the pool, I watched as he automatically turned towards the wall, scrabbled for the edge and started pulling himself out. Just as he had hundreds of times before, in his favourite practice.
Both of our girls did not panic or jump in after him to try to help, but instead busied themselves looking for a pool noodle they could use to help him.”
The parents credit their children’s lessons at Kingswim with their ability to think fast and keep themselves safe.
“It is thanks to regular lessons and practice at Kingswim that all three of our precious gifts came home with us from QLD.
We are so grateful for the persistent encouragement of all of their teachers who patiently make sure they all love and are confident in the water, but most importantly, instinctively reach for safety when things go wrong.”
Thankfully, the family was able to continue their holiday together and are still enjoying their swimming lessons.
“We are still at Kingswim every week, and I have no doubt – it saved our son’s life.
They are now all confidently swimming in K8, K6 and K3. They never miss a lesson if they can help it, loving to enjoy and respect the water. And all begging to return to the Great Barrier Reef where – the day after our mishap – all five of us were out in the depths, happily and safely exploring our wondrous world.”
Learn water safety and survival skills at Kingswim
Floating to survive is essential, but true water safety means learning a full range of survival skills. Our learn to swim program teaches children how to stay calm, conserve energy and react safely in unexpected situations.
Help your child grow confident and capable in the water and book a free introductory lesson today.