As the election campaign enters its second week one of our parties over the weekend made a policy announcement with some really good ideas.
Some good ideas.
It’s a policy that will appeal to many as it absolves them of responsibility. A policy that should be put in place no matter who wins the election – but one that doesn’t go far enough.
Can your kids swim?
There were 271 deaths due to drowning in 2015 with 26 of those of preschool-aged. Via IStock.
Do they go to lessons? Do they scream the place down with their resistance or are they gung ho natural fish?
Have you given up swimming lessons in despair after week upon week of tears and tantrums? Or have you just not bothered because well, your busy and life’s crazy and swimming lessons are damn expensive.
For some families swimming lessons aren’t much of a big deal. You book the kids in, you diligently attend each week, you spend a fortune on goggles as they keep on losing them and your kids learn to swim.
For other families it’s harder. They work. There is no time. The swim centres are too far away. The kids hate the water.
They say 'It should be the schools responsibility anyway.'
These families are wrong and they're doing their children a disservice.
For other families it’s harder. They work. There is no time. The swim centres are too far away. The kids hate the water. Via iStock.
Yesterday in an election pledge Opposition Leader Bill Shorten promised $40 million to ensure swimming lessons are available in all states and all public, Catholic and independent schools. The program would include water safety lessons in the classroom and swimming lessons in the pool from 2017 with the details of the classes to be worked out in consultation with the states.
It’s a good plan. A good start. A much needed policy in an area which has been directionless for years. An area where lives have been lost, where indigenous kids and those new to Australia desperately need such programs even if it will be difficult to fit into an already over-crowded curriculum.
"Labor will make sure that every Aussie kid gets the chance to learn how to swim," Mr Shorten told reporters.
And with 270 deaths from drowning last year alone its plan we need.
According to Royal Life Saving many children leave primary school without being able to swim 50 metres or float for 2 minutes. These are skills Royal Life Saving describe as a basic right of every child living in Australia and they say are mandatory if we are to halve drowning by 2020.
The need for swimming lessons right throughout our children’s primary school years is difficult to argue against - and for those who may have just arrived in Australia vital - but you have to question whether this is too late.
The Royal Life Saving Society's annual drowning report for 2015 showed a 30 per cent national increase in drownings of children aged under five last year – children who had not yet started school. The report recorded 271 deaths due to drowning in 2015 with 26 of those of preschool-aged.
Top Comments
This money would be much better spent on subsidising community swimming lessons for low income families, rather than school programs.
Our school already does swimming lessons at a public pool. They run every day for two weeks in Term 4. There's really no way to do them for any longer, because there are more schools than pools and the place is generally booked out. I suppose these lessons are better than nothing but I find it hard to see them as anything but a waste of time.
From a teacher's perspective, it's very disruptive to the school day. The lessons are 45 minutes long but you have to include travel time there and back, which makes it more like 90 minutes out of the day. We only have four and a half hours' teaching time, so that's quite a chunk gone. The kids often completely miss out on their extras during this time (foreign languages, gymnastics, library, computers) because it's very difficult to organise swaps when everyone else is doing swimming lessons too.
If the lessons were useful, I'd be perfectly willing to put up with that. But I'm not even convinced the kids learn all that much. The only kids who ever move up a group are the ones who do lessons outside of school. The low ability kids generally stay in the low ability group from K-6. And it's no wonder, really. Two weeks of swimming lessons, followed by possibly no time in the water at all for the next 50 weeks and then they're back in and expected to retain the information and skills from the previous year? What chance do they really have?
Growing up in Tasmasmania in the 80's we had swimming every day in the warmer months as our state school had an indoor pool. They were short classes whil in the younger years and a program much like swimming lesson now from year 3. It was awesome and I learnt to dive, swim and have water confidence. Back then lessons were unheard of- patent taught you at the local pool and school solidified it.
This continued in high school as we were shipped by bus to a pool twice a week in the warmer months.