King's Community Swimming Programme & Fully Funded Places

King’s College operates a highly successful community swimming programme, offering over 40 different classes, for over 300 members weekly. Classes include: parent and toddler swimming sessions, learn-to-swim classes, training sessions, adult lessons and 1-2-1 coaching sessions. 

In September 2023, our fully funded places scheme was set up to help Year 6 non-swimmers from local primary schools learn the important life skills of being able to swim.  

Aims

The aim of the community swimming programme is to give opportunities for the local community to enjoy the range of classes on offer. The aim of the fully-funded places scheme is to provide lessons for non-swimmers from the local primary school comunity who could otherwise not afford lessons to give them this potentially life-saving skill. 

Background

The community swimming programme has been developed over a number of years, with our current Head of Swimming and Aquatics building the programme to become a significant and wide-ranging offering. The programme has become so successful that it is now accessed by over 300 members. 

The fully-funded places scheme was set up after it was recognised by our swimming coaches that there were more Year 6 pupils who could not swim than previously, particularly after COVID disruption. 

Resources

The main resource is the 25m swimming pool. Classes use a range of resources, including flotation aids, training aids and float-fit boards. The sessions are staffed by employees of the school, with over 40 sessions provided for a total of 12 hours per week.  

Fully-funded places are funded by a mixture of fund-raising by staff and the community at King's College and matched by King's College. 

Impact

Two girls joined the Community Swimming Programme in September. Both can now comfortably swim widths, are improving their technique across all four strokes and are in the top widths group; once they consolidate some of the key skills they will move to the lanes group. Both of the swimmers love coming and haven't missed a week since they started.

Pupil Involvement

Pupils in the Sixth Form act as life-guards at some of the sessions, having completed their NPL Qualification. 

Frequency

This is an on-going programme.