Swimming Tuition

The National Curriculum states that all schools must provide swimming instruction in either key stage 1 or 2, to teach pupils to do the following:

• 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

Once a pupil has reached these goals there is no obligation for schools to continue to provide swimming tuition. However, at St. Mary’s we feel it is important to continue to offer swimming tuition to all key stage 2 pupils on a rolling programme, regardless of whether or not they have achieved these goals, to allow our pupils to develop more confidence and to improve his/her personal skills. 

We kindly ask parents to make a voluntary contribution towards their child’s swimming tuition each year to partially help cover the cost of tuition. Please note this is ‘Voluntary’ and pupils will not be treated any differently whether their parents have paid or not.  

Swimming Team

St Mary's Swimming team competes annually at local school tournaments. Our team is selected from Years 4, 5 & 6 pupils and is mixed, both boys and girls. The competition is always very challenging and competitive, encompassing breast-stroke, front crawl, back stroke, butterfly and relay swims. Well done to all our team swimmers.