The Good Shepherd Catholic School's pop up pool

The children at The Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School are in their final week of swimming lessons with a pop-up pool located on their school site. The school opted to deliver intensive swimming lessons their 265 children.

The large, heated pool comes with its own instructor, lifeguard and changing area.

The school is using its ringfenced government School Sports Premium grant to meet the hire cost for the January/February half term. All schools get the grant, and it must be used to provide PE activities and resources.

Mrs Carmel Dodds the Headteacher said: “There is a real buzz around our school. The children have been so excited. For many of them this has been the first time they have swam in a pool.’

Each child from Reception to Year six has had at least one hour swimming lessons in the 1.35m-deep pool per week for five weeks each. Small groups of six, ten and fifteen mean that the children have already made rapid progress.

Swimming lessons usually start at Year 4 for the children at The Good Shepherd but having the pool on site has enabled children who would not normally get the chance to have school swimming lessons in the water a lot earlier. Helping them to overcome any fear which they may later build around being in the water.

There have been special sessions for children who are nervous in the water or those who have SEN.

Government targets mean that every child should be able to swim 25m, use a range of strokes and be able to self-rescue by the time they leave primary school.

With lots of positive parental feedback, one parent wrote ‘My child was absolutely thrilled about the on-site swimming lessons and the pool. He looked forward to each class every week with so much excitement. He thoroughly enjoyed every session and was always eager for the next one.’