Swimming badge: test content from seahorses to gold
By elementary school at the latest, your child will be given swimming lessons, where they can acquire the various swimming badges. But the seahorse alone does not make a safe swimmer. We will explain all the DLRG badges to you.
Swimming Badge Seahorse
The seahorse is the first swimming badge awarded by the German Life and Rescue Society (DLRG). In preparation for the seahorse, your child learns to jump from the edge of the pool and to swim 25 meters in one go, which corresponds to a short length in the swimming pool. In addition, they must be able to pick up an object off the bottom with their hands from shoulder-deep water. So it makes its first diving experiences.
What many people don’t know: whoever has the seahorse is considered an early swimmer, but not a safe swimmer! So if your child has this badge, they are only allowed in the non-swimmer area in the indoor or outdoor pool for the time being.
Swimming Badge Bronze
The situation is different with the second swimming badge of the DLRG, the youth swimming badge in bronze. In addition to various practical tests, your child must also pass a theory part. This includes knowledge of the bathing rules. You can read about the bathing rules that apply to bronze swimmers here on the DLRG website . Some of these rules are:
- Only go swimming if you feel good.
- Never go into the water on a full or completely empty stomach.
- Don’t overestimate yourself and your strength.
- Inflatable swimming aids do not offer you safety in the water.
In addition, your child must be able to:
- Jump off the edge of the pool and swim at least 200 meters in no more than 15 minutes
- Retrieving an object from about two meters deep water
- One meter jump
Only when your sweetheart has mastered the bronze youth swimming badge is it officially considered a safe swimmer .
Swimming Badge Silver
Your child will also be asked about certain bathing rules during the test for the silver badge. These build on the rules for the Bronze Badge and are supplemented with new ones, such as:
- Be considerate of other bathers, especially children.
- Never call for help unless you are in real danger; but help others when help is needed.
- Unknown shores harbor dangers.
From these rules alone, it is clear that silver badge swimmers have greater responsibilities. They can already swim so confidently that they can and should now also pay attention to the things and events around them. Your child is no longer a beginner.
This is also supported by the fact that your child is now learning the first rules of self-rescue. He is taught the correct behavior in the event of exhaustion and muscle cramps. It also learns what to do if it were in a sinking motor vehicle or capsizing boat.
In addition, your child must be able to:
- Starting jump and at least 400 meters swim in no more than 25 minutes (300 meters prone and 100 meters supine)
- twice retrieving an object from two meters of water
- Ten meter distance diving
- Jump from 3 meters high
Swimming Badge Gold
For the youth swimming badge gold your child must be at least nine years old. Because what your child needs to know in order to acquire the highest youth swimming badge are, in addition to advanced bathing rules and the rules of self-rescue, the rules of simple third-party rescue.
Your child learns how to help themselves and other swimmers in the event of an accident in the pool, boat or ice. This applies to the correct use of lifebelt, lifeball, lifeline and lifeline, but also what needs to be considered if you or a stranger break through frozen water.
In addition, your child must be able to:
- Swim 600 meters in 24 minutes or less
- 50m breaststroke in less than 1 minute and 10 seconds
- 25 meter freestyle swimming
- 50 meter backstroke with straddle swing without arm activity or 50 meter back crawl
- 15 meters distance diving
- Deep diving from the water surface with retrieval of three diving rings from a water depth of about two meters within three minutes in a maximum of three diving attempts
- Jump from 3 meters high
- 50 meter transport swim: push or pull
How much do swimming badges cost?
Your child can acquire the swimming badge as part of school lessons, which is why there are no costs for the course alone. However, you pay five euros for the badge itself.