Schools with pools

[KathyBeale]

My son is in year 5 so we've just started thinking about secondary schools and we have been doing the rounds of open evenings.

We're lucky (in some ways!) that where we live in SE London/Kent we have a good choice of schools, plus the opportunity for him to take the 11+ for a neighbouring borough.

He's hardworking and among the top of his class, and he's also really good at swimming. None of the schools we've seen - grammars, selectives or comps, mixed or single-sex - have swimming pools. It's not massively important of course as he swims a lot out of school, but I think it would be nice if he had the opportunity to swim for his school too. Just wondered if any of you wise lot know of any schools that DO have pools?

He often goes to galas held at local independent schools. I've had a look at some of the websites for schools he swims at, but I can't find any reference to specific swimming scholarships - they're just generally sporty ones. So, also, does anyone know of any schools that have swimming scholarships?

Independent: Trinity School and Whitgift School. They both have pools and sports scholarships (not specifically swimming). Plus they're great schools!

Most of the state schools won't have pools. In London, done don't even have playing fields.

There are a fair few primaries nearby that don't have fields (my own primary didn't/doesn't) but we are deep in the burbs so all the secondaries we've seen have fields. No pools though!

He has swum at Trinity a few times so I know how amazing it is. I'll check it out - I have no idea about fees or how much scholarships cover or any of that but it's worth a look.

I believe Sutton Grammar has a pool and whitgift has pe scolorships and your sport can be pe. I think swim teams are more common in independent schools

More with pools Sutton Valence, Caterham and Reeds which has an elite swimmers programme

Nowhere near you, I'm afraid, but our local state secondary has a pool. Think we must just be lucky

My kids' school (state comp) has a pool. They use it for PE of course and because they can, they have house swimming galas each year.

It's nice. Sports facs at the school in general are good - new sports hall and gym, big playing fields etc. We are in East Mids. I don't know of another local secondary with a pool FWIW.

Colfes has a pool and a sports scholarship

Sutton Grammar School for Boys has heated swimming pool.

Two local state schools to me have pools, we are up north. A third closed last year as it became too expensive to maintain. So they do exist.

We used to have a pool in my primary school but it was knocked down and we had to go to the leisure centre instead. Used to make us get changed in the school then walk across the playground to the building in our costumes in the cold. It was freezing!

We have 5 secondary schools in our town (one of which is independant) and 2 of the schools have pools (the private school and one of the state schools).

QE Boys in Barnet has a swimming pool.

Those Surrey schools are a bit far away but Colfes is near and looks lovely so I will investigate further. One of the grammars near us used to have a pool - my brother went there so I knew it v well a long time ago. But when we looked round the pool was now a science block and my son was very disappointed! I can see they're expensive to maintain but it's such a shame that so few schools have them.

We are in the same area as you. Local state school doesn't have a pool but apparently has a swim team and they go to the local pool, so maybe check.
Royal Russel also has a pool of you are thinking private. Son would love to go to trinity, think they do lots of galas and lessons there just to show you all the water polo photos in the hallway!! Think the scholarships are general sports ones but can be for a variety of sports.

Trinity pisses me off.

Dc went for a Swimming gala, loved the school, loved the facility, likely would have got a sports scholarship.

Problem is she's female. I know, i thought, most of these schools have an equivalent girls version, i'll look that up.

Indeed they do have an equivalent girls school, run by the same people. But lottle sports, no sports scholarships- scholarships are art, drama and contibution to society type.

Sexism is alive and well.

pepper the OP said she's in South East.

The only state with a pool I know of in that sort of area is Warlingham. I don't know how much use the pupils get out of it. I only know of it as my DD was allowed to use for an afternoon a week from her primary.
really even those of us with DSs at Trinity are pissed off - DD would have loved it there! Different set-up but Croydon HS has a pool, and offers sport scholarships. To be far, Trinity offers art and drama scholarships too so not completely sexist

Even schools with pools don't always use them much. Our son was a keen swimmer at primary so a secondary with a pool was one of his choice reasons. His three top choices all had pools but we were surprised that none of them do that much swimming as part of games/pe lessons - they all said they'd do it for a half term in years 1-2 and then maybe just 2/3 times per year in years 3-5. One of them had a "swimming club" one lunchtime per week, but for the other 2, pupils could only swim in public opening times (outside school times obviously). So despite having pools, there was little swimming being done in them by the pupils. So don't just look to see if they have pools, also check how much access the pupils can have to them, and ask about swimming clubs and teams etc.

Forgot to say, the main reason the three schools we looked at don't do much swimming for their own pupils is that local primary schools seem to have "first option" on them. Eg our village primary booked our nearest comp's pool every Tuesday morning, and it has several other primaries around it, so if they all book half a day, there's no time left for the school's own pupils!

I swam a lot as a teenager and would have loved to have gone to a school with a pool. Good luck with finding one.

Dd is in year 8 at Warlingham and they have half a term on and half a term off of weekly lessons, so for half the year. There's an after school swimming squad for strong swimmers, plus one for improvers and lane swimming on a Friday. We've been happy with the school and so are other parents i speak to.

DD was at an all girls independent school in Bromley and as others have said even though the school had its own pool the pupils didn't use it that much, it was used by the local state primary schools to the extent the school's own pupils only got to use it once a fortnight. It was nice to have though and a good opportunity for the schools to benefit from the facility. Both the state schools I attended, one at primary, one at secondary in the same locality have filled in their pools for a combination of space and cost reasons. My father who paid £50 a month back in the eighties to help fund the roof to the pool in my state comp would be turning in his grave to know that after five years of contributing to the pool roof, the entire facility is now filled in.