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Since 1994, swimming and water safety has been a statutory element of the national curriculum for physical education in England.

This means that every 11-year old child should leave primary school with the skills to keep themselves safe while enjoying swimming with friends and family.

Swimming is the only sport to be included within the national curriculum physical education programme of study. All primary schools must provide swimming and water safety lessons in either Key Stage 1 or 2.

Each pupil is required to be able to do the following:

• 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.

During this academic school year, our focus will be on achieving these key national curriculum outcomes for as many of our Year 6 children as possible before end of key stage. We use Swim England – Learn to Swim Outcomes to assess pupils ability at swimming.

In addition to this, Pools to Schools visits for two weeks in the autumn term. This helps many children gain confidence and swimming skills.

The current Year 6 cohort will attend additional swimming booster sessions, we have chosen to use the Primary PE and Sport Premium to provide additional provision for swimming (above the current national curriculum requirements) to increase the percentage of children meeting age related expectations in each area of the national curriculum.

Swimming Data

The data below shows our our most recent Year 6 cohort (2022/23) end of key stage achievements. Each year the children will have additional lessons which will include interventions and boosters where appropriate, to ensure all children meet age related expectations.