Swimming
At Gatton we have the privilege of having our own 19m pool on site. This allows the children in years 4, 5 and 6 the opportunity to have a swimming lesson once a week, all year round.Drowning is the third most common cause of accidental death in children. The government has recognised the importance of swimming by making it a part of the national curriculum. Our main goal is to teach all children the importance of water safety and help support each child to reach the outcomes listed below by the end of year 6:
- Perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations
- Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
- Use a range of strokes effectively, for example front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke
Aside from being an important life skill, swimming is an incredible sport for physical and mental health. The foundation of swimming opens up a whole new world of other water-based activities, such as snorkeling, paddleboarding, water polo, etc. Swimming can be an enjoyable physical activity done at any age.
Big School Swim
Big School Swim hailed as a big success as more than 70,000 pupils take part
22 November 2019 Swim England News
This year’s Big School Swim has been hailed as the most successful so far – with more schools and pupils participating than ever before.
Around 70,500 pupils from 5,733 schools were involved in the week-long event – almost six times more than last year.
Schools and lesson providers across the nation have been telling us how much they have enjoyed the activities.
Lara Moseley of Gatton Primary School in London, said: “We had a fantastic time with the Big School Swim event.
“We turned the event into an internal challenge where each class could win house points for their respective teams. The children had a fantastic time!”
The Swim England initiative aims to increase awareness of why school swimming is so important in setting pupils up with a healthy, active lifestyle and a clear understanding of the three national curriculum outcomes.
Those outcomes are:
- Perform safe self-rescue in different water based situations
- Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
- Use a range of strokes effectively, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke.