B

Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 21 January 2025

Debate

Primary Schools: Swimming Lessons

Contribution

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I was reminiscing about a previous life in which we worked together as Ministers to considerably increase the sporting opportunities for children in our schools and for people more widely. She is absolutely right to identify that, although it is obviously important that children learn, as the national curriculum suggests, to swim 25 metres by the time they finish primary school, there is much more to swimming as an opportunity for life than simply meeting that standard, important though it is. We need to think about how schools can provide more opportunities for broader sporting activity, including swimming, and, of course, how our community facilities, which have been reduced in recent years, can support the broadest possible engagement, including from those children whose parents are perhaps less able to take them for swimming lessons and activities than is the case at the moment.

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