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

In an ideal world it would be fantastic! However, we have one pool in our town and our school has one 30 minute slot per week. The pool is used all day every day but we can't get another slot let alone another 6 slots!

Totally agree with this - subsidised swimming and cheaper public swimming would be better

I agree all children should learn to swim and ideally 25m by age 7 not age 11.

But school lessons aren’t the way to do that. Parental involvement is. And so we need to look at the barriers to that (distance to pool, cost, parental confidence).

I would absolutely support a campaign for subsidised out of school lessons, and for pools to be viewed much like libraries as a necessary public amenity.

The issue isn't swimming lessons in school, the issue is the child then practising what they have been taught which means parents/carers taking a child swimming. It would be better if swimming pool admissions were cheaper or if there were blocks of swimming lessons in the holidays.

I have volunteered in a primary and done the swim run due to staffing issues. As we separate boys and girls into different changing rooms we need male staff members for the boys because they are naked. 5 year olds may be able to dress themselves but dry themselves thoroughly? Absolutely not. Trying to get clothing on a half damp body is difficult enough at 7 or 8.

With my own children we went "swimming" every week anyway which just meant messing around in the water. The pool was a private gym pool and was only 1.2m deep, no shallow or deep end. They both then had intensive swim lessons where they spent a week learning to swim strokes without armbands. That was in the holidays and I think better than the weekly lessons.

The cost would be significant for the schools. Current coach prices are very high and it would add thousands a week to the costs.

There aren't enough pools in the country to have all primary school kids having one lesson a week.
Very few schools have their own pool, and I doubt many are within a sensible walking distance of a pool. Even those that are would need parent volunteers to accompany them on the walk.
Are there enough coaches to be constantly ferrying kids back and forth to pools?
even if the Govt give funding for lessons, it is unlikely to fund transport and that is extortionate at the moment.
Just 4 yo coping with changing, drying, redressing etc - no
The amount of time out of school would impact on other learning.

And I don't believe learning to swim young has any impact on a child's development in terms of literacy, numeracy or language.

My DD had school swimming in Yr1 (every class did a term of swimming each year). The children changed fine... parents practiced beforehand as we knew it was coming! They had 2 TAs and the teacher accompanying them (24 children). Pool was 10 minutes walk so it took about 90mins.

However... the problem in the UK is not school swimming its lack of pools and sessions to just take kids swimming for the fun of it. My local pool has two sessions a week for open swimming (not lanes or adults only) which aren't in school time. After school its closed for lessons until 7pm , then adults only. Because they make the money they need to operate from the adult gym/pool memberships and lessons, not casual family visits.

Like many things that are now seen as schools' responsibility,I think swimming should be up to the parents.. I sent mine to swimming lessons and never expected the school to do it.
I do think that keeping pools open should be a priority as a few around here are closing because councils just can't afford the upkeep, utility bills etc.

DD is in yr 1, school have started making them wear PE kit all day on PE days as some kids can't manage dressing and undressing well enough yet and it all takes an age.

My mind boggles how they'd manage a walk or bus to a pool(there's one maybe half a mile away), changing and drying, getting back - the money and the time is just not there.

A lot of excellent points have been made on this thread. Are you coming back OP to respond?
In my area we just need more swimming pools and more affordable/free access. So many of the old baths have closed and not been replaced, like libraries councils don't seem to be able to afford to keep them going

The local swimming pool to me has stopped taking names for the WAITING list for lessons.

There's been a massive back log due to COVID so a lot of kids only started swimming two years after they normally would.

That's still affecting the entire system and will for several years.

The swimming pool can't hire enough instructor or life guards even though it potentially has pool hours available.

It used to open on a Friday and have lessons all Friday evening. Now it's completely closed.