Early teens and high-school students are spending less time participating in physical exercise, and indications suggest that this age group is engaging or playing sport for less than an hour a week. When it comes to the pool, a significant decline in participation is recorded in children of the primary to high school transition age group (12 to 13 years). So why do our kids stop swimming? With the additional academic pressures and challenges associated with the transition to high school and settling into Year 8, it is often an easier choice for students to drop their extra-curricular activities like swimming at this time. Some might believe that swimming is now ‘uncool’, while a lowered self-confidence and body image attributable to the physical and emotional changes the child is dealing with may be the reason some are discouraged from attending swimming. Others might now lack the motivation to compete or train, an activity they once enjoyed. With this age group being seen to now be engaged more than ever in...

As reported recently in the media, it is estimated by the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia that nearly 1 in 5 children will leave Australian Primary Schools in a few weeks time without the required aquatic skills to swim 50m and unable to perform basic survival and water safety techniques that could potentially save their lives. This statistic means that over 50,000 of our children aged 11 to 12 lack fundamental swimming and water safety skills, and comes on the back of news that a high school in Melbourne has cancelled its swimming sports because not enough students know how to swim. With aquatic activities at the heart of our national identity and lifestyle – when and how did we start neglecting to educate our Aussie kids on the basics of learning to swim safer? Does the responsibility to ensure our kids are taught swim safer skills lie with parents, our schools, or with our governments? The growth in the numbers of children under 5 years of age being taught at private swimming complexes is increasing,...