Primary School Swimming Programme

Since the opening of Athens in early 2022, we have been designing and implementing a Primary School Swimming Programme (PSSP) for our local state primary schools.  

The model is to run a 12-week term of 40-minute lessons. Each session has a capacity of 36 swimmers with 4 Eton College employed swimming teachers running separate ability lessons each session. The programme will be open to children from Years 3 – 5 from schools within Slough and Windsor. There will be a fee for the primary schools to pay which will cover the cost of the staff required to run the lessons.  

The programme commenced in September 2022 with 5 different schools swimming across 8 sessions.

Background

The teachers will follow a scheme of work, incorporating elements of the Swim England School Swimming and Water Safety award (National Curriculum) and additional elements of bespoke Eton College criteria. The founding principle is to not only teach water safety and movement, but to ensure the swimmers are taught to swim efficient, identifiable strokes with the ability to maintain a stable body position on both their fronts and their backs.  

Prior to the programme officially starting in Michaelmas 2022, a dry run was carried out with a local primary school. Eton Porny sent two-year groups of students (Years 3 and 4) to participate in the primary school lessons from February half term – May half term 2022. 51 swimmers attended the sessions and swam weekly for 12 weeks.  

Impact

At the start of the programme 33.33% of the swimmers were unable to move 5m in the water (with assistance) and were unable to put their face in the water. By the end of the 12-week programme, all swimmers were able to confidently travel 15m on their fronts and backs with their face in the water and 9.8% had already reached the National Curriculum goal which is a requirement by the end of Year 6.