To ask if your child’s secondary school has a pool?

[Mickmick123]

My local private school has an indoor swimming pool. Other than that no local secondaries do. One nearby used to but it was shut down due to heating being unaffordable. Recently, I was visiting my sister who lives miles away and her DS15 is currently doing a swimming unit in PE as his (state) school has a pool. I would assume most primary’s would be too small to have one. Aibu to ask if 1) your child’s school has a pool and 2) do you think your dc benefit from their school having one

I went to three secondary schools in the 1990s. Two had pools.

Now all have access to a pool

School 1 (state) - is now co-located with the local leisure centre and uses their pool to deliver swimming in PE.
School 2 (state) has always had a pool. Pool is now rented out after school and art weekends to private swimming lesson providers. Did very little swimming during my time there.
School 3 (private) had a crappy old pool while I was there from the 1890s. I swam regularly though after hours (boarder).
School now has a fancy new sports centre/ lovely pool which is used by the school and open to members. I was a member for a number of years and swam regularly.

I have had several recent conversation with colleagues and have become aware just how many early 20s professionals haven't had access to good swimming lessons. Loads are having lessons as adults to reach a basic "swim for fitness" level.

This is really sad. Even in the 1920s my working class grandparents (bar one) all learnt to swim well enough to swim for fitness in their adult lives. My paternal grandmother swam regularly into her late 70s.

My DC went to a state secondary with a pool. Just before DC1 they completed building a new sport complex which included a replacement pool. My DH went to a state school with a pool and my school built one a couple of years after I left.
DCs pool was ok although not really long enough at 20m and DHs pool was no better at 25yds. Ok for the basics and swimming lessons.

Im west berks. Our local high school is non private and has an attached leisure centre with pool. Certain parts of weekdays are blicked off for school use.

My daughters c of e junior school has small outdoor pool used instead of pe 2nd half of summer term only. Daughter currently having 3 swims a week plus lessons in the high school pool at weekends.

Looking locally we actually have a lot of pools in neighbouring towns, within half hour drive i can think of 6 or 7. We are very lucky.

Both of the high schools here have pools. One is barely used though as it’s tiny so it’s not big enough to have a whole PE class in for anything productive.

the other one is used out with school hours a lot as well - swimming lessons, aqua aerobics, and the likes all use it evenings and weekends

One local secondary does.

It's used a lot by local swimming club.

So yes - the students benefit from that. But as no one wants to send their children there for a whole other host of reasons I'm not sure the pool is an actual asset!

Our state primary does. Kids swim every week from reception until they leave school this costs the grand sum of £10 per term which is heavily subsidised by PTA fundraising. They rent it out to other schools and in the evenings for private lessons. Or state secondary had one but closed years ago, not too bothered as due to primary school, both kids are excellent swimmers.

Our DC's secondary has an indoor pool, but the swimming teacher retired the summer of 2020 and the haven't replaced her. The pool has been out of use since.

It was well used, and my eldest was able to do swimming as his DofE sport due it and the swimming teacher.

Sorry, forgot to say it's a state secondary school.

Forgot to answer you point number 2. Yes the kids have defintely benefitted, they use it for all sorts of fun activities/ end of term celebrations and our school swim team is hard to beat. I would have taken mine to private lessons if their school didn't swim every week, but there are plenty of kids leaving that school as excellent swimmers who would likely have been non-swimmers otherwise, we are not in a well of area of the country.

My secondary school had a pool but it was a "sports college" ( i mean for me it was just a regular public secondary school as I was no good at sports)

Out of the four secondary schools I’m familiar with in the area, all of them have a pool. My DC’s school pool is also available to their feeder schools.

There’s a pool at one of our local primaries but it’s one of those relatively rubbish above ground ones so no deep end, quite small. The pta work hard to keep it going.

My secondary school’s sports facilities were the attached community sports centre which included a swimming pool.

It was very beneficial. We had swimming lessons as a regular part of the PE curriculum. We had a lot of clubs including free swimming at lunch times and canoeing practice after school. I recall we could do survival courses and life guarding, though don’t remember if that was in lessons or clubs. No competitive swimming, but I don’t think any other schools in the area had pools or teams so there probably wasn’t anyone to compete against.

Our local state grammar secondary does but the local parents always seem to be going spare on the town Facebook group because they only get 10 mins to get changed so they have afternoon lessons with wet hair.

My state school (in the 90s) had an outdoor swimming pool and we did half a term of swimming each summer in lower school. Obviously being on site meant swimming could be easily fit into the schedule without buses etc.

It also meant the afternoon of our sports day was a swimming gala, which was fun.

I loved it and I still swim now as an adult, so I guess it worked! The pool was also open weekends and evenings to the public, and there were very reasonable family memberships, so we spent a lot of time there.

3 state schools out of 5 have pools here

One of my primary schools had an ex pool! We used to make up all kinds of dramatic stories about why it had been closed down - reading this thread it was probably cost and safety regulations

Actually thinking about it I have no idea where it would have been. There weren't any mysteriously closed off rooms. Perhaps it became the computer room or something.

I'm aware locally of a community run pool that is on the grounds of a secondary school and presumably was built to be part of the school. Still used by the school, but others can use it too.

There's three schools (a secondary and two primaries) within 5 minutes' walk of the biggest local leisure centre - the secondary and one of the primaries literally right next to it, and the two primaries are more or less next door to each other (one's Welsh medium, one English medium).

9 secondary state schools in this small midlands city.

3 x have pools
2 x have access to a pool next door (attached to leisure centre)
2 x have access to one as 2 schools in their trust have one and a small bus.
1 x is a utc and has no sports facilitiee
1 x doesn’t have a pool.

My dd’s former primary had a pool. Neither her former state secondary nor her current private one have pools. I know of one secondary locally with an outdoor pool.

Yes, DS1’s independent secondary school has a pool. They do Games/PE twice a week, and in the four years that he has been there, they’ve done only six lessons in the pool per academic year. A mix of swimming and water polo.

I would really like for them to do a term of weekly swimming/water polo each academic year, given that the pool is there and constantly heated. It seems a waste.

No it doesn’t. None of the 4 state schools in my town do. 2 private schools nearby don’t. 1 private boarding school does.

DS goes to the local comp which is not an academy. It has an indoor heated pool and PE lessons include swimming for a half term about twice a year. The school hires it out in the evening for private lessons which is probably how they can afford to run it.
DD just finished at local grammar school - no pool there. DNephs are at a local religious school which has a pool but they don't get to use it. Not sure why.

No pool. It's a small school. Not many state schools round here have pools. I went to school in Buckinghamshire and my school was next door to the leisure centre so we used that pool.

DCs' small-ish primary has one but the secondar.

DC1 would have loved a pool at school and would have loved to represent the school in swimming. Was their best and favourite sport.

Pools are very expensive to run. The only way to make one financially feasible to a school would be to hire it out a lot. The primary school pool has swimming lessons at evenings and weekends.