A big closure trigger was the more demanding pool water quality testing regime your Labour govt brought in – school pools dropped like flies, as schools couldn’t afford the staff to be running back to the pool to test water several times an hour.

I recently quit after 20 years teaching learn-to-swim in a small community group in Manukau. I can attest to the poor swim skills of those who have not had formal lessons. Lessons mostly come from private swim schools and (amateur) competitive swim clubs (who only take swimmers with basic swimming skills, but polish these skills dramatically).

Manukau City Council’s free pools (ie 100% rates funded) policy is fantastic, and makes a huge difference to access for kids. Push for it in the $upercity. But without the swim lessons, the kids don’t develop beyond doggy paddle, and a surprising number cannot put on a life jacket properly.

Private swim schools are not the answer – for equity reasons and because even parents who can afford it tend to balk at the cost of several blocks of 10 lessons. Many just do 1 block of 10 lessons, which leaves kids with a rough grasp of strokes, but no real stamina or ability to cope with ‘real’ water conditions (ie not in a pool).

Labour should push for Ministry of Education to partner with councils to provide council operated pools on school sites, instead of council and schools building/upgrading duplicated pools. This gets schools using the pools in school time when public use is low, and leaves the pools available for swim clubs and public use in mornings and evenings and weekends.

You will also need to tackle the high cost (financial and time) of schools in urban areas getting students to pools. Walking kids a 1-2km each way takes too long, and hiring buses (which most schools now do) dents the budget badly, and limits how many lessons the school can do.

Finally, don’t waste time & money training all teachers to be swim teachers. Hire & train specialist swim teachers for each area/urban city ward, base them at the council or school pool, and take all the students to them. Cheaper and more efficient overall.

Thanks for raising the issue – please continue to lobby on it.

Greater time allocated for swimming in primary and secondary schools is urgently required. Absolutely essential! It’s a disappointment Labour didn’t tackle this while in office. I believe a directive from the top regarding school swimming would ensure consistency across the country.

The primary school-aged children I teach at a high decile school only received a handful of swimming lessons in Term 4. No where near enough. Many of those children (but certainly not all) are lucky enough to come from wealthier families who can afford private lessons. It was obvious to spot the children who had benefited from private lessons, but more sadly, those who hadn’t.

It just seems like another sad example of where the private sector has taken over from where the public school system has fallen short. Pity the kids from more working class areas whose families may not have the dosh for private swimming lessons.

The other tragedy is the Ministry of Education’s failure to maintain school swimming pools. Yet another failure of Tomorrow’s Schools and so called self-managing schools. I’m quite cynical about Lange’s Tomorrow’s Schools policy. It’s hardly brought about equality of opportunity across state schools.

I agree this needs to be addressed, fast.

oh – and ps – the other schools the kids are being shipped off to don’t have their own school pools. Parents will have to pay heaps for only a small handful of lessons.