Swim England welcome new report about national curriculum swimming

A new report which calls on the government to promote better awareness and understanding of the national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety has been welcomed by Swim England.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance commissioned PE and Sport Premium: An assessment of primary schools’ spending and reporting reveals 59.3 per cent of sampled primary schools were fully compliant with Department for Education requirements to publish their overall allocation of Premium funding.

Swimming and water safety has been part of the national curriculum for 25 years but the latest research, carried out by the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University, showed only 17.5 per cent of primary schools were publishing pupils’ attainment levels for swimming.

The report recommends that Department for Education guidance for the PE and Sport Premium should ‘better promote awareness and understanding of the national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety and the Swim England resources and training available to help schools meet them’.

Jon Glenn, Swim England Learn to Swim director, said: “Swimming has been on the school curriculum for 25 years but we know that too many pupils are being failed by the system and are leaving school unable to swim 25 metres.”

Currently around 75 per cent of pupils leave primary school able to swim 25 metres. But this figure drops to 42 per cent in the most deprived areas of the country.

Swim England is continually lobbying for improvements to ensure all pupils leave primary school able to perform self-rescue in different water-based situations, swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres and use a range of strokes effectively.

The national governing body for swimming has also purchased a shipping container which is being converted into a transportable pool to help improve accessibility to school swimming lessons.

Jon added: “Through events like ‘The Big School Swim’, Swim England will continue to promote the importance of learning to swim in schools.

“To support schools we have also produced free curriculum swimming resource packs. We would also encourage all schools to become a Swim England school swimming charter school to take advantage of even more resources and support.”

More information on the Swim England support available to schools can be found here.