Turning water lovers into Champs
WELCOME TO
Kiddies Aqua
Swimming Academy
Moreleta Park Branch
Cor-lee van der Walt
Client Care Coordinator
Kiddies Aqua Swim School Moreleta Park™ is part of the largest swimming academy for infants, toddlers, young competitive swimmers, adults and special needs children in South Africa.
Your number one swim school in Moreleta Park
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About
Lizette Botha (Co-owner and Head Coach) has a degree in Human Movement Science (UP). She also equipped herself further on the terrain of water safety for babies (6-24 months) through Les Bébés Amphibies (Switzerland) and completed Swimming South Africa’s “Learn-to-Swim” programmes for swimmers from ages 2-10 years. She served as Swimming South Africa’s Liaison Officer in Mpumalanga and is a Project Manager for the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation and Board Member and Project Manager for the African Children Aquatic Foundation. She taught the Princess' baby twins (Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella) and many other stars and celebrities’ children to be water safe and to swim. Lizette has already taught more than 10 500 babies to be water safe and 22 000 young children and adults to swim since her career started in 1989. She is South Africa’s top Baby Floating Specialist with accolades from M-Net’s Carte Blanche, Supersport and Kwêla and SABC’s Top Billing and Pasella doing programmes on her and her unique method. She also does regular public talks and seminars on water safety and water awareness for infants and toddlers. Both her daughters were regularly included in South Africa’s National Junior Squads when still at school and were awarded swim scholarships in the USA.
Kiddies Aqua Swimming Academy™ was established in 2011 by the current owners Lizette and Arrie Botha. They previously owned Aqua Kid Swim School in Nelspruit for more than 17 years before Lizette became the Head Coach at Ryk Neethling’s swim school in Pretoria for three years. She is celebrating her 34th anniversary as swimming teacher this year. Lizette and Jean Fouace (Switzerland) are the founder members of Amphibies Babies Africa™. Jean is the pioneer and original developer of the Self-Rescue Water Safety Method for Babies in the world since 1967. Kiddies Aqua Swimming Academy™ remains the largest swimming academy in South Africa with more than 4 000x swimmers in total and eight branches across South Africa. All six our franchisees, Rhoné Reynders (Alberton), Maresa Scholtz (Cape Town), Nandi Smit (Centurion) and Mariëtta Herbst (Roodepoort), Elaine Jansen van Rensburg and Cheryl Botha (Namibia) completed a 400-hour training course through Lizette to qualify as Baby Floating Instructors.
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The academy, its affiliates and staff are members of Swimming South Africa, Amphibies Babies Africa™ and Les Bébés Amphibies (Switzerland). We strive to offer swimming lessons of the highest quality with our seventeen highly skilled and qualified instructors - mostly in the fields of Human Movement Science, Childhood Psychology, Teaching, Early Childhood Development, Sports Management and Sports Science. These instructors also have various national- and international certificates in teaching swimming to infants, toddlers, competitive swimmers, and adults and are registered with Swimming South Africa. These swimming lessons are presented at our indoor heated facilities in Moreleta Park and Hatfield (University of Pretoria – Indoor Sports Centre). The academy is in partnership with Tuks Swimming, the African Children Aquatic Foundation, and the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation. We also have franchised outlets in Alberton, Cape Town, Centurion, Roodepoort, Montana, and Namibia.
Lizette already taught more than 10 500x babies to be water safe and 21 500x young children and adults to swim since her career started in 1989. She is one of the world’s leading Baby Floating Specialists with accolades from M-Net’s Carte Blanche, Supersport, Kwêla, Top Billing and Pasella doing programmes on her and her unique teaching method. She also does regular public talks and seminars on water safety and water awareness for infants and toddlers. Both Lizette’s daughters were regularly included in South Africa’s National Junior Squads when still at school and recently completed their 4-year-swim and study scholarships in the USA.
Meet The Team
Estie Botha
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Estie joined Kiddies Aqua in August 2011. She holds a Diploma in IT and is also registered with Swimming South Africa. She also holds valid CPR and First Aid Certificates and renews her Police Clearance every year. She attends our in-house refresher training regularly to keep up with the high standards of our swim school. Estie specializes in the bridging phase between the babies and toddlers, learn-to-swim for toddlers (all three phases), stroke- and stroke correction for young gala swimmers and adult swimming. She won our Golden Towel Award in June 2019.
​Estie bonds strongly with her swimmers and parents. She is very patient in her approach and a superb stroke coach. She is creative and innovative in her thinking and gets her swimmers at a very high level of competency very fast. She delivers quality top school- and provincial swimmers year after year. She always makes her swimming lessons exciting and interesting. She is very passionate about children and her swimming parents regularly express their satisfaction with her coaching and treatment of their children. She is a strong and disciplined worker that always puts her clients’ interests first.
Carmen Botha
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Carmen joined Kiddies Aqua in January 2018. She was based in New York on a swim scholarship at St. Francis College (Brooklyn Heights). She is registered with Swimming South Africa and holds valid CPR and First Aid Certificates. When back in South Africa, she attends our in-house refresher training regularly to keep up with the high standards of our swim school. Carmen works for us only during her four-month USA summer break (May to August every year). She specializes in the learn-to-swim for toddlers (all three phases) and stroke- and stroke correction for young gala swimmers.
Carmen is a top performer in the pool as well as at her university in the USA. She used to be in the Top 5 of all female swimmers in South Africa in various events and has been a national age group swimming champion since the age of seven years, winning medals regularly at national- and provincial swimming competitions. She still holds several Northern Gauteng provincial swimming records. Together with her older sister, Mikal, they still hold several swimming records between them at Afrikaans Hoër Meisieskool in Pretoria.​ She has been included in the Junior South African Youth Swimming Squads since the age of 14-years and has been offered more than 90x swim scholarships from different universities in the USA. She also swam for Mpumalanga- and Gauteng Schools and Gauteng North Province during her whole school career. She won the Victrix Ludorum-award (Best Female Swimmer) every year during her school career and also a few times at the A-League inter-schools gala. She joined the University of North Texas (Dallas, USA) in August 2018 on a student/athlete scholarship, but moved to St. Francis College (New York, USA) in 2019, also on a full student/athlete scholarship. She is swimming for them in the NCAA League (Division 1). She once received the award for Athlete of the Week during her time at the University of North Texas.​ Carmen has got a great touch with the children and loves assisting them to improve in their swimming ability. She enjoys sharing her vast knowledge of competitive swimming with the younger generation of swimmers. Her favorite strokes are the Backstroke and the Breaststroke.
Karmen Mentz
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Karmen joined Kiddies Aqua in September 2017. She holds diplomas in Sport Science, Sport Development, Sport Practice, Sport Psychology, Sport Organization & Administration and Coaching Science (NWU). She is also registered with Swimming South Africa, holds valid CPR and First Aid Certificates and renews her Police Clearance every year. She attends our in-house refresher training regularly to keep up with the high standards of our swim school.
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Her swimmers progress at a fast rate, seeing that she places a strong emphasis on water safety and stroke competency. She teaches them the perfect stroke and makes sure they are 100% swim-ready by the time they enter primary school. She builds strong relationships with her swimmers and parents and always makes their interest a top priority. Her parents regularly express their satisfaction with her service. Karmen specializes in the bridging phase between the babies and toddlers, learn-to-swim for toddlers (all three phases), adult swimming and stroke- and stroke correction for young gala swimmers. In 2018 she received the award for Best Swimming Instructor. Karmen is a highly talented- and hard-working swimming coach who understands the mechanics of the sport very well and who is getting her swimmers on a high level of swim competency very fast. She is passionate about swimming with a loveable and friendly personality. She is also a highly disciplined- and well organized swimming coach who knows what she wants.
She joined Tampa University (Florida, USA) in August 2017 on a student/athlete scholarship, but moved to Oklahoma Christian University (Oklahoma, USA) in 2018, on a swim scholarship and was participating for them in the NCAA League (Division 2).​ Mikal was a top performer in the pool as well as at university in the USA. She used to be in the Top 10 of all female swimmers in South Africa in various events during her school years, winning medals regularly at national- and provincial swimming competitions. Together with her younger sister, Carmen, they still hold several swimming records between them at Afrikaans Hoër Meisieskool in Pretoria. Mikal loves working with the babies and young children and takes great interest in their early development. She has got an excellent touch with the children and loves sharing her vast swimming knowledge with the older swimmers. Her favorite stroke is Backstroke. Like her mom, she is planning to open her own swim school one day. She has also been included in the South African Junior and Youth Swimming Squads at the age of 14-years and has been offered more than 40x swim scholarships from different universities in the USA. Mikal also swam for Mpumalanga- and Gauteng Schools and Gauteng North Province during her whole school career. She won the Victrix Ludorum for five consecutive years in a row during her high school years.
Mikal Botha
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Mikal joined Kiddies Aqua in January 2016. She studied B Ed (Early Childhood Development and Psychology) at Oklahoma Christian University (Oklahoma, USA). She is registered with Swimming South Africa and also holds valid CPR and First Aid Certificates. She renews her Police Clearance every year. She attends our in-house refresher training regularly to keep up with the high standards of our swim school. Mikal takes great interest in learning from her mom regarding the Self-Rescue Water Safety Method for babies and will be completing her training as Baby Floating Instructor in January 2022.​ She specializes in the bridging phase between babies and toddlers, learn-to-swim for toddlers (all three phases), stroke- and stroke correction for young gala swimmers and adult swimming.
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Liezl Mentz
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Liezl joined Kiddies Aqua in February 2023. She completed her six-week in-house training in our Learn-to-Swim Programme with Lizette. Liezl completed her BSc degree in Sport Science at the University of Stellenbosch in 2017. She worked as a Fitness- and Dance Instructor, Financial Manager Assistant, Admin Assistant, Operations Manager and Medical Administrator at several leading institutions in and around Stellenbosch during the past few years. She is a very confident, assertive and well-organized individual that brings excellent value to our little swimmers.
She loves children and being around with children makes her very happy.
Lizanne Viljoen
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Lizanne joined Kiddies Aqua in June 2018. She will be completing a degree in B.Ed-Foundation Phase at the University of Pretoria in 2022. She completed the Learn-to-Swim Programme with Swimming South Africa and a six-week in-house training programme with us. Swimming has been part of Lizanne’s life since her very young school days. She excelled in the sport and was regularly selected for the South African Junior & Youth Swimming Squads during her school career. As senior swimmer, she represented South Africa at the African Swimming Championships (October 2021) where she won gold and bronze in the 200m Butterfly and 100m Butterfly respectively. She currently swims for Tuks Swimming Club. She understands the sport of Swimming very well and the hard work it takes to perform at the highest level. She loves sharing her vast swimming experiences and knowledge with younger upcoming swimmers.
Her favorite stroke is the Butterfly and she enjoys working with young children from all ages.
Ina Dupont
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Ina joined Kiddies Aqua in August of 2022. She will be completing her degree in B.Ed-Foundation Phase at Aros in 2025. She is one of the top performers in her class. Before she was officially appointed as swimming instructor at Kiddies Aqua, she had to complete our six week Learn-to-Swim in-house training programme with Lizette. Throughout her school career Ina formed part of her school’s swim team and now loves sharing this swim knowledge and passion for the sport with her younger swimmers. During weekday-mornings Ina works as a Teachers-aid at Laerskool Lynnwood Pre-primary division. She is a committed-, hard worker and loves teaching swimming to any age group. One day, she hopes to be an inspiring- and complete teacher that can add tremendous value to her students.
Jackie de Sousa
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Jackie joined Kiddies Aqua in April 2022. She completed her BA Human Movement Science degree at the University of Pretoria (2003). She then went on to complete her post graduate certificate in education (UNISA) in 2005. She taught Physical Education and Life Orientation at Pretoria Girls High for 10 years and has been for the last 8 years working at the Deutsche Internationale Schule Pretoria(DSP) as the Head of the Sports Department. During her school years she participated in several sport codes and played squash at a provincial level and played at a club level long after having finished her schooling. She was also a member of the Schools Representative Council. Jackie is qualified and experienced in coaching hockey, athletics, netball, squash and swimming.
She holds a valid First Aid Level 1 and CPR certificate and renews her police clearance every year. She also completed her lifesaving qualification. She is qualified in sports massage therapy(Health and Fitness Professionals Association) and has completed 56 hours of training in the application of muscle monitoring techniques at the International College of Professional Kinesiology Practice. She has three children of her own, one boy and two girls.
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"I love Sports, it has been a big part of my life! I love working with children of all ages. It is important to me that all children find a physical activity that they love. I want to see them become lifelong participants so that they may be able to live with a healthy body and mind and have a good quality of lifestyle far into adulthood." - Jackie
Lea Smit
Learn-to-Swim Instructor
Lea is one of our youngest members on TEAM KIDDIES AQUA. She joined us in February 2022 and had to complete our 300-hour intensive in-house LTS-training course before she was signed-off as competent and ready to coach for us. Lea holds certifications in both EMS Personal Training, as well as a 200-hour Vinyasa Yoga qualification.During her school career, Lea completed more than 200x hours of community service with the Dasha School for Special Needs Children in Nelspruit. She has been a competitive butterfly swimmer throughout her swim career and has also competed in the Midmar Mile (in KZN) on numerous occasions.
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She began learning about water safety at the tender age of 12, when she completed her first Lifesaving Level 1-certification. During her yoga qualification, she was educated on Kiddies Yoga, which included Child Behaviour Management, as well as Child Physiology. She is well versed in the sport of swimming, yet has a gentle-, loving approach to all her young swimmers. She works well with all age and all-level swimmers, from Learn-to-Swim to Stroke Correction, Gala Preparation and Adult Swimming. She enjoys cultivating a safe space and trusting relationships with her swimmers and prides herself in her swimmers’ immaculate acceleration in both confidence and skill.
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