Children’s Swimming Franchises Rally to Bridge the Gap in UK Primary School Swimming Education

Rachel Brooks QFP, managing director, Swimtime; Ruth Nelson, strategic brand and marketing manager, Puddle Ducks Franchising Limited

According to a report by the BBC last week, 5th October 2023, pop up swimming pools are being brought into UK primary schools to teach children to swim, because of a lack of funding to transport children to local swimming pools.

Aside from the obvious personal survival and lifesaving skills, swimming has been shown to increase confidence, improve physical and mental health and open the door to other sports and activities.

The BFA (British Franchise Association), the voluntary, self-regulating governing body for franchising in the UK represents numerous children’s swimming class franchises, including Swimtime and Puddle Ducks who are doing everything they can to plug the gap left by the lack of school-organised swimming lessons.

Commenting on the BBC report Rachel Brooks, MD of Swimtime said: ‘Despite Swimtime teaching over 20,000 children to swim each week, in addition to the numerous other providers in the sector, a third of UK children still cannot swim. Put another way, 3.4 million children fail to meet competency standards, with 1 in 3 children leaving primary school unable to swim. Factors that impact this worsening situation include local authority or trust run pools being closed at a disturbing rate, fewer schools providing swimming lessons and the squeeze on household incomes.

Describing how they work with local schools across the country Rachel said: ‘Where possible, we work with local schools to deliver lessons in their pools, ensuring this much needed life skill is available, however our ability to support this varies greatly across the country, as many schools have significantly reduced access to pools in their local areas.’

Ruth Nelson, strategic brand and marketing manager for Puddle Ducks Franchising Limited, who teach 25,000 children a week to swim reflected: ‘The swimming industry is undergoing huge change, and the landscape is likely to look quite different in a few years’ time. The prospect of 1.2 million children leaving primary school being unable to swim by 2026 is something that as an industry, we must attempt to turn around.’

Highlighting contributing factors Ruth said: ‘Covid was only the start; soaring energy prices since the beginning of 2022 have left many pool owners unable to stay open and those who have managed to keep going, have had to raise prices, either directly to the public or to increase hiring costs to swim schools.’

Ruth warned that children’s swimming lessons were in for a turbulent time: “We are approaching a perfect storm of rising prices, pool shortages and increased demand. As an industry, we have to embrace new ways of doing things, whether this be private providers such as ourselves building new pools, or concepts such as pop-up pools going directly into schools, or local authorities and not-for-profit CICs working more closely with private providers to ensure pools stay open and fit for purpose. We are still working our way through waiting lists of primary school aged children who missed out on learning to swim due to covid and we aren’t alone.”

She concluded: We very much hope that the relevant stakeholders see the crisis facing the industry and prioritises funding and facilitating new ways of working between the private and public sector to enable us to get on top of this – after all, it is a requirement in the national curriculum that isn’t currently being fulfilled, and we can help.”

Pip Wilkins, CE of the BFA acknowledged the urgent need for swimming lessons for primary-aged school children and commended Swimtime, Puddle Ducks and the BFA’s other swimming lesson franchises for teaching these lifesaving skills.