About Water Discovery

About Water Discovery

Water Discovery.org believes strongly in the parent/child bond. That natural trust and closeness allows children to learn new things and become adventurous and confident while being anchored to the love and support of their caregiver. Water play is no different to any other skill base so why take out the one person who wishes their child to grow and develop those innate aquatic abilities and be happy?

Jenny McPhail is the founding director of Water Discovery (formerly known as Wakatipu Water Babies), and for the past 15 years has developed and run a swim school programme for pre-school children which has been translated into a web based lesson planner. Her invaluable experience as a maternity nurse overseas lead to the realisation that the best way to get children ready to swim was for them to have fun in the water with the support of a caring adult.

In 2009 Water Discovery welcomed Gill Connell to the company.

Gill Connell has been actively involved in education in New Zealand for over 30 years. She is a primary trained teacher (TTC. ATCL) and very experienced in both primary and early childhood education.

Gill is internationally sought after as a keynote speaker and works as a consultant in her own educational business. She regularly runs professional development courses and workshops for early childhood and primary teachers, parents and caregivers in the area of child development, movement and its effect on the brain and learning.

Gill has co-written Swimming NZ under 5 teacher training manual and is used by Swimming NZ regularly in teacher education.

She is the New Zealand teacher trainer for Perceptual Motor Programming (PMP), a movement programme many schools are adopting. She was also a member of the Active Movement Reference committee and co wrote the Active Movement brochures – a resource designed to create an awareness of the importance of movement in early childhood published by SPARC (Sport and Recreation NZ – a NZ government organisation)), an initiative administered by the New Zealand government. She currently sits on the national Outdoor Play Reference committee.

Gill has been contracted to a large American toy company and advises designers and marketers in the area of child development and movement. She is co-author of the best seller “Moving to Learn”. She also works with early childhood teachers helping them with outdoor play planning and set ups.

The lesson planner is the first product on offer on the website and has been put together to help swim schools plan lessons in a flexible, user driven format. All the information at your fingertips allows you to plan, critique, save and train within your swim school perimeters and ideologies. Time saving and informative, the lesson planner can support what you already do in your individual organisations, or it can help you introduce new and exciting material to allow your swimmers and teachers to grow.

This website will constantly evolve to include updated material and new insights into programme delivery.