News

A team of veteran runners and swimmers from Shirley Pool retained the trophy for the 2019 River Itchen Biathlon, the third year in a row.

Does your child need some extra help in achieving the next class up?

Perhaps you want to work on refining your stroke technique or would like to gain more confidence in swimming?

These lessons are a great way for our instructors to tailor the lessons directly to your needs and offer that extra support.

Level 1 Instructor lessons: 30-minute lesson £25 or a block of 5 £100

Level 2 Instructor lessons: 30-minute lesson £30 or a block of 5 £120

The lessons will be held in our main pool. Call our reception team on 023 80781901 for further details or feel free to come in and see us and complete an interest form

From doggy paddle to 2,000m in a week? It’s true. An amazing week on the last crash course. The Sawyer sisters started the week as beginners, only able to doggy paddle. Working their way through the breathing technique and the strokes, they learned that swimming is easy- if you stay flat and breathe out in the water. To prove it, on the final day Olivia swam 100m using basic front crawl and backstroke, Isabelle swam an amazing 2,000m. Thats 80 lengths. Wow! Fast learners and the weeks star swimming sisters!

Weekly session schedule

Swimmers from the Dolphins and Turtles squads took on Locks Heath Swim Squad in a fun gala at Shirley Pool last Saturday. The Squad form Shirley ran out comfortable winners despite some fast swims from Locks Heath. For many of the Shirley kids it was their first swimming gala and, though racked with nerves, loved the experience. Forty four personal best times were produced by the swimmers, every Shirley child improving their performance for the gala.

The sprint gala finished with a real treasure hunt and free pizza slices.

The full results are here

Personal Best times 10 and under

Personal Best Times page 2 10 and over

Picture Gallery

https://www.shirleyswimmingpool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Gala-v-Locks-Heath-Final-Team-sheet.pdf

Shirley Pool is offering local schools a guarantee to teach all of their children to swim.

A new government initiative to combat a rise in obesity and encourage exercise in young people has given schools an additional £20,000 a year to focus on sport and swimming in particular.

Yet research shows that schools are falling well below the required standard.

The government guidelines state that every child should leave primary school able to swim. Swim England, the National Governing Body for swimming, states each pupil is required to be able to do the following:

• Perform safe self-rescue in different water based situations
• Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• Use a range of strokes effectively, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke.

Swim England’s Research has consistently shown that only half of pupils meet the required standards, only 34 per cent of Year 6 pupils can perform safe self-rescue and a third cannot swim at all.

Now Shirley Pool is offering to help those school get closer to those goals.

“In the past schools have had little resource to teach swimming with most school pools demolished years ago. This is a great opportunity for the schools to seize the initiative. ” says Shirley Pool’s Luke Perry” We are so confident that we can teach every school child to swim, we will continue to teach them for free until they can”

Tracey Crouch, Minister for Sport and Civil Society, said:

“Swimming is a vital life skill that is proven to boost both physical and mental wellbeing.”

“We are committed to ensuring that every child who leaves primary school is able to swim. This plan will support schools and the sport sector to get more children swimming confidently and learn water safety.”

The popular teaching centre in Kentish Road was first opened in 1974 and has since taught thousands of children to swim in purpose built pools. The pool are offering local schools in Southampton help to work towards the goal of teaching 100% of year 6 pupils to swim.

“I am hoping for an opportunity to discuss our ideas, I think the secret is to start early, year one or two” said Luke. ” Most parents take their children swimming or to lessons from a young age, but there are too many that slip through the net, for a variety of reasons. They are the ones we need to reach”

Government website

Swim England website

Shirley Pool 023 8078 1901