Make swimming mandatory from the age of 5

[EGREGORY1993]

Heyy

Hope people dont mind me posting

Im looking for support from other mums for an online government petition I have just had published. I am asking the government to provide funding to schools to provide swimming lessons from the age of 5 upwards as research has shown children who learn to swim earlier reach major cognitive development milestones including speech, literacy, numeracy and visual motor skills much earlier than non swimmers. Not only this but it teaches children the dangers of water and can help families who may not be able to afford swimming lessons as well as helping mental health. Currently the government’s guidelines are swimming is mandatory in either key stage 1 or 2 however most schools only provide this in years 5 and 6 i am wanting to change this and make it mandatory for both key stages 🙂 . If any of you could sign my petition on the below link or share it with anyone who you no i would be really grateful thank you 🫶🏼

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/635283

Whilst it may seem like a good idea, I can't see how it can fit into the already very busy primary curriculum any more than it does. Swimming takes up a huge a,Lunt of time from the curriculum when done - travel to and from a pool, getting changed and dried, etc. You're talking about a full morning or afternoon pretty much.

Also the funding currently given doesn't cover the full costs - many schools still need to charge for transport, etc. So that aspect would also need to be covered.

Maybe funding or subsidised support for parents in paying for swimming lessons outside of school would be a different option.

No. I don’t think swimming should be a school activity. I do think highly subsidised lessons should be available, though.

And what exactly is the correlation between swimming lessons and those milestones you listed? Can you list your source?

What would happen about changing? My 5 year old needs help getting dried and changed after swimming. A teacher would not be able to help everyone.

When they are older they are able to do it themselves.

research has shown children who learn to swim earlier reach major cognitive development milestones including speech, literacy, numeracy and visual motor skills much earlier than non swimmers

This is not causation; the parents who can afford expensive swimming lessons are more likely to be affluent, which suggests they're more likely to have obtained higher education levels, therefore their children are more likely to have similar potential intelligence levels and more importantly, will help their children with a range of learning and extra curricular activities?

Swimming lessons are not likely to help children reach major cognitive milestones any sooner.

Although I agree with the importance of water safety, and helping parents who can't afford it.

However there's no money for pencils and glue sticks let alone swimming lessons for millions of kids every week.

In theory it's a good idea but as a PP said where is the time going to come from in an already packed curriculum. In my first teaching post the school had its own outdoor pool and I was meant to teach the class swimming once a week in the summer term. Just me (not a qualified swimming teacher) - no other help with a class of 28. Wouldn't pass H & S nowadays but this was the early 80s. Not all schools have a swimming pool nearby and the cost of transport is astronomical.
In Scotland children are meant to have 2 hours of "quality PE lessons" so this would have to be on top of that.

Nice idea but not feasible.

research has shown children who learn to swim earlier reach major cognitive development milestones including speech, literacy, numeracy and visual motor skills much earlier than non swimmers

causation or correlation?

Schools can’t take very young children swimming as they need to be able to dress and undress themselves. It takes up enough time even when they can. The ratios of pool staff would also need to be very high.

It's really not practical for schools to take children that young to swimming lessons. Kids that age can need help washing and drying etc and the staff to child ratio for safety wouldn't be possible for most schools to manage. I am huge believer in swimming lessons from a young age and have paid for one to one lessons for all 3 of my kids from age 1 and all of them can swim. My youngest is 3 and can swim well but I wouldn't allow my kids to go to school swimming lessons at 5. I take them and sit and watch, help the younger two shower and change. My oldest now gets swimming lessons in school but he is 11.

Nope. I think the current provision later in primary school is better. At age five, swimming takes up a lot more time - help changing, the walk to the pool might be too far, or getting them all on the bus is a much bigger task. The time is much better spent on learning to read and write. Everyone seems to want to cram more and more into the curriculum. This isn't a good idea.

Swimming and safety in water are two very different things. 2 years ago I had to help a child who could swim had a few years of swimming lessons but got into trouble in a river. Some places already do free swimming places if your on benefits.

I'm sorry but I won't be signing your petition.

The Education budget is already stretched to threadbare and children get swimming lessons in Yr4 anyway.

I think I would be more keen to support extra funding for leisure centres, more pools being built, more outdoor pools and heavily subsidised prices for swimming/gym etc

We do have a terribly unfit population, Im one of them because the things I enjoy doing, I dont get the chance to much. I wont use a pool because of changing rooms, the pool is too busy, being hassled by males in the pool, but I do use an outdoor pool on occasion. The price also puts me off at the leisure centre.

Reminds me about the campaign for free period products for professional earners. What gets cut to pay for it? It's nice but not essential. Funds are so limited. Food and welfare for low income families comes first for me.

This doesn’t sound feasible to be honest. If the money was there it would be better spent subsidising lessons outside school for children from poorer families.

100% correlation. I'd bet the statistics part of my degree on it.

I think it would be better to subsidize local pools to make taking the family swimming an affordable activity.
Not everything can (or should) fall to schools to fun and organize.

While I'm a big advocate for swimming lessons and water safety, taking a big group of 5 year olds swimming would be bonkers for a school.

My 5 year old still needs help to dry after she's had a bath and make sure her hair is brushed. And the school she goes to gets them to come in PE kit for Pe days because it takes so long for kids to get changed. The

I would absolutely support subsidised lessons, more swimming pools so people don't have to travel so far out of school times, because I think it's an essential life skill, but expecting a couple of teachers and TAs to be responsible for getting 30-60 5 and 6 year olds swimming seems like an awful lot of time that could be spent focussing on literacy and numeracy in that age group.

As with a lot of things correlation is not causation.

I agree that we need affordable lessons for those who can't afford to pay privately. I learnt at school (there was no money for me to have private lessons) so I'm really grateful otherwise I wouldn't be able to swim.

There is no way my children would have learnt during the few short lessons they had at junior school. I once worked out (and cried) how much it cost me £££ to get my daughter to an acceptable level. Let's just say she wasn't a natural 😂

Along with the things others have pointed out, this would only work for all if swimming teachers stopped insisting that children put their faces in the water otherwise they can't progress up the levels. My neurodivergent children had to stop having lessons because of this, because they cannot put their faces in water due to sensory issues (nor can I).
I taught them to swim myself instead, much quicker too!

My dd did Irish dancing and the girls in her class were all very academically able too. I think the concentration required to follow the teacher's instructions helped but I wouldn't suggest every child should be made to do it

Another thing is that I taught in a school with swimming classes include in the curriculum and half my class always found an excuse not to swim. It turned out that the swimming instructor had them all traumatised with his nasty sadistic jokes

Gosh I hated swimming at school so so much. And i started my period really young which made it horrendous.

I'd prefer to see heavily subsidised leisure centres

Are you a swimming teacher op? I ask because I am and do school swimming. Do you expect a class of 30 5 years olds to be able to fully get changed by themselves independently and listen in large groups sessions to instructors who aren't in the water and expect some of them to be in the big pool? It's just not realistic at all. Hence why it's part of the curriculum in keystones 1 and 2. Its the school choice what year group they send we currently have Year 3s. It also depends on how often the school sends them. It costs about £2500 to send children for a 2 week block to put it into perspective. Learn 2 swim centres do subsided lessons if people are on benefits however teachers also require a decent wage and the leisure centres have running costs.

however most schools only provide this in years 5 and 6

Lets stop at this point. Let's ask the fundamental question, why do they only offer it in years 5 and 6?

The number one reason comes down to shortages of local swimming facilities and swimming teachers.

This is compounded by the cost of the lessons that has to be covered by parents or schools in someway. This is the cost of the hire of facilities, paying the teacher and the cost of transport.

You also need to factor in the number of staff you have to allocate to getting the kids too and from swimming lessons - younger children require a higher staff ratio off the premises than year 5 and 6. So where are those staff coming from?

There simply isn't the budget for it. And there isn't the facilities for it - they'd have to build more.

Local swimming pools have closed down at a staggering rate in recent years.

In terms of how much of a priority this is compared with other funding aimed at improving outcomes.

I'd also be curious as to whether findings that:
children who learn to swim earlier reach major cognitive development milestones including speech, literacy, numeracy and visual motor skills much earlier than non swimmers
is weighted for socioeconomic backgrounds or whether parents who get their children to learn to swim are simply more involved with their children which is the single biggest factor in improved outcomes - thus it being a correlation rather than a causation.

Good luck to you OP. I think it's a noble aim however, you need to stop the closure of local leisure facilities and get councils to fund new public facilities for all as a starting point before you could ever have this as a realistic goal. Those facilities would need to be financially viable to be sustainable. That's really not the case at present. Lessons for kids would be a secondary goal to achieving that.

Can't see how budgets can stretch to this when teachers are having to strike to achieve better funding / staffing etc. I do agree that affordable swimming lessons should be available though as it's an important skill

Feeling very lucky that DD state primary has its own pool where all kids from nursery age upwards swim fortnightly right the way to year 6 and the school has a very competent swim team, we often beat the local private schools at galas. A good teacher can achieve wonders

My daughter is doing swimming in school now , (y4). It's almost a whole morning out of school each week. And that's with a pool fairly near.

I can only imagine it would be a nightmare with younger children

However ,I don't disagree that it would be good for more children to start swimming sooner. But this could be done through subsidising leisure centre lessons etc rather than eating into school time