(Image: PA)
A cross-party panel of councillors will look at what schools are doing to ensure Bradford’s children know how to swim.
A scrutiny review of children’s swimming facilities across the district has been set up following concerns over how schools and academies are providing swimming lessons.
The concerns were discussed by members of Bradford Council’s Children’s Scrutiny Committee late last year, when members heard that many schools struggled with the cost of transport to get to pools..
Some schools now rely on pop up pools rather than traditional swimming baths to meet their swimming requirements under the national curriculum.
History of Bradford swimming
Bradford has a proud history of swimming education, with Wapping School in Bradford being the first school in the country to get its own swimming pool in 1898.
That historic pool building currently lies derelict.
What will be discussed?
At a meeting of the scrutiny committee last month, members agreed to the terms of reference of the scrutiny review.
The group will:
- Evaluate how well schools are meeting the curriculum needs at Key Stage 2 and other requirements for performing safe self-rescue, in different water based situations
- Explore the sufficiency, suitability and costs, including health and safety and transport costs, of all types of facilities
- Explore the community impact of swimming and ability to perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations on children and young people
- Consider how the needs of children with additional needs and those in care of the authority are being met.
The review will allow members to grill council bosses, school heads and pool owners.
After the review is complete, a report will be written and presented to the council.
'We face losing generations who are able to swim'
The issue was one that was championed by late councillor Jeanette Sunderland (Lib Dem, Idle and Thackley).
Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus last year, she criticised the lack of investment in swimming facilities, saying: “It seems like we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
“We’re supposed to be putting children at the heart of everything we do in the district.
“If you don’t learn to swim as a child – very, very few adults start learning to swim.
“We face losing generations who are able to swim.
]"Bradford is the birthplace of school swimming, but bureaucracy is strangling it.”
Squire Lane plans scrapped
This summer Bradford Council’s Reform UK-led Executive voted to scrap plans for a new swimming pool and leisure centre at the Squire Lane site.
Council bosses said the £32.9m scheme would be too costly for the Bradford taxpayer, even though £20m of that cost would come from a Government grant.
Plans to re-open Bingley Pool have also been scrapped in recent years by the former Labour leadership of the Council.