Black Country Active (Active Partnership) unveil insightful new report on Primary School swimming

08/04/20

Active Black Country, the strategic lead for sport and physical activity across the Black Country has published a new insight report entitled ‘Primary School Swimming in the Black Country’.

This report is the first of its kind to be produced nationally by an Active Partnership and is supported by the National Governing Body for Swimming, Swim England and the Association for Physical Education (afPE).

Swimming is still one of the most popular ways in which we like to be active, therefore it is crucial that we understand the opportunities available to our young people in this important activity. School swimming is often the one and only opportunity for all children to learn to swim and know how to be safe in and around water and Swim England suggest that it is likely that children who don’t learn to swim during school lessons, will never learn this lifesaving skill.

Since 2017, all schools have been required to publish their swimming and water safety attainment levels as part of reporting for the PE and Sport Premium. This new report published by Active Black Country collates the results provided by all Black Country Primary Schools, giving an analysis on how schools are using the funding, headline findings across the key indicators, an in-depth analysis of differences between local authority areas and a look at the relationship between school swimming opportunities and other indicators such as deprivation and child obesity.

This report identifies that:

• 4 in 10 primary school leavers in the Black Country can’t swim 25m
• Less than half of Black Country year 6 pupils meet the required standard of being able to perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations
• Young people living in deprived areas have considerably lower levels of swimming proficiency than those living in other areas

Moving forward, Active Black Country will work with Local Authority partners and education networks to develop Local Action Plans to address the issues raised in this report.