Report calls for funding for swimming lessons
Swimming brand Speedo has compiled a report on the importance of helping more children learn to swim and has submitted the document to the UK parliament.
Findings of the report, Taking Pools To Playgrounds, include a figure of 33% for the number of children in the UK who leave primary school without having learned to swim.
Without action to address this, it warned that by 2026, around 60% of primary-school children would leave without being able to swim. The brand said this was happening at a time when the number of children involved in drowning accidents is on the rise.
It recently set up a pop-up pools programme for pupils at seven schools in the English Midlands and described the results as outstanding.
“In just three weeks,” Speedo said, “more than 57% of the children who took part could swim at least 25 metres. At the start of the programme, only 18% of the children were able to do this.”
Another outcome from the pop-up pools initiative was that 90% of the children were able to demonstrate “safe self-rescue skills”.
It called on the government to invest in swimming lessons for children and to prioritise children in communities with the lowest “swimming attainment”.
