Values, Mission and Culture

Values, Mission and Vision

The Merlions team is driven to extend student learning within school and through student participation in the sport of swimming. A key aim is to help students learn traits that can extend into other areas of their lives and we believe swimming is a perfect sport for this.

Our VMV:

1. Develop a safe, fun and creative learning environment. We take a holistic view of each swimmer as we endeavour to offer opportunities for them to participate, increase their interest, strive for success and look beyond their own potential, not only as swimmers but as young people.

2. We believe a holistic view of each swimmer is built through an athlete-centred coaching style that develops our swimmers to be passionate, committed and hard-working members of our community. Good people make good athletes.

3. Swimming is a tool that can teach students important life lessons. Improving self-awareness, responsibility, adaptability and self-organisation leads to the creation of good decision makers.

4. Swimming is a sport that requires commitment and hard work, and can also present many challenges and frustrations. In facilitating an environment that safely teaches students to overcome problems, the Merlions helps student athletes mature, and learn how to evaluate and improve; this in turn builds independence and resilience. We describe this as a period of learning to adapt.

5. Each performer has a different level of potential that cannot be directly compared to another’s, either by a fellow swimmer, peer or parent. An individual’s full potential may look very different to someone else’s, but that doesn’t make it worth any more or any less.

6. To support holistic development we use a bio-psycho-social framework (see left), meaning that student athletes aren’t simply trained in the sport’s physical aspects; all aspects BIO of development are taken into careful consideration.