Lifesaving skills in action at Dianella Secondary

After getting a taste for lifesaving during their swimming program earlier in the term, 14 students from Dianella Secondary College have signed up for weekly after-school lifesaving lessons!

Ranging from year 7s up to year 12s, the students are spending their Thursday afternoons learning valuable lifesaving skills, under the expert guidance of Royal Life Saving WA.

The program at Dianella Secondary College is of huge importance, as many of the students are from Aboriginal or CaLD (culturally and linguistically diverse) communities. CaLD communities are over represented in drowning statistics, and many new arrivals to WA have poor or non-existent swimming and water safety skills.

Similarly, Indigenous groups have been identified as a demographic at a high risk of drowning and non-fatal drowning in Australia. Aboriginal children drown at a rate two-and-a-half times that of non-Aboriginal children.

The 14 students are loving their after-school lifesaving lessons, which include manikin tows, line throws, rescue tube relays and obstacle races. Held over the course of term 1, the students will complete the program knowing how to successfully conduct water rescues, having also developed their swimming and lifesaving skills.