Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will review the elements of the early years and primary curricula that include baby and child swimming; and if he will make teaching swimming part of early years and primary professional training with regular updates included in continuing professional development.

Swimming and water safety is compulsory in Physical Education (PE) at primary level.

There are no current plans to review the PE national curriculum requirements, which can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-physical-education-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-physical-education-programmes-of-study#swimming-and-water-safety.

The Initial Teacher Training (ITT) criteria require that all accredited providers of ITT design their programmes to enable trainee teachers to meet the standards for Qualified Teacher Status which specify that trainees must demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge across the relevant subjects and curriculum areas. For primary teacher trainees this will include PE, of which swimming and water safety are integral to the programmes of study. The department does not set a minimum amount of training time for individual subjects for courses of ITT. This gives providers flexibility to design their programmes in a way that works best for them and for their candidates.

The Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework does not mandate swimming, however it does set out that early years practitioners should support children to know the importance of physical exercise for good health. It is up to early years practitioners to determine how they should help children to achieve this goal.