Following the success of the last two years and thereafter receiving many requests to repeat, we are delighted to confirm that, once again, we will be offering Five Day Intensive Swimming Courses during two of the weeks throughout the summer holidays – the first during the week 24^th – 28th July and the other during the week of 7^th – 11^th August, between 9.30 and 12.30 on each day.

Each lesson will be 30 min duration and as always here at Rusalka, there will only be a maximum of five children in the pool at any one time.

The special rate for each one week course is £50.00 per child.

This year it will be open for children ASA Stage 1 – 7, Club and Rookies and also Babies and Toddlers from 3 months to 4 years old.

The aim of these lessons is to help boost each child's swimming ability and confidence before the long summer holidays or vacations away with the family where there may be pools and / or beaches.

To download a document with more information and a booking form please visit our website using this link http://www.rusalkaswim.com/parents

Swimming starts again this week and so - welcome back to all of our very special girls and boys, mums and dads, nans and grandads and all others. We so hope you have had a wonderful half term and like us, are looking forward to the best half term of the year as we move into our long awaited summer time !

It also gives us great pleasure to announce ………….
!*!*! The`Winners' of our half termly 'Achievement Awards' !*!*!
The following children have all been nominated by their Teachers….

Monday
Pool 1 -Esme Murray
Pool 2 - Grace Sagar
Tuesday
Pool 1 - Zack Cornish
Pool 2 - Seth Carter
Wednesday
Pool 1 - Addison Dunford
Pool 2 - Riley Adcock
Thursday
Pool 1 - Freya Scowen
Pool 2 - James Walker
Friday
Pool 1 - Gabriel Folkard
Pool 2 - Connor Gibson
Saturday
Pool 1(morning) - Hayley Barton
Pool 1 (afternoon) - Stephen Powell
Pool 2 - Joseph ( JJ ) Savage

Congratulations to you all and very well done with your swimming ! In conjunction with Southern Water's 'Learn to Swim’ program, it will now be our pleasure to award each nominee with a present of their choice – either a pair of goggles, or a drinking water bottle - during the first week of this coming half term !

All of our Teachers have conveyed to us how hard it has been to choose specific children for these awards, this last term, because the general standard of all children has been so exceptionally good ! For those not nominated this time, please don’t worry, we will be making more awards for each half term period and so, if you keep doing your best during every lesson, then next term it may well be your name appearing here.

We're looking forward to seeing you all !

Our Spring Term will end on Saturday 8th April 2017.

Our Summer Term will start on Monday 24th April 2017 and will end on Saturday 22nd July 2017.

Half term break will be from Monday 29th May till Sunday 4th June 2017.

Our existing clients can find re-enrolement forms for Summer Term 2017 on http://www.rusalkaswim.com/parents ( the deadline for submission is 3rd April 2017 ).

New clients who would like to enroll to our Swim School for the Summer Term please e-mail us directly on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Hello Girls and Boys, Mums and Dads, Nan's and Grandads and anyone we may have missed !

Despite the miserable weather, we hope everyone is still enjoying a super half term break.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you all back on Monday and straight away we will be conducting our regular termly testing for the children’s ASA National Award scheme.

Those children who successfully passed their tests last term are not likely to be tested this term, but the children who did not pass their test last term will hopefully be more ready to pass their corresponding tests during this term. Your individual teachers will let the parents in all groups know who is going to be tested this term and when.

Some exciting news for this term is that we are launching a new ‘fun’ initiative for our school age children whereby during each half term the teachers from the afternoon/evening and Saturday sessions, in both Pool 1 and 2, will nominate their “Swimmer of the Half Term”.

The criteria for each nomination will include things like a child who has progressed significantly more, or one who has worked extra hard or indeed one who perhaps was especially helpful to the teacher and other swimmers in the class etc. etc. We will put all of the nominees on our Facebook Page, our website News Page and also let everyone know by e-mail. In conjunction with the Southern Water ‘Learn to Swim’ program, we will then be so pleased to award each nominee with a small present such as – a pair of goggles, or a drinking water bottle which each winner can choose during the first week of the following half term.

So last half term’s nominees are, as follows :

Monday: Pool 1 – Jack Bew , Pool 2 – Joshua Goldring

Tuesday: Pool 1 – Archie Webber, Pool 2 – Maxine Mutanga

Wednesday: Pool 1 – Louis Boyden, Pool 2 – Ruby Elsey

Thursday: Pool 1 – Daniel Carpenter, Pool 2 – Sophia Hill

Friday: Pool 1 – Annabel Kay, Pool 2 – Alfred Moleneux

Saturday AM: Pool 1 – Jack Morling, Pool 2 – James Holland

Saturday PM: Pool 1 – Matilda Toft Madsen

Congratulations to you all and very well done with your swimming !

One important change when contacting us - we have a slightly different main email address now which we would appreciate you all starting to use please, it is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Please don’t worry, the older original one will still apply to us also for some while but, as some of you know, we had been experiencing a few problems with a small number of emails not arriving to us from the Rusalka Swimming website. Accordingly, we have taken the advice of BT who have assured us along with our webmaster, that this new address should resolve the problem.

No-one hates any form of ‘red tape’ more than us but, in the best interests of all those we are so pleased to welcome here, we have to list again a few ‘House’ reminders –

Every day, for all sessions, we always strive to provide top class and extremely clean, modern facilities for you. Please respect them - and please respect other people’s property in the changing rooms, at all times. If we were to list here some of the terrible things we have been left to discovered when cleaning, by far the majority of you would be appalled. Should any of you witness anything that upsets you, at any time, then please report it to your teacher immediately so that we may take the appropriate action.

Please do not use talcum powder in our changing rooms NOR the carpeted pool hall area. If you have to use it – please put your towel on the floor before applying it and then also make sure children feet are clean afterwards.

Please do not feed your children in the changing rooms or hall, they often cannot help dropping food or crumbs behind them which, once again, makes things unpleasant for those coming after you.   Good general advice is to give children a light, healthy snack at least 45 - 60 minutes before their swimming lesson. This then helps them with their concentration and high energy levels needed.   After their lesson, waiting a few minutes until you get into your car, before giving any further snacks will not make any difference to them at all.

Parking – If your child/baby swims in our Pool 1, then please park neatly in the car park behind Pool 1. We know how tempting is is to park right in the middle of a space but please don’t do so. We have generous parking there for eleven cars, when they are parked tidily and with consideration for others and that really is for the general benefit of all.  

If your child is swimming in our Pool 2, then please park, ‘nose or tail inwards’, at the front of either of the pools plus directly alongside of the stable block.   Once again please park neatly, taking only one parking space and leaving just enough room for you to vacate that place.   There is plenty of space for four large cars alongside of the stables when folks park correctly .

A reminder once again for all of those Mums and Dads with babies and youngsters swimming in our Adult and Child classes, PLEASE DO NOT leave your used nappies in our waste bins or on the changing room floors. For you it is merely taking one or two used nappies back home with you for disposal, whereas for us and those using the facilities after you it is an unpleasant thing to discover and have to take care of.

Finally and this is the one we still cannot believe that we have to keep on and on telling some people - DRIVE SLOWLY ON OUR PROPERTY AT ALL TIMES !!!!!!! There are ALWAYS young children about, including our own. Trying to save that thirty seconds or so, if you are late for a class, could seriously devastate your own and another family’s lives forever !

With so many Rusalka children deserving much praise for all of their hard work whilst learning to swim with us each year, one of the hardest jobs we have to do is to select just one to go forward to the annual Southern Water Special Achievers Awards.

After much deliberation, we all felt that the little girl we finally chose for 2016 is so deserving in every way, namely 10 yr old Evie Kent. And so, just recently,Evie and her parents, plus Yulia and her teacher Bekki, all attended the super Awards Event which this year was held locally at The Pyramids Centre in Southsea. The attached pictures show Evie after receiving her award from celebrity swimmers - Former Olympic Gold Medalist, Duncan Goodhew MBE and Invictus Games Multi Gold Medal Winner, Mike Goody !

Evie was born with Down Syndrome coupled with an atrio-ventricular septum heart defect (AVSD) , she has visual impairment (short-sightedness; stigmatism and squint) and mild to moderate hearing loss. Evie also experiences ongoing issues with, anxiety when experiencing changes in routine, high levels of emotion, being unwell or having an injury.

At 6 months old and only 6kgs in weight, Evie underwent major heart surgery to repair her AVSD. The repair was successful in the main, but she has two remaining leaks in her heart which require ongoing monitoring and are likely to require further surgery as a young adult.

Evie has been swimming here at Rusalka Swim school for the past two and a half years and in that period has proven herself as a very hard working and dedicated young swimmer. She always helps her instructor with tidying swim equipment every lesson and always looks after the other children in her class by helping them and always being so kind.

Because of her ailments Evie takes longer to master particular elements of her stroke and consequently remains in the same swimming level class for a few terms more than other swimmers. She never complains and always waits so patiently for her next Certificate whilst often seeing all other children achieving theirs.

We know your Mum and Dad are so proud of you Evie and so are all of us here at Rusalka Swim School !

Evie with Former Olympic Gold Medalist - Duncan Goodhew MBE, Yulia Parker, Bekki Kingshott ( her swim teacher) and Invictus Games Multi Gold Medal Winner - Mike Goody .

Thanks so much to all of you who have shown interest in what goes on here at Rusalka, during the school vacation periods. 

This summer was exceptional, of course, with the amount of work being done on our Number One pool but we’re so pleased to report that this has all been going along fine and to schedule. The Certikin guys have done a fantastic job fabricating and fitting the new commercial lining and the water is now back in and fully up to our normal balmy 31'.  All the new paintwork in both of our pools is dry and we've fitted lovely new carpets in both hallways ( please wipe your feet ;-) ) 

And so, it's time to say Welcome Back Everyone !  
Rusalka Swim Schools' new Autumn Term started this week.

It’s hard to believe that our Summer term is coming to the end in two weeks time but, hopefully many of the children will be able to put all of the wonderful skills they learn here, into practise, in the pool or at the beach !

Once again all of our children worked very hard in their swimming lessons, many have achieved their grade passes and will be receiving their corresponding certificates and badges w/c 11th July. All parents have been advised or will be advised of each particular child's progress / achievement and if successful, will be asked to submit a fee of £2.50 for the costs of their ASA Achievement Badges and Certificates, should you wish to have them.

Intensive courses - Following the success last year and thereafter receiving many requests we are delighted to confirm that we will be once more offering Five Day Intensive Swimming Courses during two weeks in August, w/c 8th – 12th August  and  w/c 22nd – 26th August 2016 between 9.30 and 12.30  on each day. Each lesson will be 30 min. and there will be only five children in the pool at any one time. The special rate for the one week course is £50.00 per child. ( form the intensive course can be downloaded on our website www.rusalkaswim.com/parents  )

This year it will be only taking a place in our Pool 2 for children ASA Stage 1 – 3 and babies and toddlers, as our Pool 1 ( large  pool ) may well be totally re-lined during this summer break.

We e-mailed this information out to all of our clients a couple of weeks ago,  if you have a Hotmail e-mail account and haven’t received anything from us, please check your spam folder or alternatively please let us know an alternative e-mail address, if at all possible, so that we can always keep you up to date on things.

Our next term will start 5th September 2016 and will finish on 17th December 2016, with a half term break during w/c 24th October. All enrolment forms are now available on our website www.rusalkaswim.com/parents  where you can download the relevant forms for yourselves. When doing so please ensure that you select the correct form based on your child’s age and/or ability.

The deadline for the return of our Autumn term booking forms is Saturday 23rd July. You can either e-mail the filled forms to us, alternatively you can post them to us or you can place them in the black metal post box situated in each pool’s hall.

If, for any reason, you do not wish to carry on with swimming lessons next term,  please let us know a.s.a.p. either by e-mail or verbally to your teacher,  to prevent us holding the space open for your child unnecessarily.

If we do not have completed form nor payment, nor any other correspondence from you by the deadline, we may well have to assume that you do not wish to carry on with your child swimming lessons and the space will be offered to those on our current waiting list.

These booking forms,  for both the new term and our intensive courses, will be also available in each pool from Saturday 10th July for those who cannot print or download these forms from our website, please just ask your teacher .

New Timings – From September we will be changing the timings of both pools, in the afternoons, on weekdays only, this will enable us to open extra classes for the children who finish local schools early.  In Pool 1, our lessons will start at 15.45  and finish at 19.15 and in Pool 2,  the lessons will start at 15.30 and will finish at 19.00.

Staff Changes - Due to staff requests, next term we have the following changes taking place in our teaching rota : Tuesday morning in Pool 2, for Adult and Child Classes,  Alex will be replaced by Stacey.  Tuesday afternoon Stages 3 – 7 in Pool 1, Jane will be replaced by Vicky.  Finally, on Thursday afternoon Stage 1- 3 classes in Pool 2 – Bekki will be replaced by Stacey.

Driving on site – This is very sadly something we continue to mention time after time in all of our Newsletters and yet we still see the need to, once again,  on this occasion.  Last week, we witnessed one of our clients letting their very young daughter out of the car, during an afternoon session, right opposite our green ‘Slow’ signal, plastic man. The little girl was left unattended whilst Mum went to the other side of the car to unload her bags.  Natural curiosity took over and this dear little girl went over to look at the ‘signal man’ by herself only seconds before another car turned straight into us from the lane  and continued at speed onto our property. Luckily, the little girl just stood by the 'green man' and didn’t cross the road back to her mum at that time, even then the offending car did not slow down ! We can’t even bear to think what would have happened if she had taken her solo walk just ten seconds or so earlier ! Can we please ask every one of you to drive in, drive out and at any time around our property, very slowly at all the times and especially look around you all the time whilst reversing. It really doesn’t matter if you are a couple of minutes to your lesson, that little girl might so easily have been killed  - and she could have been yours ! !  Just please think about it at all times and please always think very carefully about your own children when out and about on our property too.     If you see anything like described above then please tell us straight away, if we see anyone driving excessively fast on our property we will have no choice but to warn them of careless driving and if it then happens again,  I’m afraid we will have no option but to ban them from using our facilities and car parks as we think that the safety of the children at all times is the most important thing here.

Parking - We ask people, once again, to please park neatly on our site and avoid coming in two or three cars for one family.  We have twenty one parking spaces for any one time and if every client brings just one car for a lesson that would always be enough.

That's all for this Newsletter folks, please have a wonderful summer break, we look forward to seeing you back in September !

Following the success last year and thereafter receiving many requests we are delighted to confirm that we will be once more offering Five Day Intensive Swimming Courses during two weeks in August, w/c 8^th – 12^th August and w/c 22^nd – 26^th August 2016 between 9.30 and 12.30 on each day.

Each lesson will be 30 min. and there will be only a maximum of five children in the pool at any one time.

The special rate for each one week course is £50.00 per child.

This year it will be taking a place only in our Pool 2 for children ASA Stage 1 – 3 and babies and toddlers, as our Pool 1 ( large pool ) may well be totally re-lined during this summer break.

The aim of these lessons is to help boost each child's swimming ability before the long summer holidays or vacations away with the family where there may be pools or beaches.

You can download a document with more information and a booking form directly from our website please click on the link http://www.rusalkaswim.com/parents

Our next Summer Term will start on Monday 11th April 2016 and will finish on Saturday 23rd July 2016.

Half Term Break  will be Monday 30th May till Sunday 5th June 2016.

We’re really pleased to announce that Rusalka Swim School has teamed up with ‘The Baby Swimming Shop’  to offer all of our clients discounted prices on a fantastic range of Children and Baby's swimwear,  plus all sorts of additional swimming and beach related items and accessories. 

Just click here you will be taken straight through to this fantastic shop.

Our current swimming term will end on Saturday 19th December 2015.

Our next Spring Term will start on Monday 4th January 2016 and will finish on Saturday 26th March 2016.

Half Term Break  will be Monday 15th February till Sunday 21st February 2016.

So Thoroughly Deserved !

One of the very best things about owning and running Rusalka Swim School is in watching all of the young ones learning and mastering a new Life Skill that will stay with them forever and may well even end up saving theirs or someone else's life, at some time. Watching them develop and progress, not forgetting the pride and joy shown on their parents faces, is so rewarding and always makes 'coming to work', for us, such a pleasure and a privilege.

One of the very best things in belonging to the Southern Water 'Learn to Swim' programme is being able to nominate, for the first time, one of our swimmers for the annual Southern Water 'Special Achievers Awards' hosted by former Olympic Gold Medal winning swimmer - Duncan Goodhew. This event took place just recently and although we had many children worthy of putting forward for this award, we finally decided that no-one was more deserving than 10 yr old Olivia Daniels.

Olivia has been having swimming lessons with us here at Rusalka Swim School for over 4 years and during this time she has progressed from a complete non-swimmer to ASA Stage 6. During our last academic year she completed both her ASA Stage 5 and Stage 6 certifications and what makes this even more remarkable is that she did this despite suffering a disability from birth known as ‘Right Hemiplegia’. When watching her now, it's so difficult to remember that when Olivia first started to swim on her back she couldn’t move her right arm out of the water at all, but now she uses both arms equally whilst swimming backstroke. She is a wonderful, very focused and hard working young girl. She loves swimming and her progress, determination and work ethic has been applauded by us and by all of our teachers here, whose classes she has attended.

WELL DONE OLIVIA !

Just like your Mum and Dad, we are also so very proud of you !

(pictures courtesy of Mr D. Daniels)

Our next term will start on Tuesday 1st September 2015 and finish on Saturday 19th December 2015.

Half term break will be Monday 26th October till Sunday 1st November 2015.

The date for our next underwater photoshoot, during this term, will be posted soon.

After many requests each year, Rusalka Swim School is pleased to announce that we will be running an Intensive Swimming Course, for children of all ages for five days - Monday 27th July - Friday 31st July.

Each lessons will last  for a very full and active 30 minutes,  with just a maximum of five children in the entire pool at any time. They  will  take  place on  each  morning  from  9.30 am. and also  each afternoon from 3.30 pm. The total cost,  per  week,  for the 5 lessons will be  £  50.00  per participating child.

Please call us on 02392 594449  or use the 'Contact Us' facility at the bottom of each of our website pages, if you would like your child or children to participate,  or if you would like any further details.

 

"This was a much harder competition to judge than I ever expected, all of the entries were to a very high standard and the children not mentioned below should still feel proud of the work they submitted, it was a sterling job. They all did very well indeed and I am so glad all of them will receive a prize for their super efforts.

As the standard generally was so good, I am so pleased that Yulia and Graham have decided to include an extra 'Runner Up' prize of a super pair of Aquasphere swimming goggles to be awarded within each category."

Louise Reed 

Media Lecturer and Course Manager

Department of Arts, Design and Media

South Downs College

Read more: Rusalka Painting Competition Winners !

Your child could win a whole half terms' swimming lessons with us, during our Autumn term, commencing early September !

As part of our Ten Year Anniversary Celebrations, we are holding a free competition, for all of our children to enter.

All they have to do is paint a picture showing their interpretation of their Swimming Lesson here at Rusalka.

Entries will be accepted and prizes awarded in two different aged categories.
Children aged 5 yrs and under.
Children aged 6 yrs and over.

Pictures should be no larger than A4 size and clearly marked, on the back, with the child's name and age, plus the day and time of their current Swim Class with us.

Read more: Win a Whole Half Term of Swimming Lessons with Rusalka Swim School!

It seems hard to believe but on this day, Ten years ago, namely Saturday 7th May 2005, Rusalka Swim School opened it's doors for the very first time! Since then, we have had the privilege of teaching so many local children, babies (and adults) to learn to swim with us and it really has been such a pleasure.

We have won awards, added a second fantastic teaching pool, made many new and long term friends and most important of all, if we have perhaps helped save the life of just one child, then everything we set out to do has already been achieved.

Read more: It's our 10th Birthday!

Hey Everyone!

Be sure to book your space on our next fully 'In- House' Underwater Photoshoot taking place on Sunday 24th May!

Forms will shortly be available in both of our pools. Alternatively, please call us or use the specific selection from the 'Enquire Today' menu that can be found at the bottom of each page of our website.

Your child does not have to swim at Rusalka to be able to attend our Underwater Photography sessions, but they do have to be experienced at swimming or being placed underwater.

If you're at all concerned or if you would simply like to talk it over, before deciding, then just give us a call and we'll be delighted to speak with you.