Sheppard Swim School - Swim Camps

Information and booking

For information on our 2010 Swim Camps download our Swim Camps poster. To make a booking download and complete our Summer Swim Camps 2010 enrolment form.

Easter Camps

Kilgraston Pool

Our Easter camps are booked and ready for swimmers to enrol. Send an email to gary@sheppardswimschool.co.uk and you can enrol. The venue will be Kilgraston School like last year. Our dates are: March 27 to April 1st (Monday to Thursday) April 6th to April 9th (Tuesday to Friday) We will have limited spots available. Our camps include: -2 x 90min swim sessions focussing on technique coached by Gary Vandermeulen; Olympic coach and Olympic swimmer -dryland sessions daily for learning new skillls -circuit training daily for putting new skills to practice and to do some hard work in a fun way -Sport Psychology sessions daily to learn new skills -swim guru chats with Olympic Coach Gary Vandermeulen -evening movies in a movie theatre setting (huge screen TV in school theatre) -loads of fun with poolside games like Snakes and Ladders and RACE PACE GAME (RAPAGA).

Summer Camps

Glenalmond Pool

Our summer camps are entering their third summer. We have had great success with these camps with swimmers attending from not just Scotland but from Ireland, England, Wales, and further afield; France and Czech Republic. The camps run from Monday to Friday and include two swim sessions each day run by Olympic Coach Gary Vandermeulen. The focus is on technique in the morning and then applying those new skills in the afternoon.

One of the main skills learned is how to hold water. This important skill is often forgotten in normal training situations and an interesting an new way of understanding the principle of how to move through the water is taught in a memorable way.

Glenalmond Quadrangle

In addition to holding water swimmers are taught how to balance correctly in each swimming stroke and also how to have correct timing. These skills in addition to holding water makes the Sheppard Swim School camps extremely worth while. However that is only the beginning of what we do at our camps. We also use poolside games to introduce training as 'fun'. We have developed the swimmers version of 'snakes & ladders' which we use in our warm-ups and also we use RAPAGA (which is short for RAce PAce GAme). The race pace game forces swimmers to use all the newly learned skills and put them into a tough race-like scenario.

Glenalmond Classroom session

In addition to the pool skills we also teach new dryland skills. In 2008 we taught swimmer pilates exercises and in 2009 we taught swimmer exercises on 'exercise balls'. We then put those new skills into a circuit training programme each day so that the swimmers get an opportunity to train hard and train new skills. In the classroom the swimmers spend time with our Sport Psychologist Katie Sinnott. Katie taught campers the skills of imagery and goal setting over the past two summers. All of these programmes are recorded into a log book updated by each swimmer each day.

A classroom session with Gary Vandermeulen provides the opportunity to record all of the days skills into the workbook and also a chance to talk about the interesting world of swimming with an Olympian and an Olympic Coach. This year we are teaching the various skills needed to improve flexibility for swimmers.

Swim-with-Art Camps

We are also pleased to announce 'Swim-with-Art' camps this summer at Strathallan School. The Sheppard Swim School and Artspace have teamed up to provide a new week long (Monday to Friday) fun and exciting half-day camp for children in the summer for £100. A half day 'Swim-with-Art' camp is Monday to Friday 9am to 1pm. 'Swim-with-Art' camps are swimming lessons and games hall games followed by art classes. The camps are the weeks of: July 5-9, 12-16, 19-23, 26-30. A small snack will be provided, please bring along your lunch. The 'Swim-with-Art' half-day camps will be like this:

  • drop off at 9am at Games Hall at Strathallan School. Signs will be posted. Pick up at 1pm at Games Hall.
  • swimmers stay in Games Hall playing games and are escorted from Games Hall to Pool and back by Sheppard Swim School staff for their lesson time. Swim lessons will run in half hour blocks between 9am and 10:30am. Games will be fun, team building games appropriate for ages.
  • After the swim lessons are finished at 10:45am then the group will start their art classes with Artspace teachers who will take the emerging artists to either an outside location or indoors if necessary due to weather. All equipment for art will be supplied.
  • Artspace instructors are able to provide portfolio building for standard grade and higher grade art students, as well as introductory art lessons for beginners.
  • swimmers must be able to change independently, or must be escorted by their parents for the swimming portion of the camp. Both Male and Female instructors will be present for lessons.
  • There are limited spaces on lessons and half-day camps.
FORMS MUST BE RETURNED BY 19 JUNE 2010