School Swimming Lessons

Swimming is the main skill you can learn in school that can actually save your life. Should swimming be part of education in schools?

In most countries swimming lessons are not compulsory, but many of the better schools have them. Where it is possible, there should be the swimming lessons for kids.

Swimming is a crucial lifesaving skill so it is really important to get learner swimmers often into the water, so they can continue on their journey towards becoming safe and confident in the water.

We think it's a good idea for schools to teach students to swim, but not every school has the facilitiess to do that. In some less-developed areas, there is not even a swimming pool for a whole region with a population of half a million people.

It is a pity that many Chinese athletes won world championships in swimming while most schools don't have the swimming facilities. Swimming is an essential lifesaving skill that everyone should access to. The earlier, the better. Governments need to put money into the popularity of the sport.

In Guangdong province (China) swimming lessons got introduced in schools starting from 2020, with weekly courses running from the fourth grade.

An expat in China told us: "There are swimming lessons in my city, but I was very disappointed in how they were taught. The kids spent 45 minutes of the one hour lesson practicing strokes ON DRY LAND. They only spent 15 minutes in the water. All of the children panicked and sank immediately to the bottom. Then all of the parents berated the children, telling them that they weren't paying attention to the teacher and that they were failures. I removed my kids from the lessons and taught them on my own."

Aquatic Lifesaving Lessons in Schools

Another important swimming lesson offered by some schools is a Lifesaving Course, designed for medium-level swimmers who can jump in and save any person from drowning. These courses include basic swimming lessons where you have to carry someone and swim.

In addition, there is basic training in CPR and the actions to take in case someone has been saved from drowning. It is highly recommended that if you have the basic swimming skills you opt for this useful training session.