Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) swimming lessons and (b) water safety lessons are a statutory requirement for all schools.

Swimming is a vital life skill. That is why we have made sure that swimming and water safety is compulsory in the national curriculum for PE at primary levels (key stages 1 and 2). The curriculum sets out the expectation that all pupils should be taught to:

- swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres

- use a range of strokes effectively; and

- perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

There are no specific statutory requirements on secondary schools to provide swimming lessons. However, the key stage 3 PE curriculum sets out that pupils should build on and embed the physical development and skills learned in key stages 1 and 2, and become more competent, confident and expert in their technique. Swimming lessons are one way of doing this and swimming and platform diving are two of the permitted activities in the Activity List for GCSE and A level PE.