A new Royal Life Saving Society Australia special report on learn to swim shows encouraging trends in children returning to lessons after the covid pandemic was lifted.
Estimated 1.7 million children now attend lessons, which is a 20% increase over pre-pandemic enrollments.
Justin Scarr, RLS chief executive officer, says that this is an additional 300,000. This growth is most apparent among preschool-aged children.
This growth, however, is not enough for children aged seven to twelve years old to learn lessons. It means that at least 100,000 children in the late primary school years will likely not return to lessons before highschool.
Scarr claims that the lack of water safety lessons to older children increases the risk of drowning this summer and over the next few years.
“School-age children should be able to swim again and have water safety programs.” We need a national medium-term plan to get children aged seven and twelve, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, back into lessons.
He says that the notable growth in enrollments of children under 4 may be due to the availability of vouchers for swimming in preschool, especially in New South Wales, and parental interest in Queensland.
RLS recommends that a national plan be developed to help children who have not learned to swim to swim.
* Enhance existing vacation and school programs
* Targeted programs can increase participation, particularly for those most at-risk
* Track and promote national swimming and water safety benchmarks
* Improve water safety and lifesaving skills for teenagers
* Fix infrastructure issues, create or upgrade swimming schools and aquatic centres
Swim it Forward
Swim Australia continues to address the decline of swim lessons for school-aged children and encourage more participation in swim lessons through their Swim It Forward campaign.
Their research revealed that over half of Australian children (55%) don’t learn to swim because it is too expensive to enroll in lessons. In recent years, more than 8,000,000 swimming lessons have been missed due to covid.
Swim It Forward is an initiative that removes the financial barriers and enrolls more Australian families who are financially disadvantaged in lessons at their local swimming school.
The lower the chance of drowning, the greater the confidence and competence in the water for every child that they place in a learn to swim program.
Swim it Forward, and you can donate lessons to help make swimming a child’s superpower!
A child will learn one lesson for $20
A child will receive lessons for one term at $200
A child will receive lessons for one year at $800
Please donate to Swim It Forward here.
SPLASH! Magazine’s first article, Swim lessons up 20% but primary children still behind appeared first Magazine.
