Thousands of children given valuable water safety advice thanks to SwimwithJo

More than 5,500 children across Leicestershire were given valuable water safety advice ahead of the summer holidays – thanks to Swim England’s animated water safety assembly featuring Oscar the Otter and the efforts of the SwimwithJo swim school.

The SwimwithJo team used Oscar as the focal point of free water safety assemblies they conducted at no fewer than 17 primary schools and nurseries in the run-up to the long school break.

They also delivered the safety advice to the swimmers they teach as part of the national curriculum, as well as those that are members of their Swim England-affiliated swim school at 11 locations across Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Warwickshire.

Tracey Murch from SwimwithJo explained: “I started joining the online Swim School network sessions that the Swim England Learn to Swim team run monthly and during one of those they introduced us to the Oscar the Otter water safety assembly and I just fell in love with it.

“I showed it to a couple of young children and they were absolutely transfixed by it. It was clear that the messaging had really hit home with them because they were coming out with things that were on the video.

“We deliver national curriculum swim lessons to seven schools, so I approached one of them and told them that we had access to this amazing video and lesson plan and did they want us to come along and show it to the children before their swim lessons.

“The school asked if we would be prepared to go along and show the video to the entire school as not all children had access to swim lessons.

It was so rewarding

“I’ve never stood up in an assembly before and spoken to a hall full of children, but I thought I’d give it a go. We did an initial assembly and proved to be really successful, so we rolled it out to all seven of our schools and then it really started to take off.

“We also work with nurseries and, again, I asked one of them if they would be interested and they loved the idea and it just went on from there.

“In total we ended up doing 17 water safety assemblies in front of 3,500 children and we also delivered the session to our own swimmers and the national curriculum swimmers which totalled 2,000 children.

“We reached out to 5,500 children in the space of just 10 days. It was tiring and a little crazy at times but it was so rewarding.”

The SwimwithJo team tailored each session dependant on the age of the audience, which ranged from two-year-olds to Year 6 pupils preparing for secondary school.

“We got the really young children laying on their backs practising the star float and shouting for help and then with older children we’d encourage them to get involved in a question-and-answer session.

“We got a lot of positive feedback from parents via social media and all of the schools have asked us to go back again next year. I’m guessing I’m going to be really busy again for three weeks in the run-up to the summer holidays but it was so much fun.”

Truly engaging and impactful resource

The animated video – and accompanying lesson plan – were developed as part of the Youth Sport Trust Inclusion 2024 project.

Funded by the Department of Education, the project aims to improve the quality of schools’ physical education and school sport provision for SEND pupils, working with PE leads, teachers, SENDCos and teaching assistants.

Swim England work collaboratively with 15 lead inclusion schools to co-create new resources and tools to meet this objective.  Pupils from Wilson Stuart School in Erdington selected the main character and presenter, Oscar, to be an engaging friendly face of water safety.

Ashley Jones, Swim England’s water safety and drowning prevention manager, said: “The co-creation process undertaken with young people has resulted in a truly engaging and impactful resource. It’s amazing to see one of our many amazing swim schools taking this resource into their communities as water safety champions.

“By repeatedly delivering a consistent, age and stage appropriate message a number of times over the course of a young person’s education, the many stakeholders that collaborate with the goal of reducing drowning incidents and fatalities will have a meaningful impact on behaviour change.

“SwimwithJo have done something incredible for their community and the learn to swim team are looking forward to encouraging more of our Swim Schools to do the same.”

The resources can found on the School Swimming and Water Safety Charter available to schools and lesson providers for free by signing up at https://schools.swimming.org/.

The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS UK) also have a host of useful summer water safety resources and information which can be found here.