Swimming with 4-year-olds

The sooner children learn to swim, the better. Not only is it a fun skill to gain, but it’s hugely character building too, says Sebastien Chapleau...

A recent survey by the Amateur Swimming Association points out that 45 per cent of seven-to-11 year olds are unable to swim 25m – the length of an average-sized pool – unaided. It also points out that nearly 1,300 (6.6 per cent) primaries do not teach swimming, even though it is on the curriculum. And even those kids who do get to splash about for a while only get, on average, around 10 hours in the water a year.

At La Fontaine Academy, a state-funded Primary School in Bromley, South-East London, we place a strong emphasis on character education (as defined by KIPP leaders: kipp.org/our-approach/character) and have decided to take all our children to weekly swimming lessons for 12 weeks, from the age of four.

This, we quickly realised, generated some rather quizzical looks from parents, swimming instructors and other local schools. While it’s acceptable for parents to take their very young children for swimming lessons on Saturdays, a group of 25 schoolchildren getting on the bus to the local pool seemed to many to be the strangest thing on earth. I’ll never forget the faces of the swimming instructors when we arrived for our first lesson: we had told them many times, as we produced our risk assessments, that our youngest children were four, but for some reason they hadn’t fully realised that four-year-olds are actually pretty small.

Swimming is very much part of our character education agenda at La Fontaine Academy. We strongly believe that education is something that should focus on academic success, while also encompassing character building. In broad terms, we believe that academic skills are what will get you to an employer’s door, and character is what will enable you to get through that door. So how does swimming contribute to character development?

Grit: Building perseverance and passion for long-term goals
Swimming is not something you master quickly, and it really takes you out of your comfort zone. Children learn to not give up because of initial apprehensions or setbacks.

Zest: Developing an approach to a life filled with excitement
One of our mantras at school is ‘Try something new’ and zest is one of the necessary preconditions for our children to try new experiences.

Optimism and curiosity: Knowing that with effort the future holds positive possibilities
Along with grit and zest, the idea that it’s important to want to try new things without fear has been reinforced by taking our children swimming.

Self-control: Regulating thoughts, feelings and behaviours when they conflict with valued goals
It was a challenge, but the children learned to get over the excitement of being in a swimming pool with all their friends to prioritise listening to a swimming coach who is asking them to pay attention to her instructions.

Social intelligence: An awareness of people’s feelings, and navigating social situations
Taking the bus every week with lots of people onboard, getting changed without help and putting your swimming kit in your bag without mixing up your friends’ socks with your own, these things can take years to develop for young children. Our children are now confident with all of these aspects, and similar issues in class and at home are now much easier.

Gratitude: Appreciating benefits we receive from others, and reciprocating
Where our school is located, there are quite a few independent (fee-paying) schools, that have their own pools. Our children and their parents realise we’ve had to work hard to make things happen. We’re very fortunate that we have been able to use our PE and Sport Premium grant to make swimming lessons accessible to all our children, free of charge. And we will show gratitude by writing to Sports England and relevant officials to thank them.

The children’s progress, as you might expect, has been tremendous. The old adage ‘the younger you start, the quicker you learn’ is certainly true when it comes to swimming. I would strongly encourage others to give it a try. Organising swimming lessons can be a logistical challenge (particularly when public transport is involved), but the payback outweighs the headaches by far. In this sense, it is a clear investment, with high returns, in terms of things like learning behaviour, organisational skills and emotional well-being. These areas, by the way, are just other words for what we’ve called ‘character’.

About the author

Sebastien Chapleau is the Founding Headteacher of La Fontaine Academy (@FontaineAcademy ), a member of the STEP Academy Trust and a member of the Future Leaders Network.