Winter lessons prepare pupils for summer water safety

Chris Burton works on getting the portable pool ready for St Pius School pupils on Monday. Photo / Greg Bowker

It may be the middle of winter, but from Monday more than 160 Auckland primary pupils will have to pack togs and a towel in their schoolbags.

A fully covered 4m by 10m heated pool was this week dropped into St Pius X School by crane as part of the Pools2Schools programme to help children in decile 1 schools learn basic swimming and water safety skills.

Pools2Schools takes a portable pool large enough to teach basic swimming and water safety skills to schools that do not have access to a pool. The pool moves to a new school for the start of each term.

WaterSafe Auckland's business manager Teresa Stanley said having the pool on site, combined with a strong aquatic education programme, would help save lives.

"It's not just about having a splash in the pool, and it's more than just learning to swim. Once you give students skills they can take from a pool to open water, it becomes a life-saver."

St Pius principal Paul Coakley said his pupils were excited about the pool.

"Some of the children go to local swimming pools, but very few can swim or get swimming lessons."

Over the past three terms, 1593 students from schools in the Tamaki area have benefited from the scheme.

At St Patrick's principal Carmel Bullot said staff, pupils and the community had all benefited from having the pool last term.

"Our students have all made progress in aquatics. Each one of them is more confident in and around water and for some their general self-esteem has improved.

"There are students whose reason for coming to school was swimming."

Students at Sylvia Park School "literally leapt into the pool", said principal Barbara Ala'alatoa. The school also conducted its first triathlon because it had the pool on site.

The WaterSafe Auckland project uses Kiwisport funding from Sparc and Sport Auckland.