The opportunity to raise standards in swimming is a statutory aspect of the National Curriculum.
All children must learn how to swim. Schools must provide swimming instruction either in key stage 1 or key stage 2.
In particular, pupils should be taught to:
- swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
- use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke]
- perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.