Inside the Taylor Sports Centre, the aqueous epicentre of Newington College Aquatics Program, it’s another busy start to the new school year.

Come here from 6am on any given school morning, and you’ll find up to 50 swimmers from one of Newington’s five swim squads churning up and down the black lines of the eight lane pool.

Others here belong to Newington’s historically strong Water Polo program. They might also be training, getting their laps up to increase their endurance, explosive power and strength for this physically demanding water sport. Many of these water polo players train year-round to ensure they are swim ready to perform in both the AAGPS and the Combined Associated Schools (CAS) Water Polo Championships, the latter which Newington joined in the 1980s.

Many of these before school swimmers are in the hunt for new Personal Bests (PBs in swimming parlance) to take into the impending AAGPS Swimming Carnival on Friday 25 March at Sydney’s Olympic Park. Others are intent on winning this weekend’s water polo fixtures away at Cranbrook. Whatever their motivations, all swim here under the expert eyes and guidance of Mr Ryan Moar, Newington Director of Aquatics, and Mr Byron Li, newly appointed Director of Swimming.

Mr Moar is an Olympic winning water polo coach. Before joining Newington in 2013 he helped steer the Australian Stingers women’s water polo teams to bronze Olympic medals, first in Beijing in 2008 and then in London 2012. Mr Li is a swim champion in his homeland China who started on his career path at Newington as an Learn to Swim instructor at Lindfield Prep.

‘Our senior and performance squad is made of about 50 students who train five mornings a week, and three afternoons a week,’ says Mr Li.

‘Our junior squads are also very active, training four afternoons and one morning every week. In total we have between 170 and 180 swimmers in our training squads who are committed to improving and doing their best for the College,’ adds Mr Moar.

Swimmers are delegated into one of Newington’s five swim squads: Mini, Orange, Bronze, Silver and Gold according to age and ability. Typically, Mini welcomes the newer, younger swimmers and Gold, the College’s championship swimmers and winners. Many of the Gold Squad swimmers train up to eight sessions a week. This dedication pays off. In 2024 Newington’s Swim Team claimed the GPS Relays Trophy and the Firsts and Seconds Water Polo Team both jointly won their respective GPS Premiership, tied first with Scots College. Over the past 10 seasons the Newington Aquatics Program has claimed more than two dozen highly valued bits of silverware in GPS competitions.

‘Newington Swimming Club also won its first Nationals gold last year thanks to recently graduated swim team Captain, Sebastian King’s win in the 200m Backstroke at the Australian Age Championships,’ says Mr Moar.

Recently, last Friday, nearly 30 Year 7 new water polo recruits, were put through their paces at one of their first ever training sessions while parents and families looked on.

‘These Year 7 students join 12 other existing teams, bringing our total number of teams to 14 competing in Term 1 fixtures,’ says Mr Moar.

‘All of the students in the program train a minimum of twice per week in the pool.

‘Many also choose to supplement their minimum load with extra swimming and work in the gym. Our top performers also commit to club and representative water polo outside of school.’

‘In total we have between 170 and 180 swimmers in our training squads who are committed to improving and doing their best for the College’

This Friday evening (7 February), the Taylor Sports Centre will erupt poolside for the annual Newington Age Championships from 5:30pm. This event tests the swimming mettle of newcomers to the senior school in Year 7 as well as other swimmers in other years who have been training with one of the squads on their quest to join the competitive Newington College Swim Team, says Mr Li.

Parents and families are welcome. Swimmers are marshalled by the race age students turn this year, says Mr Li. The Newington Age Swimming Championships are the first extra curriculum activity students can choose to opt-into outside regular Saturday sport this year.

‘We normally get a great number of Year 7 students who have recently joined the school, usually somewhere between 90 and 100 swimmers in total,’ explains Mr Li.

‘The event gives us the chance to identify who are the strongest swimmers and for our students who are committed to trying to join the Swim Team to have another crack at getting on the team. We want to encourage as many students as we can to come along, meet some other students who may not have met yet and give it your best go.’

Mr Moar says it is important that Year 7s who try out for the Swim Team at this Friday’s Age Championships understand the only way is up if they don’t succeed in making the Newington Swim Team on this occasion.

‘Coming into Year 7 from another school can be that classic big fish moving from a little pond into little fish moving into a bigger pond situation,’ he explains.

‘We want to celebrate those students who turn up on Friday and give it their best shot in the pool but may not make the College Swim Team this year. I say this because what I have seen time and again, is that this makes for a more resilient and focused swimmer in the end. These are the students who join one of our squads, knuckle down for a year of training, get stronger and faster and then come back and compete in next year’s Newington Age Championships and make the Swim Team the year after, or even the year after that. These are the sporting attributes of our Newington swimmers and water polo players that can only be taught through determination and putting in the hard work to grow and improve.’

Alongside swimming squads and the school team, Newington is also the only AAGPS aquatics program to run a Club which welcomes co-ed swimmers from other nearby schools, as well as Newington families and other local communities. A Learn to Swim program is also ongoing at Stanmore for both senior students and over December for five weeks for learners from Wyvern Prep. Lindfield runs its own Learn to Swim program with its own school pool.

‘There are plenty of students across our community who have missed learning to swim properly. Maybe they had a break from the water and became good at another sport, so they’ve been able to duck and weave a bit from lessons or thanks to COVID,’ says Mr Moar.

‘But living as we do in Australia surrounded by water, learning to swim is still a critical life skill. One of my biggest objectives is ensuring we help all those students who need some more teaching to swim. We are currently establishing a program to identify and assist students in Wyvern, Lindfield and Stanmore to ensure these students don’t miss out on learning to swim while students of Newington.’

If you are a member of our Newington community, for more information about the Newington Aquatic Program please refer to New Spaces here or visit Mr Moar and Mr Byron Li poolside in the Taylor Sports Centre on our senior Stanmore campus.