Hundreds of children across three of our Portsmouth schools are making a splash in a temporary swimming pool that has been opened, the first of its kind to open at a school in the city.
Meon Way Federation has dived into the future of primary school swimming by having a pop-up solution to teach children to swim. It is based on the Moorings Way Infant School site.
The opportunities to use the pool will be offered to children at Meon Infant School, Moorings Way Infant School, and Meon Junior School, who collectively form Meon Way Federation.
The innovative programme, led by Swim:ED and supported by ActiveMe 360, has a mission to improve pupils’ swimming proficiency and water safety skills.
Swim:ED was developed by education specialists with experience delivering physical education, sport, and physical activities for pupils within primary schools across the country.
The innovative pop-up pool initiative aims to revolutionise swimming education in schools, allowing more young people to benefit from regular swim sessions.
On the Swim:Ed website, the programme describe their unique pop-up pool as a solution that is: ‘Installed and managed directly on your school premises and housed in a secure industrial-style marquee structure, securely fixed to the school playground. This provides a safe, highly convenient platform for effective swimming instruction, eliminating the time-consuming logistics and costly transport to off-site facilities and significantly reducing disruptions to children’s learning time.’
Work by the school and Swim:ED is supported by the School Swimming and Water Safety, who work in partnership with Swim England, to raise awareness about being safe around water.
Sara Paine, Executive Headteacher at Meon Way Federation, says the pool has already been a hit with children, saying:
“Welcoming Swim:Ed to Meon Way Federation has been a long time in the making, but I am delighted to see hundreds of our children enjoying the pop-up pool to strengthen their swimming ability and learning more about being safe around water.
“This pop-up pool was installed over the half term break, so we now have a busy programme of swimming for pupils in the lead up to the summer. Our aspiration is for all pupils who attend the Federation to be able to swim and know water safety skills. Already, we are looking at dates for the future.”
Will Atterbury, Founder and Managing Director at ActiveMe 360 CIC who are managing the pool at Moorings Way said:
“Following our success in other areas of Hampshire we are delighted to be able to bring the pop-up pool programme, Swim:ED, to the City of Portsmouth. This is our most exciting venture yet in our mission to change lives and improve health and wellbeing for children in Hampshire and Sussex.
“Swimming is a crucial life skill, especially in a coastal region where we are reminded all too often of the dangers of different waters around us, and it can also have such a positive impact on people’s wellbeing.
“Unfortunately, too many children either don’t have access, or face ever increasing barriers to access to learn to swim. This programme removes those barriers and we have already seen so much progress in the children through the Swim:ED programme, we are excited to expand the programme further across the city and benefit more communities.”
