McDonald's™ Surf Education Programme

The McDonald's™ Surf Ed programme is designed to develop a child's ability to recognise, and recreate, a safe beach or aquatic environment. The program and resources are based on a formal surf education curriculum related to experiences for seven to 14 year old children. Surf Ed has three stages - Surf Awareness, Surf Safety and Surf Smart - each with two levels of learning. Surfed participants will experience health, environmental, safety and sporting opportunities as well as the knowledge required for training surf lifesavers and the community.

McDonald's™ Nippers

There are almost 3,000 junior surf lifesavers (nippers) in the Illawarra. Children can join nippers at any age from U/6 to U/14 Nippers start learning about surf awareness and safety through the McDonald's™ Surf Ed programme. They are also able to participate in board paddling, surfing, swimming, running, wading and other fun activities and games. Practising these skills allows children to compete in club, regional and state surf lifesaving carnivals representing their clubs. Surf Life Saving Illawarra also conducts development camps in every state. To join nippers, you should head down to your nearest surf lifesaving club on any Sunday morning during summer and sign up.

Junior Activities

Through its junior activities programme, surf lifesaving provides a unique activity for young people to enjoy. It is a programme that provides an environment where children can have fun and meet new friends, at the same time providing them with education about the beach. Age groups in surf lifesaving are determined by the age you are on 1st October each year. The McDonald's™ Surf Education programme runs for children between the ages of 6 and 13. The aim of the McDonald's™ Surf Education programme is to give children surf awareness and surf safety skills so that they can keep themselves safe at the beach. The McDonald's™ Surf Education program also has a competition component, which aims to develop the children's surf skills, in an environment of fun and competition.

McDonald's™ Age Manager's Programme

In order to ensure that Age Managers were aware of their obligations to our junior surf lifesavers, Surf Life Saving Hunter produced an Age Managers Course. This course aims to provide age managers with the skills to assist our nippers in their growth into surf lifesavers. In our continuing effort to make our resources easier to access McDonald's™ Restaurants in the Illawarra have made a significant number of the resources available, on this web site, for all the age managers in the Illawarra.