Swimming should be part of school curriculum

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/03/2023 (895 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Swimming is often thought of as a leisure activity or a sport, evoking summer days at the beach or 6 a.m. laps at the pool. But knowing how to swim is an essential life skill — one that could save yours or someone else’s.

Winnipeg parents know this, which is why, twice a year, they go through the often hair-tearing process of trying to register their kids for swimming lessons. Landing a spot in a session at one of the city’s pools is not unlike snagging Bruce Springsteen tickets: one must be logged in and ready to go at the appointed time, lest one face disappointment.

During last week’s registration week, many parents expressed frustration about being met with an “activity full” notice within minutes of registration opening. Demand is outstripping supply; fewer classes are being offered this season owing to a North America-wide lifeguard and instructor shortage.

But many other barriers to swimming lessons exist beyond the ordeal of enrolment, which relies on someone (a parent, typically) having time and reliable access to Wi-Fi. There’s also cost, pool accessibility, transportation to and from, and carving out time for lessons during evenings or weekends that already have Tetris-like schedules.

That’s why swimming lessons offered as part of school phys-ed curriculums — ideally at all grade levels — would not only ease the burden on families, but would also help foster future generations of confident swimmers.

The good news: there’s already some precedent for this. The Winnipeg School Division, in partnership with the City of Winnipeg, began offering a three-session water-safety program to Grade 3 and 4 students in 2018 as part of a pilot program called Swimming Counts. Though not intended to replace traditional lessons, Swimming Counts — which is still offered to the Winnipeg School Division only — offers a good framework for what a more fulsome school swimming program could look like, as well as an assessment of skill level to determine placement in more traditional swimming programs.

Other programs exist, though not in all divisions and not at all schools. The Seven Oaks School division offers a swimming program for Grade 4 students, while the St. James-Assiniboia School Division has one for Grade 3 students. Swimming lessons are also part of the Grade 4 and 5 physical education curriculum in the Lord Selkirk School Division. And those are just some examples.

Making swimming lessons more accessible by making them a widely deployed or mandated part of a school curriculum has merit, especially in light of how many tragic drowning deaths occur in this country — especially among Canada’s growing newcomer population. In 2022, there were four separate drowning deaths involving newcomers that made headlines, including that of a six-year-old Nigerian boy who died after being found floating in an outdoor swimming pool in Winnipeg last August.

A 2016 study commissioned by the Lifesaving Society of Canada found new Canadian tweens — between the ages of 11 to 14 — are five times more likely to not know how to swim than their Canadian-born counterparts, but 93 per cent of respondents said they spend time in, on and around water. Programs for the Grade 3 to 5 set are great, but older kids would also benefit from lessons.

Of course, expanding a school swimming program — to include all divisions and all levels — would take staffing, funding and political will. But as we inch along the road to post-pandemic recovery, taking the plunge on a school swimming program is well worth considering.