Do you think swimming lessons should be compulsory?
After a significant rise in the number of young people drowning in Australia, there has been a call for compulsory swimming lessons at primary schools.
According to the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS), 371 people aged between 15 and 24 drowned between 2002 and 2012 (a 25 per cent increase on previous decades).
CEO Rob Bradley says that many children are no longer taught basic swimming skills, and 20 per cent of kids leaving primary school in coming months will be unable to stay afloat for two minutes.
The organisation also believes many families simply can’t afford swimming lessons and having them as part of the curriculum would be one way to ensure all children receive training.
This post by Anabelle Cottee is a poignant reminder of the importance of water safety. She writes:
Ten years ago, I watched my baby brother’s lifeless body being pulled out of our family swimming pool by my devastated older sister.
I remember standing there, watching in disbelief, as she carried our precious Lachie inside. He was grey with blue lips and completely limp. There was no pulse. No heartbeat.
My sister, only 13 at the time, desperately tried to remember the CPR she had learnt in school while Mum called the ambulance. But all she could say was, “Please help me. My baby was in the pool. Please, please help me.”
My sister cleared Lachie’s airways and he immediately began vomiting torrents of water. But he still wasn’t breathing. Time stopped. Mum’s fingers pressed furiously on Lachie’s chest as she took instructions from the 000 operator over the phone. We finally heard three ambulances scream up the driveway, just as Lachie quietly gasped his first breath. A horde of paramedics rushed in, moving us away from him.
An officer positioned a mask over Lachie’s face. He scooped up my limp brother, and placed him in the back of an ambulance. Mum followed in front of another one – she wasn’t allowed to be with him. My siblings and I stayed at home.
Then there was silence.
I slumped to the ground, wondering how something like this could happen to my beautiful two-year-old brother. We had all been with him all afternoon, cheering him on as he managed to swim a few metres in between my mother and sister without his floaties.
Mum had been with him the whole time. How could this have happened?
We later found out that Lachie, determined as he still is, had let himself back into the pool that afternoon through the faulty pool gate without any of us knowing. We guess he had wanted to practice his swimming again. Mum had dressed and bathed him, and left him sitting with my other siblings who were watching a movie while she cooked dinner.
Annabelle with her brother Lachie
She and Dad had begged the landlord for weeks to fix the faulty gate, but nothing had been done. If they had just fixed that bloody gate, maybe we wouldn’t have been in this situation.
Royal Life Saving recently released a shocking new statistic, estimating that 85 per cent of home pools fail to meet safety standards, including with fencing or gates.
They said that many people often think that their pool fence is safe but wear and tear, weather damage or ground erosion may create an unexpected weakness.
If our gate had shut as it was supposed to have done, Lachie wouldn’t have been able to find his way back into the pool. And he wouldn’t have nearly drowned.
Lachie was in hospital for a month after his accident, spending two weeks in Intensive Care on life support. He suffered two cardiac arrests (one en route to the hospital), four respiratory arrests and a stroke, which left him temporarily paralysed down the left side of his body. We were asked to donate his organs twice.
Miraculously, our little angel pulled through, defying the statistics. He had been under water for at least five minutes, and we lived at least half an hour away from the nearest hospital.
Ten years later, Lachie is the person we always thought he would be. He is bubbly, sensitive and caring. He’s also sharp as a tack, and amazes me with his wisdom. He is incredibly resilient; he doesn’t let things knock him down.
After a few years in physiotherapy and occupational therapy, Lachie regained full use of his left side. He has no brain damage, and is a normal, healthy child in Year 8 at school. He is our angel, and we’re lucky to have him.
Royal Life Saving’s new figures showed that almost 30 children under the age of Australia have drowned in the past year. But for the quick thinking of my older sister, Lachie could have been one of those statistics. Don’t let it happen to you.
Several websites have information on ways to help reduce the number of drownings.
There is information at homepoolsafety.com.au and keepwatch.com.au.
Home owners are being urged to examine their home pools thoroughly and a checklist also is available at the homepoolsafety.com.au website.
Annabelle Cottee works in the media and communications industry and has a particular affinity for tea, vanilla gelato and the ocean (not necessarily at the same time). She sporadically tweets at @annabellecottee, but is much more often found stalking Ryan Gosling memes on Tumblr.
Comments
99 Comments so far
i have worked in pools for four years now as party leader, as a a teacher for 3 yrs and a lifeguard for 2 and a half. and far too often i hear stories about kids drowning and many similar to this. it’s so simple to go down to a local center and get lessons. and although sometimes they are expensive there’s always programs like project 10000 and the YMCA open doors. nothing makes me happier then seeing a child being able to swim by them self and knowing that if something were to happen all my students, even my 4 year olds, could save them self.
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I just want to say I have a child I have taken to many swimming lessons and they are rubbish and don’t work. They do the same thing each lesson based on what they assessed them at the first day and don’t progress. I’ve forked out hundreds maybe even thousands of dollars in swimming lessons and i still wouldn’t let my son out of my sight near water. He did swimming lessons all this year but they just do the same thing every time, kick the board to the other end of the pool, practice some big arms and bubble breathing etc, but never progress. When he was under five he was always just doing stupid slashy slashy stuff repeatedly every time, humtdy-dumpy sat on the wall humpy dumpy had a great fall and swim three feet back to the wall. I hope he had fun for all the money I have spent but it certainly hasn’t taught him to swim. The most he seems to progress is free play swimming for fun at the local pool.
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I don’t know where you’ve done lessons, but he should have progressed and moved up to a class that teaches harder swimming on a regular basis. My youngest was only in that sort of a group a few weeks before she moved up. Maybe a different swim school?
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FYI: The “had a great fall and swim three feet back to the wall” is a huge part of teaching water safety. If a small child falls or jumps into a pool, it’s unlikely they’re going to be more than 3 or 4 feet away from the wall; the point of that exercise is to teach them that when they fall, they should immediately swim back to the side and hold on. It saves lives.
All Austswim accredited instructors of swimming and water safety (that is what their qualification is called) are required to teach WATER SAFETY. What they teach depends on your child’s level of ability. When I taught the little ones (babies and young children up to around the age of 7) I reinfirced “fall in, swim back to the wall and hold on” at every lesson. I frequently had them do this fully dressed; I also taught them how to float on their backs for long periods of time.
If you’re unhappy with your child’s swimming lessons then by all means pull them out and send them elsewhere; lessons are not cheap and you deserve to feel reassured that your children are learning something with the money you spend. But please keep in mind that the “swimming lessons” part (e.g. kicking on a board, streamline/”rocketships” on a pool noodle, blowing bubbles etc) are NOT considered instruction in water safety – swimming skills/stroke development and water safety are considered two different things by Austswim and are treated as such.
Just because your children haven’t mastered the 4 strokes does NOT mean they are not learning water safety.
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that’s very sad to hear. and i agree that many of the much younger lessons can be rather useless.
but not all lessons are useless and sometimes it takes just finding the right teacher and the right center. i’ve worked for numerous centers and i’ve seen children from many different centers in school lessons. and some places can’t teach children anything.
but go to a few centers during lessons and take a look at their teachers and see if there’s something you like. there’s over 15 swimming centers within half an hour of me and even more within 40 minutes. but what’s a little driving knowing your child will never die from drowning?
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Kids can drown in a dogs dish of water. You do have to watch them, and empty wading pools and remove access to water as much as you can while they are little. Never leave a kid in a bathtub alone!
We have had swimming cut from our school due to lack of teachers able to supervise. They cut free swims from the swimming carnival, then they cut swimming altogether.
Swimming carnivals are only for kids 8 and up (at our school) and only if they pass a swim test beforehand. So there are kids who don’t get to even hop in the water if they havn’t got the basics. No baby pool for them either! I can see why there are extremely strict measures with regards to swimming, but also there is a generation of kids who won’t be able to swim, since swimming is cut again and again.
Our town is full of good swimmers, due to the fact that there are dedicated trainers and parents who want their children to swim to save their life. And also because it is so damn hot here, there is relief from the heat in the pool.
It costs money, yes it is an ongoing thing. And like taking your children to the doctor or to the dentist it is an appointment you must keep.
And do it regularly. I see so many kids who do about 10 lessons a year and they can’t swim. I see kids who do 40 lessons a year and they can’t swim. You do have to put the time, effort and money into it since it is so important.
Go to the pool every chance you get, and let them have a play to get their water confidence up – just as important as formal lessons, then they are cool with trying to go under and wrangling a kickboard.
I cannot stress how important it is.
And when my 7 year old whinges that he is sick of swimming lessons I tell him that he won’t be allowed to go waterskiing, or jetskiing or surfing in the beach if he can’t swim. He usually stops whining then.
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Thanks for sharing Lachie’s story. It makes me wonder if primary school is too late to start compulsory swimming lessons. Both my children have been going since 8 months and 6 months and I have to drive just over half an hour to the nearest town with an indoor heated pool to get there. They love it, I love it, and my Dad comes along for a Poppy day, ’cause he loves it! Miss 4 fell in a pool at a party at age 2y 5m, just popped up again like she had been taught, and got herself out, my husband was astonished, he didn’t even have time to jump in after her, infant lessons encouraged by the maternal and childcare nurse or sponsered by centrelink might be a good way to get people in the pool.
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it’s never too late to start lessons.
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Oh Annabelle..my heart dropped when I saw the title of this post. Thank GOD Lachie has recovered and is still with you. It must have been incredibly terrifying for your family and so frustrating knowing it was easily preventable if that door had been fixed! Thanks for an excellent article
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Karl Lagerfeld managed to offend Adele, Russian men, Italians, Greeks and the royal family. Picture: AP
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With 50 million new consumers in the region reaching the legal drinking age every year, some of the growth is being driven by an increase in population, but changing social attitudes and rising income levels among women are a significant factor, says Mark Barnard, the commercial director in the region for Diageo, the owner of Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff.
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In Thailand, consumption of alcoholic drinks by women grew by 275 per cent between 2005 and 2009. A similar trend has been detected in South Korea, where the number of women who say that they drink alcohol regularly has risen by 70 per cent over the past decade.
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Not all Australians come from a culture where swimming is a part of life and therefore I do think it should be part of a school curriculum
I also think the idea of subsidised swmming lessons is worthwhile pursuing
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You could argue that it is these kids who are most at risk?
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Exactly! That’s why it should be through schools – so they get exposed to at least the basics.
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I live on a farm in far north qld where it’s always hot and we are constantly down at the creek. What terrifies me is that creek is within 500 metres of our home and we don’t have a fence – by nature of the property with machinery in and out of the yard we can’t have one. I can fence off a section while my kids are young (11mth old and one on the way) but I am so scared for when they’re that little bit older that they’ll end up down there in a split second.
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Hi JessG, we were in a similar situation to you when we were growing up, although we had a dam, not a creek. My parents made sure they taught us how to swim from a really young age and educated us about the dangers of dams and creeks. They can be really great places to swim and cool down but they can also be really dangerous if you aren’t careful. We were rough and tumble kids but we listened to our parents and we made sure we only swam in the dam when mum or dad were with us. I think if you educate your kids as early as possible about the risks and make sure they can swim, they will be okay.
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In QLD kids do swimming lessons for PE. My daughter is in prep, and in term 1 they did swimming once a week, and now it is term 4 they are also doing swimming once a week. It is a 40 minute session, though the school makes it plain that it is not lessons as such, more water safety and awareness. Our small suburban, older school, has it’s own pool, as do many in this area that were built in the the 1920′s and 1930′s. When I was a kid in NSW our swimming lessons were in the local creek that went down to the sea, we all walked down with our towel and thongs, along a dusty hot dirt road. I am surprised to hear that swimming is not a part of everyone’s PE. When you are having PE anyway, why not make it swimming? Shouldn’t take too much time out of the curriculum.
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It’s more the travel to and from the pool or beach.
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I am currently on placement with a primary school who just finished their swimming lessons for the year. Two weeks of lessons is not enought and in those two weeks they missed virtually half the day. It really isn’t feasible to try to fit swimming into a weekly curriculum. Unless a school has a pool on the premises you are losing time to get ther and back.
Also since I started placement I have read thre articles blaming schools for deficiencies in parts of life. One was people can’t cook or budget because school doesn’t teach home economics any more, this swimming thing and one about social skills. Seriously at what point are we send children to school to be raised and where is the line between teaching and bringing up people’s children for them?
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I totally agree with this.
I did two weeks of swimming lessons in primary over summer each year. We too wasted half a day getting down to the pool in a bus.
Only the kids that had private lessons on top of this actually learnt how to swim. The rest of us learnt some very basic skills but never learnt how to properly swim.
At 36 I still can’t swim, and its a regret I have to this day, but my parents could not afford swimming lessons for my brother and I.
However, I don’t think you can lump this into school responsibility. Unless there is a school on the premises, which most public schools do not, it is very difficult to accomodate more than 2 weeks of swimming per year.
My 3y/o son has been going for pribate lessons weekly for a year, and done all the holiday intensives as well and he still in level 1 even after all those hours in the pool. You cannot expect schools to cover this in their curriculum.
I think, if you have a child, t is your responisiblity to ensure he/she learns water safety skills.
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I agree that the responsibility could fall more on the parents.
My 7 year old nephew drowned earlier this year at his after-school swimming lesson. He’s been doing lessons since infancy and is competent and confident. The doctors called it a Shallow Water Blackout, a freak accident that could happen to anyone. He was pulled from the pool, grey and lifeless, by his instructors who began performing CPR immediately. After about three minutes, he regained consciousness and was taken to hospital where he spent the night and went through many tests which all came back clear.
The best part was him going back to his swimming club the next day to fling his arms around his coach and thank her for saving his life, and diving back into that pool. He has no fear because he has been taught to feel confident and competent while in the pool.
Accidents can happen anywhere – backyard pool, public pool, ocean… School lessons should be compulsory but teachers hardly have enough hours in the day to get through the normal curriculum as it is. My memory of school swimming lessons is of them being fine but not comprehensive, because there’s not enough time.
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The idea behind the schools providing only a couple of weeks a year is to provide the basics, anything more is the parents’ responsibilty.
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Are you having lessons yourself, LD? Would be a good thing for your son to see you in the water too! It’s never too late to learn.
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The point is private swimming lessons are FAR to expensive and your average family just cannot afford it.
OK, how much is a life worth, but we are not talking a few dollars here, to take my 3 to lessons (which I always have done until they could swim) is $50 a week. tell me your average family can afford that? no chance.
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So take him one day a week! The number of people that think kids need 3 lessons a week is absolutely ridiculous. Your children do not need to go 3 times a week – if you want them in the pool more often then take them swimming in between. $15 for one lesson a week is not expensive, it’s called the price you pay for personalised training in any sport/gym class.
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Jules said to take her 3 kids to lessons is expensive. Not 1 child. Swimming lessons for 3 kids is way too expensive for a lot of families, even for just 1 lesson a week. I certainly couldn’t afford it.
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In wa we still do 2 weeks of swimming a year from year 1 and vacswim in the summer holidays the lessons cost $1 a day plus pool entry and bus. A lot of the beach suburbs use the beach and the kids walk down costing parents only the $1 per day.
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Like others here my kids started lessons at about 8-9 months. At 18 months my eldest fell into a pool whilst playing. I was standing right next to her. By the time i had jumped in to save her (slight over reaction, i could have just pulled her out) she had done exactly what she had been taught. She turned around, grabbed the side and pullef herself up. I was there to save her but she helped herself. Needless to say at 12 she is still always in the water.
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when did they stop providing swimming lessons? i finished primary school in 2000 and we had 2 weeks of 1hour lessons every year. I also did lessons in the summer holidays so i got up to level 13 booyah!
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Swimming lessons are an additional component to the cirriculum, organised by some but not all schools. They are dependent upon local resources and availability and not always offered.
All children need to learn to swim. Regardless of whether school offer it, a few ad hoc lessons through the school year are not enough. My training and experience with children in water has taught me that kids need regular, consistent experience in water with trained teaching professionals.
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After reading some of these comments, I’m completely confused!….but WHEN did they stop providing swimming lessons at primary school????…
I finished primary school in 2001 and had school based swimming lessons right through…So obviously schools can fit it in.
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Most do in SA and it is subsidised by the Ed Dept. usually year 6/7s will do aquatics. I’m not sure what they do in the eastern states. Obviously it’s very difficult to provide lessons in remote, inland country areas.
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I don’t think they can fit it in, that’s why many schools have taken it out. The curriculum requirements for schools has changed hugely in the last ten years.
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I was starting to think of maybe getting a pool or spa or something.
But In September I went to the funeral of a friend’s 18 month old who drowned in her backyard pool.
It’s just too terrible.
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Excuse my ignorance – I thought swimming lessons were already compulsory?!
I did about three years of swimming lessons as part of the school curriculum and I finished primary school in 2000! We learnt strokes and how to tread water and the best class was when we had to take a spare set of trackies and a top to wear in the water in order to learn how to get out fully clothed.
My school managed to fit it in. I didn’t miss any learning as a result of learning to swim. I don’t buy the ‘we don’t have time excuse’.
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People act like it’s a demand that every school teacher teach their class to swim. We never had class teachers teaching us to swim in our school swimming lessons – apart from once, and it was because he was a surf lifesaver and we were the top group and doing life-saving stuff (like you mentioned, the jumping in the pool in trackies and the like).
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I don’t want a school teacher teaching my kids to swim. I want a qualified swim instructor to teach them to swim.
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School teacher’s don’t teach swimming, kids get taken to pools with swimming instructors. You must have specific qualifications to teach swimming and aquatics.
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Yeah, I mentioned elsewhere when I did my Austswim course, it was largely made up of people from the BEd Primary course at the uni, because they needed to get a qual in teaching/coaching a sport, and swimming was a good, reasonably easy one to get – all done and dusted over a couple of weekends.
No such requirement now, unfortunately.
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I’m a Primary School teacher and cannot possibly see how we could fit in swimming lessons on top of everything else. It seems like each month there is something extra the public want us to teach the children while at the same time we get beaten down when kids aren’t meeting benchmark standards in literacy and numeracy. I agree that the government could offer rebates for swimming lessons at public pools – outside of school hours.
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Not to discount the wonderful work that primary school teachers do… but it is all pointless if the child doesn’t live past childhood because they cannot swim. School is (for the most part) compulsory, and really the most likely way to ensure all children at least get the lessons.
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I’m not sure what state you come from but in SA most schools provide some sort of swimming lessons. It is generally done for 2 weeks in term 4. It can be a bit of a pain to organise but most schools manage it. They either go to a morning or afternoon session, but it really depends on how far you are away from the pool. However, it is not compulsory, it is impossible to force a family to send their child to swimming lessons.
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Could get rid of scripture and put swimming in it’s place. People are asking for swimming lessons to be added to the curriculum because that’s what everyone grew up with – swimming lessons in school time at some stage.
We used to go at the end of the year every morning for two weeks. I think that could be programmed.
When I did my Austswim in the late 90s, my course was mostly made up of people doing their Primary Ed degree, as one of their course requirements was that they have proficiency in teaching/coaching a sport, so they chose swimming.
Now I’m back at uni doing my Primary Ed degree, and there’s no such requirement. We do one semester of PDHPE (unless you do electives) in a four year degree.
At my prac school earlier this year, I was shocked at how useless the kids were with sport. A friend I was on prac with said that the cutting back of sport is having a real negative impact on out of school sports, because kids weren’t getting the opportunity to have a go at a range of sports as used to happen.
I strongly advocate swimming lessons being recorded in the same way as vaccinations, and that the government either cover the cost or restrict payments for those who don’t send their kids to swimming. It’s not a hobby, it’s a lifesaving skill. I also strongly believe that you should have to pass a basic swimming test to go from, say, Year 2 to Year 3.
Just because the school day is packed, kids shouldn’t miss out on sport, and they most certainly shouldn’t miss out on learning a life saving skill.
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You can’t hold a child back if they can’t pass a basic swimming test! Have you not done any units on inclusive education yet Kris? LOL
I think swimming has been taken out in most schools because they just cannot possibly fit it in with QCAT (and equivalent), all the new C2C lesson delivery, and Naplan testing (and preparation). When we were kids accountability was not as huge a thing for teachers – there are now benchmarks that MUST be reached for number of hours spent on literacy, numeracy etc. As David Bowie said, times are a changin’. We have to move forward – swimming will never form part of the school curriculum again. It’s a sad but unchangeable fact. Let’s aim for a government subsidy on swimming lessons.
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Yeah I know. Sad isn’t it? I just think that using the threat would get people to actually teach their kids to swim, or get it fitted back in to schools.
I was seriously pissed off at the attitude to sport when I was on prac. I went to a small primary school, and we still had A and B netball teams for junior and senior (so 2 teams for 3/4, two teams for 5/6) and these guys had one for the whole school. My friend is very active in club cricket, and he said the demise of the PSSA (Primary Schools Sport Association) and the lack of opportunities for kids to have a go is really hurting them. Unless you value sport (and swimming shouldn’t be counted – it’s a life saving skill), your kids miss out. I have to pay for K’s swimming in instalments, but I value it so I do. If you look at how people talk about sport here, with their attitudes, no kids would be doing sport. And that’s crap for the kids and crap for society.
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To be honest I find the attitudes toward sport up here, for the most part, pretty good. I certainly value it – because I grew up completely unco and hating sport. It was never any more than 45 minutes a week in the PE curriculum even then. It would be nice to have more, but I think it is genuinely hard to fit in more because the expectations for literacy and numeracy achievement are SO high.
In terms of swimming, when I was growing up swimming lessons were not a really big focus at school – I had other lessons outside of school as did all of my sisters, and from my perspective, formal lessons give you the basic skills earlier on, but they don’t make you a stronger swimmer. Lots of people in colder climates have lessons but are still weak swimmer. I’ve lived in FNQ since I was 10 y.o and most people have a backyard swimming pool here and go swimming in creeks, rivers and beaches frequently. Kids are having swimming lessons from 6 months and almost swimming before they walk. It is this culture of general swimming and being reminded of rules for safety, literally every weekend for 6 months of the year that turn kids into strong swimmers, not what they might learn at school. That being said, quite a few schools up here have pools on site because of the climate, which helps.
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This is not the case in all public schools. The school that my husband teaches n has 22 sports teams. The biggest problem is getting parents to help out.
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We don’t do scripture in SA, it was taken out of the curriculum in the mid 1970′s! We don’t hold kids back if they fail a maths test why would you hold them back for not passing a swimming test?
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Because if the idea is there, people will step up and teach their kids to swim. Of course it’s not going to happen, but it’s the carrot and stick approach. It is showing how important a skill swimming is.
They should be compulsory for kids to attend through school, especially if it’s the only time they actually get to go to swimming lessons. I can’t think of any valid reasons for kids not to go swimming. Can you?
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Religious reasons often prevent girls going swimming. If you live in a remote location and don’t have access to a pool. Costs
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Never stopped the Muslim or Greek Orthodox or any other religion girls I went to school with. In primary or high school.
The cost is why you run it through school – so it doesn’t cost $160 per kid per term.
Obviously it would be difficult for kids in remote locations. Your excuses are a bit tiresome though, really.
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Actually not allowing kids to go to the next grade if they don’t pass a swimming test would be the stick approach, no carrot!
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Rebecca, I think you missed the bit where I said “Of course it’s not going to happen”.
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Actually Kris I think you’ve been a bit rude. My excuses are not tiresome but VERY realistic. I have been a teacher in various public schools as has my husband for the last 15 years and have dealt with this issue for most of those. I have never taught in a school that didn’t offer swimming lessons, even in the country town. The schools that I teach in (right now, not done a prac in) subsidise the swimming and aquatics programme and it costs parent $20 per child for 2 weeks of swimming (approx 10 hours of swimming, a bargain, I think). For some parents particularly those with more than 1 child this is too much. I have had many muslim students who have been to swimming lessons but that is certainly not the case with all of them. Sure, it might not have been the case with the ones you went to school with but it is for some. For those we highly recommend they take their daughter to female only sessions at another pool but most of that group don’t take up that option, sadly. Do I agree with these reasons? Not really, but to these parents they are very valid. My comment about the ‘carrot and stick’ was meant to be a light hearted one about your use of the term only.
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Good to see you acknowledge them as excuses and not reasons.
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I didn’t. I used the word ‘reasons’ deliberately.
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I would love to have a pool, but until my kids are teenagers I will not even consider buying a property with one. I have seen toddlers drag chairs to get up to the right height to open a gate and/or door. Imagine how crafty primary school kids would be!
Kids can be very determined to get the things they want. If they want to go for a swim, they will. And they also conspire with each other too, to do things they know they shouldn’t.
Drownings to me are like driveway deaths. Tragic and completely avoidable. In these environments you need to be eagle-eyed and within arm’s reach, preferably holding a hand. Things can go wrong in a split second.
Also, if there are near-misses this is the time to go ballistic (and dare I say it, a smack at the same time) and hopefully they get the message not to do it again. Yes, I’ve smacked my kids, but you know what, they are still alive.
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I have three children that were put in swimming lessons when they were babies up until 9 or 10 years old. That’s a combined 27 years’ worth of lessons at roughly $100-130 per term and we have struggled to keep up with it but I just feel it is such an important skill to have in a country like ours that spends a lot of it’s free time in water-related activities. I don’t think it should be the schools’ responsibility, even though ours has an intense swim school once a year at a reasonable cost for children who haven’t been to lessons before. I know not everyone can afford this or private lessons and it’s about time the government and/or private health funds recognised this expense and gave parents a rebate.
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Without disrespecting the author and her experience, when did it become schools responsibilities to do EVERYTHING for parents? Now they seemingly teach manners, morals, ethics, personal physical safety for every activity under the sun. Every child in Australia needs to know how to swim, and swim well, but it is a parents responsibility to make sure of this and not the over crowded, under funded and under pressure public schools.
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I have to agree. How much more pressure do we place on our teachers? And how much significance difference to a child’s swimming ability does 2 weeks worth of lessons a year make?
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Who is asking for the classroom teachers to teach swimming? No-one I don’t think… I hope not anyway! Qualified swim instructors are there for that reason.
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It’s more the travel to and from the pool. In the school that I work at it takes 1/2 hour to get to the pool. Add to that some time to change clothes and that is at least an extra hour out of the school day. The lesson is 45 minutes so all up that is almost 2 hours a day for one swimming lesson. This is why most schools only do 2 weeks a year and teachers are saying they don’t have the time in the curriculum to do it all day. If you have a pool on the grounds you could do much more swimming but this is a huge expense.
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If you didn’t have swimming lessons at school you’re very much in the minority. I don’t think anyone is suggesting the classroom teachers teach swimming as well. It would be handy, sure, but I don’t think that’s the suggestion.
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I feel very sorry for the writer of this article and how scary the situation must have been, my questions is WHEN did they stop swimming lessons in schools. I grew up with primary school and early highschool swim lessons as sport, and my children also had this. They weren’t allowed to stop swimming as a sport until they reached a certain level.
Many years ago a pool inspector (at a friend’s BBQ) told me that safety fences were a problem because people relied on them. He then went on to tell me that any child over 3 can work out a way to get over the fence given 15 minutes. I was amazed and was renown for being a “dragon” for rules with a backyard pool.
One of the lessons my husband (who had grown up next to a lake) insisted on was the kids being pushed or pulled into the water when they weren’t expecting it. As a toddler they were taught ( and there are lessons for this) to always close their mouth when suddenly in the water. The next lesson was to swim underwater, one son spent so much time going under water we had trouble getting him to swim on the surface.
The biggest thing I had to learn was that lessons should be fun, all the time, splashing, jumping off dad’s shoulders etc. many years later we took grandchildren to lessons at a gym because our daughter had a twisted foot, only to tell our daughter my husband would teach them instead, he felt the organised stylised strict lessons didn’t help the kids develop a confidence in the water.
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That fun aspect is so important!
I’ve just started teaching an adult friend how to swim. One of the biggest things I’ve learnt is that many of my friends and colleagues don’t know how to swim because the lessons they did have put them off. The worst example is a friend who had her head pushed into the pool by a teacher who had to get the whole class to blow bubbles, and didn’t have time to wait for each kid. Hers is not the only example of being pushed under by a much stronger adult.
On the lighter side, my friend and I spent a good part of her first lesson just getting in the water. By the second lesson she could regulate her breathing and by the fifth, she could doggy paddle. Our main weapon against her fear of drowning: fun! Chasing sinkers has taught her to swim, and the first time she felt comfortable over the deep end, it was because she was riding a pool noodle ‘Gangnam Style’! The importance of fun lessons can’t be underestimated!
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One of my earliest memories is being chucked in the pool by an instructor and having water splashed in my mouth when I came up for air and cried. That asshole is now a revered higher up in the local surf life saving mob.
Needless to say, it took some cajoling to get me back into the water. Thankfully, my mum persisted – only because she couldn’t swim and realised the need for me to learn.
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Ugh – I have a 3 year old who can’t swim. Why? Because the first swimming lessons I took him to whenever he cried the stupid, stupid instructor would splash water in his face to make him stop. Why, oh why, do they do this?! Now, he’s terrified of the water. Even when he’s in with his Dad or me, he clings to us and cries. His grandmother has a pool and access to it is so easy (straight from the house, even though it’s a self-closing door as per the rules, it often doesn’t lock). Leaving him at his nan’s if she’s babysitting is so hard, I’m sure something terrible is going to happen. I just don’t know what to do anymore…..
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I used to teach adults too, and I always used to teach them whatever it was that they were freaked out about. So if they were worried about deep water, I’d teach them how to tread water and float in different ways so they’d be OK in deep water. That kind of stuff. Because once we acknowledged the fear they had and dealt with it by learning how to deal with it. everything else was easy!
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I would like to see free swimming lessons for all children but please don’t suggest adding another responsibility to the schools. We already spend so much time on bicycle safety, child protection, road safety, drug ed etc. that we struggle to fit in the core subjects such as reading.
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My 7 year old who is in year 1 has been having swimming lessons since he was 4 months old. I thought it was vital as we have a swimming pool and for my own sanity wanted him taught from as young as possible. Every year at his school in November, his whole school do a ten day intense swmming program and I think this should be compulsory in all schools. He is now a very competent swimmer and I believe the younger you get your kids learning the basic skills for swimming the better his/her skills will be at a younger age.
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I can’t swim, so both my children have been in lessons since they were 3 months old. I am terrified of something like this happening.
So glad your brother is ok
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My brother drowned in our home swimming pool on Christmas Day, 1977. He was three, the youngest of us five kids. I was 10. It was a typical hot, crazy Brisbane family Christmas – lots of people around – but drowning is sudden and silent. Watchfulness and proper fencing and gates save lives. Never say your child is ‘drown-proof’ – being able to swim to an instructor or a parent doesn’t prepare kids for the shock of tumbling in at the deep end.
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My deepest sympathies Kate. Heartbreaking.
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oh, kate.
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I helped out with a school swimming lesson, where the kids were told to turn and kick back to the side, as a safety precaution if they ever fell in.
I was horrified at the number of kids who ‘fell in’, and just floated to the bottom, looking up…. It was silent, and soooooo quick. There was no splashing, no yelling, nothing. Just in and to the bottom.
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My parents-in-law have a pool and a perfectly working pool gate. But when we visit, their laid-back attitude to keeping it closed and always following my 3 year old to the pool area is terrifying. Its one of the reasons i’ve never allowed him to be looked after there without us. Their attitude is “nothing will happen, we’re all right here”. But unless someone is within arms length of him, no, we are not there, and you only have to read, watch the news or hear stories like this to know. All these tragedies happen to lovely normal families, who happened to let their attention slip innocently at the worst possible time. My parents-in-law aren’t letting their attention slip innocently – they are being completely ignorant and clueless.
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Good on you. Continue to stand up for your kid. I know it can be really hard when the family-in-law are treating you like a big fuss-pot.
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I hear you. We visited my in-laws in the UK for several weeks this year. They have a backyard pool with no fence around it (no law over there) and I insisted before we even left Australia that something me ‘rigged up’ or the pool be emptied before we arrived with our 3 and 5 year old kids.
My in-laws did nothing at all about it, and I was furious. We were to stay in their home for over 6 weeks during their spring time and they said I was being ridiculous thinking it was dangerous to have an un-fenced pool. They even went so far as to laugh at me in front of their friends and neighbours ‘oh this Australian family with their strict rules… blah blah’.
I absolutely cracked the shits one day and told my husband if he didn’t get them to do something about it (as they clearly wouldn’t listen to me) then I’d take the kids and leave. They put up a pathetic barrier for the rest of our stay. I still had to watch the kids like a hawk everytime they went outside. A huge backyard that they clearly wanted to be playing in all the time. The pool was disgusting as well, definitely not fit for swimming.
The duration of our visit there, my in-laws were such smart-arses about the situation. ‘We are going to Uncle Bob’s tomorrow, he has a great fish pond in the yard that the girls will love. But don’t worry, it’s not deep, they won’t drown. Ha, ha ha’
ARGH!
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Cordeline, I can understand why they were smart arses to you. You sound horrid. Fancy expecting people to drain their pool for you…..I think the onus would be on you. Not them. You discuss with your husband where you will be staying, your requirements and then YOU both make the adjustments.
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The moral of this story is no NOT under any circumstances a) leave your child unsupervised anywhere near water and b) ignore faulty pool security, regardless of whether or not it is the landlord’s problem to fix. Stick a bike chain or a piece of rope over it if you have to.
I understand that different climates as well as costs can make swimming lessons unaccessible. But most drownings happen in backyard pools because people did not have secure pool fencing and/or left their child unsupervised. I realise this was a traumatic experience for the author, but I would guarantee the author’s mother has learned her lesson the hard way. It is awful, I know and I am sure I don’t need to add to her guilt, but this is the truth of the matter.
People, please do not accept unsecure pool fencing and watch your children. In fact I believe home owners should face massive fines for not having proper, working order, secure pool fencing at all times. It needs regulation.
As for swimming lesson costs – take your kids as much as you can afford and practice with them at home or on your own. If you care about your children’s safety you’ll find a way to take them to proper lessons once a week or even a fortnight so that they can learn basic water safety.Harsh maybe, but a fact of life. The other thing is that most deaths are not occurring in backyard swimming pools or beaches, they are happening in Inland waterways – i.e. creeks and rivers. My guess is that this also comes down to supervision and teaching common sense. To me it looks like many happened in Qld and NSW when all the flooding occurred. It is key that adequate safety is being taught with regards to swimming during flooding and heavy rain, staying out of drains and flood creeks etc. The Royal Life Saving National Drowning Report for 2012 is quite interesting. I encourage people to look it up.
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I should add, just that in 2011/2012 21 drowning deaths were in the 0-4 age group, with as many drowning in bathtubs as swimming pools. There were 45 deaths in the 15-24 yrs age group, mostly boys, and mostly in creeks and rivers.
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Most of those in the 15 – 24 year age were undertaking risky behaviours, were drunk or just plain stupid, having spoken to many of the parents and families of these lost loved ones they agree too they should have known better. No amount of swimming lessons will stop people, especially young men from doing silly things when its dangerous. Whats more disheartening is that the HIGHEST amount of drownings were actually over 55 years of age.
Supervision FOR EVERY SWIMMER in the water, no If’s no buts. SUPERVISION you only have 20seconds before you start to drown.
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We have just started swimming lessons for our 2 kids and it is costing $150 per MONTH! I think it is ridiculously expensive for something that is so necessary.
My son will be doing swimming lessons in prep next year but with summer approaching and our in-laws having a pool we decided that we needed to get them learning now.
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Wow, what a lucky kid! It’s terrifying, the amount of children that drown in our own pools, what a difficult thing for families to have to deal with. And I think if anything can be done to prevent these unneccessary deaths, then it should be done.
When I was younger, my parents used to take us to the beach all the time and I never learnt how to swim. I can’t believe how dangerous that was for my younger brother and I, paddling around at surf beaches and never between the flags. Eventually we had lessons, but by then I was terrified of water after a few close calls at the beach. I remember being about 10 and crying my eyes out in fear and my instructor forcing me to jump into the water.
So I think learning to swim as early as possible is very important. Obviously it won’t save every child, as there will always be accidents, but it will definitely help prevent a lot of drownings.
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Your post hit way too close to home, our 2 year old is Lachie and I have such a fear of him drowning in our pool (even though it’s safely fenced). I think it’s just a mothers place to worry all the time. So glad to hear your story had a happy ending, your Lachie was obviously meant to be here
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Swimming already is a part of the Health and PE curriculum in SA. The problem is how much it costs. It costs around $20-25 for swimming lessons for the week, the biggest part of that being the bus. Unfortunately some of our parents can’t afford that, and so kids miss out. We did subsidize the bus costs this year, reducing it to around $15 per student I believe, but this means other things miss out – schools don’t have an unlimited supply of money. And for a family with 3 kids in a very low socioeconomic community, it’s still a lot of money. I agree that swimming lessons should be compulsory, but this requires a big cash injection and support from the government, because it is unrealistic to expect parents to pay for swimming when they can barely afford food, not to mention the bathers etc that kids need for swimming.
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I personally think swimming lessons are too expensive. $70-$80 per month for each child at swimming schools in SA, is a stretch for a lot of families. That’s almost a $1000 a year to teach 1 child to swim. I know it’s your child’s safety and it should come above everything else, but it’s a lot of money for families that are already struggling financially. Something so important should definitely be subsidized in some way.
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My son nearly drowned years ago…….. twice. Both time he was staying with his father and his partner at her house that had a pool. The first time my eldest son found him lying on the bottom of the pool and rescued him and the second time, well I don’t have all the details.
Neither time was I told of the events when they happened. My kids have told me not their father.
thankfully my sons survived their visits to their fatherand are all fully grown. i cannot imagine the unbearable pain if I had lost one of them .
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We only recently put in a pool and until the fence went up the kids were kept inside and because our neighbours all have kids the gates to the backyard padlocked. Even now the fencing is up the gates are locked and the actual pool gate is locked at all times! The key is kept locked in our shed an only my husband and I have access to it. Extreme I know but I couldn’t live knowing either one of our babies or someone else’s has drowned in our pool. We have both also taken CPR courses to make sure this never happens
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So glad you have learnt CPR, should be mandatory for all pool owners. In fact I think it should be mandatory to do a CPR/First Aid course to obtain a drivers licence! That said there is nothing better than vigilance around water. All children should be watched at all times. My kids are 12 & 14 and very capable swimmers but I still watch them always. Kids being kids will horse around and it doesn’t take much to be knocked unconscious. We key lock our pool gate when we are not home but if I had smaller children I’d definitely key lock it all the time.
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Before I had kids I read stories like this without and real thought. Now I cry every time what if this happened to my baby. We recently read a story of a 4 yr old killed by a falling tv off a cabinet. Our fear pushed us to screw and mount our TVs into the wall. It’s hard your so careful but sometimes you don’t think of everything. Im so glad your brother made it
Anonymous amazing I often think people work saving children and angels. It would be so hard for you especially when you couldn’t save a little one. Thank you for being the angel fighting for the lives of our children.
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Those of us who work in ICU never forget the primitive screams of the poor mothers as we fight to keep their babies alive. Sometimes we can. Damaged forever, but alive. Mostly, we can’t and those wails from the pit of the soul are something I never want to hear again.
Don’t wait for the landlord to fix the gate. Fix it yourself. Don’t cook dinner or talk on the phone unless your child is locked in the room with you.
Do Not Take Your Eyes Off Your Child. There is NO other way to ensure that you’re not the mother laying in the corridor, smashing your head into the floor or wall, screaming and shaking, ripping your hair out by the handful, wailing and begging for a miracle that we cant grant you.
Give me a Summer without having to listen to the very worst pain in the universe.
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Your statement of “do not take your eyes off your child” is unrealistic. We can’t keep an eye on our child every second of every day just in case something happens. It doesn’t work like that.
Personally I would have put a bike chain around the fence and gate myself, but I don’t think telling someone whose family has been through a near drowning what they should’ve done is helpful.
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Pools and little people do not mix. Simple as that. Yes, it is unrealistic to expect that you can keep an eye on them 24/7, which is why having a pool in the first place is such a dangerous proposition. It is a huge responsibility that cannot be taken lightly.
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so you bolt the door, you have a padlock on the pool fence, you sit and watch when they are in the pool, dont “think” someone else is doing it. i had 4 children and a pool, 6 grandchildren and i HATE SWIMMING, i even bought a wet suit top to wear in case i had to go in and rescue someone.
it is the same for roads, driveways, falling out of windows, always think the worse and go with that.
and one of mine was ADHD.
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I agree. It might be unrealistic, but noone else is gonna do it!
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I think people like you are amazing. Dealing with such trauma and humanity. Thank you.
However, as a parent to be told “Do Not Take Your Eyes Off Your Child” – well you know that is an unrealistic expectation.
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I am so sorry for you and your colleagues that you have to be witness to such pain. It must be horrendous. The death of a child affects so many people. I hope one day there will be a summer where no child drowns in a backyard pool. And no mother or father has to feel the depth of sorrow that you have seen.
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