Water Safety Scotland and Scottish Swimming today published a new “Situational Analysis of School Swimming in Scotland” that calls for greater implementation of school swimming to ensure children are safer and confident in, on and around water. 

The campaign notes:

On average in Scotland there are 96 water-related fatalities every year – 50 of these are accidental. The average accidental fatality rate is 0.93 per 100,000 people which is disproportionately high in comparison to other countries within the UK.

Water Safety Scotland seeks to prevent water-related fatalities, through the Minister’s Action Plan and implementation of Scotland’s Drowning Prevention Strategy which has an objective to drive a generational change to facilitate great safety education and enjoyment in and around water. 

To help achieve this objective, the situational analysis report examines the outcomes of three national surveys and a mapping exercise carried out to assess the state of school swimming in Scotland.

Carlene McAvoy, Founder of Water Safety Scotland, said:

“Any initiative that seeks to improve water safety education and equip children with the skills they need to be safe in and around water has to be a positive step towards the aims of Scotland’s Drowning Prevention Strategy. Our aim is to ensure a generational change to facilitate greater safety education and enjoyment in and around water. We are supportive of fair and equal access to life skills such as swimming and support the National Framework for Primary School Swimming developed by Scottish Swimming”

The report includes a National School Swimming Landscape Survey in 2024 which found that 86% of local authorities provided school swimming for primary pupils. A more recent analysis since the survey showed that 6 local authorities are currently not delivering any provision.

The type and extent of the provision varies widely across the country. 

The number of school swimming sessions delivered varied considerably from just 4 to 16 with an average number of 9 sessions - down from 11 in the previous landscape survey in 2022. The session length also varied considerably with some sessions as short as 30 minutes.

The 2024 survey found that school swimming was most likely to occur at Primary 4 or Primary 5 but is sometimes delivered up to Primary 7 age. Around the age of 8 years old is recommended for school swimming because children can go swimming independently at this age, are less body conscious and have less anxiety around school swimming.

The report also explored the outcomes of a mapping exercise which found that 83% of primary schools are less than a 15-minute drive from their local pool. In more rural areas primary schools were more likely to be a 15-minute drive away and are considered to be areas of water deprivation. 

The Save Our Pools Campaign is highly relevant to the schools swimming issue.

While proximity to pool space is there, a Scottish Swimming report on the future of swimming facilities in Scotland highlighted that the pool stock is rapidly ageing and continued investment is required to maintain, refurbish and build pools to maintain pool space.

Support for school swimming is clear. A survey of Primary Headteachers found that 98% of Primary School Headteachers supported school swimming as part of their pupils’ curriculum education.

Furthermore, the 2022 Landscape survey found that all local authorities would welcome the development of a National Primary School Swimming Framework. 

Euan Lowe, CEO of Scottish Swimming commented,

“Scottish Swimming has a solution. We have developed a tried and tested National Primary School Swimming Framework with sportscotland and supported by Scottish Water.

The framework has been piloted in 9 Local Authority areas and offers consistent high-quality guidance to local authorities with flexible delivery models to suit different requirements such as a targeted approach for the children who need it most, to rural models with longer journey times to pools.”

What we need now is government investment and support to ensure national implementation of the framework across Scotland. This would ensure fair and equal access for children to gain essential experience in water, crucial water safety knowledge and basic swimming skills.”

IN FULL:

The Situational Analysis of School Swimming report in full