Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of primary school aged children had swimming lessons provided through school in each of the last five years.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Swimming and water safety are compulsory elements of the PE national curriculum at key stages 1 and 2. Schools receive general funding for all curriculum provision, including Physical Education (and by extension swimming and water safety lessons). This funding is not ring-fenced or split by subject and schools have the flexibility to allocate their funding to deliver a diverse curriculum which best suits the needs of all their pupils.

Schools can also choose to use their share of the £320 million Primary PE and Sport Premium to support swimming and water safety. The premium can be used to fund the professional development and training available to schools to train staff to support high quality swimming and water safety lessons for their pupils.

The premium can also be used to provide additional top-up swimming lessons to pupils who have not been able to meet the national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety following the delivery of core swimming and water safety lessons.

The department does not collect data on the proportion of primary school children who have received swimming and water safety lessons. However all schools are required to publish information on the percentage of their pupils in year 6 who have met each of the 3 swimming and water safety national curriculum requirements.