Swimming 'third most important school subject', parent survey finds - as lessons get less accessible

• One in five people in a new poll consider swimming the most important thing they learned at school, with only maths and English ranked higher. 
• Britons see swimming as more important to learn than cooking, cleaning, DIY, first aid, and riding a bike.
• Seven in 10 parents worry for their child’s safety when swimming abroad.
• But over half say money is the biggest barrier to getting them swimming lessons.

A new survey shows that many parents think swimming is one of the most important things they learned in school, amid calls for more accessible lessons for every child.

Charitable social enterprise and gym operator Better recently polled 2,000 people to gauge what role swimming had in the British school experience. Some 1 in 5 respondents said they found it more useful in their adult life than most other key subjects like science (17%), computing (15%), and even sex education (8%) - only outranked by maths and English.

Parents in particular seemed to recognise just how important a skill swimming was. In Better’s survey, 71% of parents said they feared their children might drown abroad. Just 36% were ‘very concerned’ about their child getting lost in a foreign country, compared to 42% who were ‘very concerned’ about the risk of drowning.

In England, local authority-maintained primary schools have to teach swimming and water safety at some point as part of the National Curriculum - although academies and free schools do not always have to follow this. But Sport England’s most recent Active Lives report suggests less swimming lessons are being offered at school now, with over a third of primary school teachers giving less than 10 swimming lessons per pupil during the 2022/23 academic year.

Children’s water skills seemed to be suffering. The amount of children able to swim 25 metres by Year 7 had dropped 6% compared to the 2017/18 school year, the report said. Meanwhile, the Royal Life Saving Society report that 35 children have died unnecessarily from accidental drowning last year, a huge 46% increase over the previous 5 years.

Cost a ‘key barrier’

Better’s survey found that the cost of lessons was the biggest barrier to swimming, affecting 61% of respondents. The availability of public transport (26%), the cost of pool access (58%) and the time it took to get to the pool (28%) were all other factors preventing more children from learning how to swim, it said.

This price barrier was causing a significant disparity, Better added. An earlier Sport England Active Lives survey, from 2022, found that just 62.5% of children from low-income families felt they would be able to rescue themselves by Year 7, compared to 92.2% of children from high-income families.

The gym and leisure centre operator said that many local pools were also having to put prices up, as a result of significant increases in electricity costs. A previous study by Better found that 1 in 5 Britons were struggling to access their local pools due to reduced hours or closing down altogether.

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‘An investment in their safety’

Better’s head of sports and aquatics, Andrew Clarke, said in a statement: “Teaching children to swim not only equips them with the ability to enjoy and participate in various water activities safely but also significantly reduces the risk of drowning, which is a leading cause of accidental death among young children.

“By learning to swim, children gain confidence, improve their physical fitness, and develop a respect for water safety that can prevent tragic accidents,” he continued. “Ensuring that all children have access to swimming lessons is an investment in their safety and well-being, empowering them with a vital skill that can save lives.”

Did you learn to swim at school, and does your child still get swimming lessons via theirs? Let us know by leaving a comment below.