Schools: Swimming and Life-saving Skills

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for initiating this debate on the very important—though often underreported—subjects of swimming and life-saving skills. All primary-aged children should learn to swim. It is a basic life skill and a life-saving skill, whether it involves developing the ability to save themselves—and possibly others as well—in difficult circumstances, or learning particular life-saving skills, such as CPR and how to get help in a medical emergency.

The Government seem to be clear on the additional action required to achieve this, as evidenced by the announcement in October 2018 that primary schools were to receive extra support and improved guidance to help make sure that all children can swim confidently and know how to stay safe in and around water. It is to involve the provision of more swimming lessons, extra teaching and improved guidance, supported by the PE and sport premium. All this is to be welcomed.

What was not spelled out was how much of the PE and sport premium would be dedicated to this extra support for swimming and life-saving skills. The premium has around £300 million available to it, so can the Minister say whether the swimming initiative is to be taken from that, or have new resources been allocated to fund the enhanced activity?

Presumably, the intention is to build on the 2017 Review of Curriculum Swimming and Water Safety, published by the National Water Safety Forum—an association of bodies with a range of interests and responsibilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, their review contained 16 recommendations to the Government. Almost two years later, how many of those recommendations have been met or are in the process of being met?

The Local Government Association has called on the Government to do more to raise awareness of water safety issues. It stressed that there needs to be greater emphasis in the school curriculum on water safety, drowning prevention and messages around cold water shock and what that can do to those who unexpectedly find themselves in water. The statistics that most resonated with me in the LGA briefing were that more people in the UK die each year from drowning than from fires at home, and that more people drown while out walking or running than while swimming.

These facts underline the need for young people to be prepared for the dangers that can await them. This is why the initiative announced by the Government in October last year is to be welcomed. It will be delivered in partnership with Swim England, as part of the Government’s sport strategy, Sporting Future, committed to ensuring that every child leaves primary school able to swim. This is a very necessary objective.

The measures were announced days after a government-backed review of swimming and water safety in primary schools, entitled Swim England Parents and Curriculum Swimming Research 2018, was published. That survey found that swimming standards vary in schools—as noble Lords have mentioned—despite it being compulsory in the national curriculum. Following its recommendations, the Government was said to be,

“working with Swim England to provide extra guidance to help schools deliver safe, fun and effective swimming lessons”.

This is necessary because, as the RNLI reported in its excellent briefing for this debate, and has been mentioned already, today around 1,000 schools in England do not teach swimming, even though it is a statutory requirement.

I hope the Minister will confirm that schools failing to meet their legal requirements will quickly and decisively be brought into line. These include academies, which may not have to follow the national curriculum but have a duty to see that their children are properly trained to ensure their safety. Children who attend schools that do not provide swimming lessons—and their parents—are being failed. This cannot be allowed to continue.

The problem may be much greater than this. There are around 18,000 primary schools in England. When the Swim England survey asked parents of children in reception, year 3 and year 6 about their child’s swimming provision—as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said—it emerged that a mere 53% of primary school children in England have swimming lessons, just over half. For the figure to be 33% for reception children is perhaps not too much of a surprise, but for year 3 the figure was only 63%, with an even more disappointing 64% receiving lessons in year 6—that is, children aged 10 and 11. To say that there is much room for improvement would be an understatement.

Access to pools may be an issue, although that should not be used as an excuse, because timings can be flexible. The Local Government Association highlighted that 72% of primary schools use publicly owned facilities for their swimming activity, but access can be compromised as a result of issues of cost, availability and transport. Quite a few independent schools with swimming pools work in partnership with state schools to provide access, and I hope that that can be increased.

Swimming comes under physical education, and the narrowing of the curriculum since the introduction of the EBacc has reduced opportunities as a result. Recent research in secondary schools by the Youth Sport Trust found that timetabled PE time is decreasing, and the reduction is greater as students get older. At key stage 4, 58% of schools had reduced timetabled PE in the past five years, and nearly a quarter had done so in the past year. By the time young people are in sixth form, they are doing barely half an hour a week.

The same survey found that nearly 40% of teachers said that their provision had declined because core or EBacc subjects had been given additional time, with students taken out of timetabled PE for extra tuition in those subjects. Those results were cited last week by her Majesty’s chief inspector, who said that the result,

“chimes with our own two-year research programme on the curriculum”.

PE is likely to be a subject that has been affected by that curriculum narrowing, and it would appear that that is not contested by the DfE, because I found Amanda Spielman’s speech on its website. Children learning about water safety cannot be treated as an optional extra and must not be squeezed out of the curriculum.

Life-saving skills are equally important, and we welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State in January that all secondary school-leavers in England are to be taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation and general first aid for common injuries, including defibrillator use, from 2020. The British Heart Foundation described the plans as a decisive moment in attempts to improve on the less-than-10% survival rate for people in the UK with cardiac arrests while not in hospital. It is surely no coincidence that in countries that teach CPR in schools, cardiac arrest survival rates are more than double those in Britain. There are 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year and, each day, people needlessly die because bystanders do not have the confidence or knowledge to perform CPR and defibrillation. It is absolutely appropriate that all schoolchildren should be given the opportunity to learn these skills. Introducing CPR lessons in health education in all state-funded secondary schools is a significant step that could lead only to increased survival odds for countless people.

Of course, schools alone are not the answer. The responsibility for ensuring that children have enough opportunity not just to exercise and live healthier lives but build the skills that may save lives ultimately rests with parents. The combination of parental awareness and good-quality, consistent learning options in school will lead to future generations being better able to keep themselves and others safe.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to answer this Question for Short Debate, and thank the noble Lord for raising the important issue of swimming and life-saving skills in schools. Swimming is a vital life-saving skill. This is why pupils are taught to swim and about water safety at primary school. I am delighted to be able to update the House today on the work the Government are doing to improve swimming and water safety skills in schools. Being able to swim and learn about water safety, including the dangers of open water swimming and cold water shock, can prevent accidents and drowning fatalities.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked how many sports are impacted by one’s ability to swim. It opens up opportunities to participate in a wide range of water-based activities, such as canoeing, rowing and sailing. I cannot get to the figure of 20 that he mentioned, but he is correct that it impacts on many opportunities, which is why all pupils should have the opportunity to learn to swim.

The Government support the view of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that no child should leave primary school unable to meet a minimum standard of capability and confidence in swimming. This is reflected in the national curriculum, which includes swimming and water safety as compulsory elements at primary level. It also provides a frame of reference for academies in deciding what to offer as part of the broad and balanced curriculum. We know that too many pupils leave primary school unable to meet those expectations. We are working closely with colleagues in government and the sport and education sectors to raise attainment.

In 2015 the Government asked the Swim Group to submit an independent report setting out recommendations for improving curriculum swimming as part of the Sporting Future strategy. The Swim Group includes representatives from across the swimming and education sectors. The report demonstrated the need to do more to support schools in delivering swimming and water safety lessons to all pupils.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about progress in implementing the recommendations. To date we have implemented four of them. Sport England is also updating its facilities guidance for local authorities. We have increased the flexibility of pupil premium funding, and we are including a communications strategy, which was recommended, for educational stakeholders. For secondary schools we are also including an updated communications strategy. We took the recommendations very seriously, and we are endeavouring to implement as many as possible.

All primary schools in receipt of PE and sport premium, including academies, have to report on how many of their pupils meet the swimming expectations. We have increased support for schools to use their PE and sport premium to increase training and provide additional top-up swimming lessons. New free guidance is available from the Swim England website, which covers everything schools need to know about how to provide high-quality swimming and water safety lessons to all pupils.

We have worked with the Independent Schools Council to encourage meaningful partnerships between independent schools and their local state primaries. For example, Cheltenham Ladies’ College is working with local partners to provide additional swimming lessons to pupils not able to swim after being taught swimming in their core PE lessons.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about SEND pupils. We agree that it is most important that all pupils have the ability to learn to swim. The Swim Group reported that not all pupils with SEND have access to swimming and water safety lessons in school. More work needs to be done to understand the current provision, and any barriers to inclusive lessons. We have funded a project to help address this issue—the Youth Sport Trust-led Inclusion 2020 project has identified five local areas to form partnerships to improve swimming and water safety: Durham, Dorset, Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire and West Yorkshire. We will review the evaluation of these local innovation partnerships when it is available in 2020.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington also asked about the resources available for swimming generally, and I can reassure him that, again, there is a lot going on. Sport England is working with nearly 100 local authorities that have plans for additional swimming pool provision. Since 2012 it has invested £67 million in 46 local authority facilities to include pools, which results in about £700 million in investment from those authorities.

We will continue to build on this work across government, working with and supporting schools, county sports partnerships, and swimming and water safety bodies and charities. We are working with Swim England to publish online videos that will support teachers in assessing pupils’ swimming capabilities. These will be available to all schools this spring. Our swimming and water safety communications activity will focus on supporting a water safety awareness week. This addresses part of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about highlighting the dangers of being around water. The awareness week will include information on that subject, and a new guidance pack for parents on school swimming and water safety will be published on the Swim England website by the end of March, including information on how to be safe in and around water.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked some related questions—and one in particular, about drowning following excessive intake of alcohol. The noble Lord is right to highlight this as an important subject. Issues around alcohol will make up part of the health education taught in schools. Combating alcohol-related drowning is a priority for partners such as the Royal Life Saving Society, with its national campaign, “Don’t Drink and Drown”. This campaign reaches out to universities and warns drinkers to steer clear of walking by or entering water when under the influence of alcohol.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, also asked about the collection of data on drowning. The collection of data on water-related incidents is an important part of reducing the number of deaths by drowning. I welcome the collaboration on data collection through the water incident database, but I will raise the issue with the Department for Transport, which has the overall responsibility for water safety.

County sports partnerships review schools’ reporting of the use of their PE and sport premium and this year we will be looking at those reports in more detail. We will be launching a school sports action plan in the spring of this year. It will have at its heart how sport can assist in the development of character and well-being in pupils. Swim England is involved in its capacity as a national governing body of sport.

My noble friend Lord Dunlop raised several questions. On the sharing of experiences between English and Scottish schools on swimming, Swim England is working closely with Swim Scotland and other swimming national governing bodies. They are sharing the outcomes of the Swim Group report and the government actions to support these national governing bodies to work with their own Governments.

My noble friend asked about data. The Active Lives Children and Young People Survey will provide annual data on swimming following findings on school swimming and water safety in the December 2018 publication of the survey. These annual findings will give us robust information on the swimming and water safety skills of pupils. We have also changed the reporting for primary schools to ensure that the mandatory requirement to report the use of the premium on their school website includes a requirement to publish information on their pupils’ swimming and water safety ability.

Lastly, my noble friend asked whether the picture is changing. Sports England’s Active Lives Children and Young People Survey collected data on more than 100,000 pupils and reported its first findings in December last year. Seventy-seven per cent of year 7 pupils reported being able to swim the 25 metre unaided requirement in that survey.

Life-saving teaching in schools also relates to work that the Government are doing in health education. We are making health education compulsory in all state-funded schools in England and voluntary teaching will begin in September of this year. In doing this we have responded to the sustained calls for mandatory first aid in schools so that pupils can have the access they need to knowledge about life-saving and first-aid skills.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about the teaching of water safety and rightly highlighted the importance of learning about it. Our guidance on health education encourages schools to look for opportunities to draw links between subjects and integrate teaching where appropriate. There will be an opportunity for schools to bring together what they teach in life-saving with their swimming lessons. The new water safety guidance pack can help them to do that more effectively.

We have proposed in the updated draft statutory guidance that health education will include first-aid and life-saving skills in core content for the first time. This will support whole school approaches to fostering pupil well-being and developing pupils’ resilience and ability to self-regulate. We encourage teachers to draw upon high-quality resources in the classroom, including guidance on first aid and emergencies from the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation.

As such, health education should complement what is already taught and develop pupils’ core knowledge and broad understanding to enable them to lead healthy, active lives. It will be up to schools to decide whether and how to build on the core swimming expectations in the context of their wider health education provision.

The debate we have had today has highlighted how important swimming and life-saving skills are.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The Minister has answered a considerable number of questions but he has not answered one of mine in relation to the funding that supports the announcement in October last year of additional support for schools. The figure of £300 million in the PE and sport premium was mentioned. My question was whether the activities announced in October 2018 are to be paid for through that—and, if so, how much—or is it to be new resources from the DfE?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Apologies to the noble Lord; I omitted that in my reply. Extra help for schools was announced on 18 October but there was no new funding specifically for school swimming. However, we have encouraged use of the £320-million PE and sport fund, from which all primary schools receive each year to support school swimming and water safety. This works out on average at about £18,000 per single-form-of-entry primary available for sports activity. More broadly, as part of the 2012 Olympic legacy, we have invested nearly £1 billion in sport in aggregate since then.

This debate has highlighted how important swimming and life-saving skills are, and the role that schools can play in teaching them. I hope that the range of actions I have set out demonstrate just how seriously the Government take the ambition that all pupils ought to leave primary school being able to swim, and that the new health education requirements can help to build on that. I hope all noble Lords will join me in doing all we can to make sure that schools are aware of the support and take advantage of it.