1 in 3 primary school pupils can’t swim at 11
‘Never seen a pool before’
MILLIONS of young children’s lives are being put at risk because schools are not teaching them how to swim, a hard- hitting report has warned.
Almost a third of pupils are leaving primary school with no skills in the water because teachers are focusing on subjects which are graded by inspectors.
Many more have insufficient ability to get themselves out of trouble according to parents of pupils in Year 6 (their last year at primary school), two-thirds of whom fear their children could not save themselves without help.
One in 20 schools do not teach swimming at all, despite the subject being on the curriculum for more than 20 years. Former British Olympic swimmer Steve Parry, chairman of the Swim Group’s Curriculum Swimming and Water Safety Review Group, which released the report, said: ‘We know that over a thousand schools don’t teach swimming even though it is a statutory requirement.
‘At the moment, we are failing our children by not helping them learn an essential skill. Hundreds of people drown every year and that is something we can remedy.
‘Water safety is the only part of the national curriculum that will save children’s lives. It can’t be treated as an optional extra.
‘We would welcome the opportunity to work with Ofsted in setting quality standards for curriculum swimming.’ The summer holidays typically see a spike in the number of children drowning.
A total of 300 people died in accidental drownings in the UK last year, including 40 aged 19 or under. This was up a quarter on 2015. The Swim Group, which was formed following the publication of the Government’s strategy document Sporting Futures in 2015 to look at challenges around water safety in schools, said the standard of swimming lessons at nearly two in five primaries is so poor they do not meet national curriculum standards.
It accused heads of ‘prioritising subjects for which they are graded [ by Ofsted]’ and not taking the matter ‘seriously enough’.
The organisation called for measures including better training and resources for teachers to tackle the problem.
At present there is no statutory requirement for primary teachers or support staff to have professional training to teach swimming. Only 11 teacher training colleges include it.
Janet Einecker, who is based in Croydon, south London, and has taught more than 30,000 children to swim since 1985, said: ‘There’s a huge number of students who have never seen a pool before. That was never the thing when I was younger. We used to have lessons a lot.’
Children and families minister Robert Goodwill said: ‘Swimming is a vital life skill and schools have a duty to teach children how to swim and learn about water safety at primary school.
‘ These findings show that more needs to be done.’
An Ofsted spokesman said it would discuss the report’s recommendations with the Swim Group and the Department for Education, but added: ‘Setting of quality standards such as these would not directly be a matter for Ofsted.’