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”