Awards

The are eight core Awards for pupils to achieve. They are:

• School Swimming and Water Safety Awards 1-6.
• Aquatic Skills Award.
• Self Rescue Award.

The Awards are progressive, enabling pupils to gain water confidence, develop aquatic skills and learn essential water safety and self-rescue techniques in line with the national curriculum.

Using our Awards scheme helps pupils meet the requirements of the national curriculum and provides recognition to pupils for achieving their swimming and water safety skills. Everyone likes to know they are being successful!

Certificates for each Award are available to download and print from the online Charter hub, available to schools that sign up to the School Swimming and Water Safety Charter.

Supporting resources

School Swimming and Water Safety Progress Pack
The School Swimming and Water Safety Progress Pack keeps pupils excited about learning to swim.

Included in the pack are School Swimming and Water Safety Awards passports (sticker books) and stickers.  These provide an individual record of achievement as they make progress through their school swimming programme. Pupils can take their passport home to share with parents and carers; it could also be used to identify progress in their regular, out-of-school swimming lessons.

Also included in the pack is the Star Achiever pin badge. This metal pin badge is a special recognition for pupils who complete all eight of the School Swimming and Water Safety core Awards.

The passports, stickers and pin badges are part of the physical resources which are provided to all schools that sign up to the School Swimming and Water Safety Charter.

The Swim England School Swimming Foundation Awards have been developed for pupils with special educational needs, disabilities or other needs which mean they are unable or are finding it difficult to achieve the full national curriculum requirements.

There are six School Swimming Foundation Awards, each with a number of outcomes, which help pupils to progress in smaller steps and achieve personal goals, either with or without support.
These Awards focus on the following:

• Acclimatisation to the pool environment.
• Water confidence and individual core aquatic skills.
• Moving and travelling around the pool, giving pupils a feel for recognisable strokes and offering them the opportunity to progress to front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke if they are able.
• Essential water safety.

The School Swimming Foundation Awards include:

• Foundation Awards 1-5.
• Water Safety Awareness Award.

Certificates for each Award are available to download and print from the online Charter hub, available to schools that sign up to the School Swimming and Water Safety Charter.

Completing these Awards does not meet the national curriculum requirements for school swimming and water safety. In order to meet national curriculum requirements, pupils must complete the School Swimming and Water Safety Awards.

Supporting resources

Teacher’s guide
A comprehensive teacher’s guide on how to deliver the Foundation Awards effectively is available to download from the Charter hub.

School Swimming Foundation Progress Pack
Sticker packs, progress cards (passports) and Star Achiever pin badges for the School Swimming Foundation Awards are included with the physical resources for schools that sign up to the Charter.  These are motivational resources that can be  awarded to pupils as they make progress through their school swimming programme.

For more information on the resources available to members visit the charter content page.