Good Practice within the West Midlands

The Region has recently completed a case study highlighting a Primary School in Sandwell as an example of good practice in school swimming.

Does your school have a great approach to school swimming or water safety that deserves to be highlighted?

If you think your school deserves a spotlight, email us at westmidland@swimming.org and tell us about the fantastic work you’re doing.

National Curriculum

Swimming is the only sport that features in the National Curriculum in England:

Physical Education Programmes of Study.

Purpose of study

A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities. It should provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.

Aims

The national curriculum for physical education aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• are physically active for sustained periods of time
• engage in competitive sports and activities
• lead healthy, active lives

Swimming and water safety

All schools must provide swimming instruction either in key stage 1 or key stage 2.

In particular, pupils should be taught to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke]
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Department for Education (2013)

For more information about swimming and water safety lessons in schools, please email schoolswimming@swimming.org.