Going to great lengths

9:47am Wednesday 21st June 2006

Learning to swim has got to be one of the most important lessons of childhood, but getting kids booked on a course can often be frustrated by long waiting lists. Education reporter Haydn Lewis spoke to a York swimming club to find out what's on offer.

BEING able to swim can quite literally be a lifesaver, yet national statistics show that 17 per cent of children entering secondary education cannot swim 25 metres despite compulsory lessons at primary school.

Such figures make worrying reading for parents like York mother-of-two Helen Sellers, from Glen Avenue, Hewort.

"You can't overemphasise the importance of being able to swim really, especially living in York with the rivers," she said. "I think even when you go on holiday, there's a pool. Much as you always watch your kids, you can't be there all the time, and knowing they can swim gives me confidence.

Mrs Sellers' older son Joe, 13, learned to swim at the Barbican Centre, but since the closure of the pool there, she said it was a struggle finding somewhere for her youngest, nine-year-old Jake, to learn.

After seeing an advert for swimming lessons with York-based Splish Splosh, Mrs Sellers signed up Jake, and he has gone from strength to strength with weekly lessons at the pool at The Mount School.

Jake, a pupil at Heworth Primary School, said: "I think the lessons are really fun and can swim about five lengths now. I have done my ten metres, and 25 metres and various badges.

"I wanted to learn to swim because we were going on holiday to Minorca, and there was a really nice pool." The Government is keen to get all youngsters in the pool, with an announcement this month of intensive lessons as part of a £5.5 million scheme.

Pupils who are unable to swim 25 metres by the age of 11 will be given a course of lessons involving trips to the pool every day for a fortnight.

Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, announced the programme, which will be run in partnership with the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA), which aims to provide two-week "top up" courses to about 100,000 pupils over the next two years.

Splish Splosh owner and swimming teacher Vicky Pettitt, 27, said it was only after getting into difficulty in a swimming pool on holiday that she learned to swim.

She said: "Learning to swim wasn't really something I always wanted to do, it was something that I ended up doing after a holiday with my grandparents.

"While on holiday in Tenerife with them, I started playing in the pool with the other children that were there, and I didn't realise that they were older and that they probably could swim, so when they went to the deep end of the pool, at age five, I didn't think anything of it.

"My grandma tells me now, that off I trotted with them to the deep end and in I went, no experience of swimming, and so I started to sink. Needless to say, my granddad and grandma dragged me out of the water, to be given a good telling off! Once home, my grandma marched me to my mum and declared that I needed swimming lessons, if I was ever to go on holiday with them again."

Now, 22 years on, Vicky runs Splish Splosh with the help and support of family and friends, and has four swimming schools in York and East Yorkshire The Mount, Archbishop Holgate, New Earswick Primary, and Pocklington School.

She said: "In Yorkshire, waiting lists in many pools vary from three months to two years. This can surely not help.

"Our pupils not only benefit from the potentially lifesaving ability to swim, but vital exercise is also achieved.

"We have no waiting lists, small class sizes of eight pupils at most and are dedicated to teaching children to swim."

Lessons cost £55 for ten sessions for ages four and above, and £70 for ten lessons for youngsters aged between six months and four. Parents can contact Vicky at Splish Splosh on 01405 862 849 or 07966661201.