A SCHOOL trust has vowed to keep its pupils swimming regularly after research warned a majority of primary school children will be unable to swim a length of a pool.
The North West Academies Trust (NWAT) runs Delamere Academy and Weaverham Academy in Northwich, and Oak View Academy in Winsford.
CEO Steve Docking says pupils at NWAT schools will never be 'cut adrift' after research conducted by Swim England and a group of MPs said most primary-age pupils will be unable to swim a full length of a pool by 2025.
Mr Docking believes that is a 'serious failure' because swimming provides 'such superb health, fitness and confidence benefits to youngsters'.
Pupils at NWAT schools start swimming lessons at reception age or year one, and more than 90 per cent can swim at least 25m by the time they leave – and often much sooner.
"We would never teach maths or English with a hope that after four weeks they would get it, so why should swimming be any different?" Mr Docking said.
Swimming will never be a second-class subject says NWAT CEO
"Let's get all children swimming weekly. Schools should be proud to lead on this and there's no reason it should be considered an elite sport.
"Schools will blame budget cuts or the lack of pool time – they will blame anyone but themselves for not providing swimming as a weekly activity.
"It's a challenge for sure, but the rewards are huge in terms of pupils’ confidence, ability and health.
"I'm very passionate about this subject and I'd urge all schools to act to make sure the worrying projections in this report never come to fruition."
As part of the national curriculum, all primary schools must provide swimming lessons.
Every pupil is required to be able to swim at least 25 metres, use a range of strokes and perform safe self-rescue.
Swimming will never be a second-class subject says NWAT CEO
But with pools closed and pupils not having face-to-face learning for much of the 2020-21 academic year, swimming lessons were 'massively affected' according to the report by the all-party parliamentary group for swimming and Swim England, the sport's national governing body.
Before the Covid pandemic around 25 per cent of children could not swim the statutory 25 metres when they left primary school.
Now the figures suggest that more than 1.1 million pupils are expected to leave primary between 2021-22 and 2025-26 unable to swim one length unaided.
Tom Freeman, PE teacher at Delamere Academy, added: "We certainly don't follow this downward trend.
"Going from last year's data we had 100 per cent of children in years four to six who could swim a length of the pool.
"The cost of swimming at our usual venues, and the transport to get there, is prohibitive at the moment due to the need to protect Covid bubbles within the school, so we organised a portable heated pool to be set up outside so all our children can take part in lessons, and they are absolutely loving it."
Swimming will never be a second-class subject says NWAT CEO
Fiona Whittaker, executive headteacher at Oak View, added: "Our children really enjoy their swimming lessons and look forward to them.
"We do everything we can to ensure that our children achieve the 25m target as a minimum.
"We're really pleased that, because of their swimming lessons with school, some of our families now regularly swim together too."
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