High costs and time pressures mean that teachers are finding it much harder to help their pupils learn even the basics of swimming, according to a snap poll for Tes.

Of more than 1,000 teachers who responded, only a quarter said that their school had no problems providing swimming lessons for pupils. The rest all cited obstacles – with the cost of transport the most mentioned.

The Twitter poll was launched after a report from the Curriculum Swimming and Water Safety Review Group found that one in three children leaves primary school without the swimming skills expected for their age.

Jon Glenn, Swim England’s learn to swim and workforce director, said pupils may be inspired by the example of Adam Peaty, who has recently won two world titles and broken his own world records – twice.

“We want lots more Adam Peatys," Glenn said. "But, actually, the most important thing is to get those basic aquatic skills and be safe in and around water.”

Government support for a national campaign on school swimming and water safety was one of the 16 recommendations in the review group’s report, along with intensive swimming lessons and exploring the use of mobile pools or even safe outdoor swimming opportunities and giving private operators tax breaks to open their pools to schools.

As swimming is included in the national curriculum, schools are expected to fund it from their main budget. Most schools with primary-age pupils will receive some PE and sport premium money but this cannot be used to provide national curriculum PE, although additional activities can be offered, including enhanced swimming programmes.

Sinking feeling

A quarter of teachers responding to the Twitter poll said the provision of swimming lessons in their school was "fine". But the cost of transport was cited as an obstacle by 31 per cent, curriculum pressure by 27 per cent, and the cost of pool hire by 17 per cent.

Some said there were several factors to overcome.

I said curriculum pressure but the cost of pool hire and transport also a problem. Taken together it's a real headache. — Clare Sealy (@ClareSealy) July 25, 2017

Takes all afternoon including part of lunch & the kids are only in the pool for 30 minutes. — Michelle Bailey (@Bailey_mrsm) July 25, 2017

Lack of capacity for us in Putney. They are booked up with toddler classes/private schools on long contracts. We could walk there too! — Josh Mc Inerney (@JoshMcInerney1) July 26, 2017

The review group report says that most primary schools (72 per cent) access public facilities for swimming and the average distance travelled is 2.8 miles.

Responding to the review group’s report, Robert Goodwill, children’s minister, said: “These findings show that more needs to be done to ensure all schools feel confident teaching swimming to students, which is why we will continue to work closely with Swim England and the Swim Group to review the recommendations within this report.”

This is an edited version of an article in the 4 August edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. This week's Tes magazine is available at all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here

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