Swimming at Brookdale

Swimming is part of the KS2 National Curriculum

At Brookdale, because of our context living on a peninsula, we see teaching our children to swim as an important part of our safeguarding duties.

We are required to submit data each year confirming how many of our Year 6 pupils left Brookdale having met the KS2 Expected Standard for Swimming:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres

• use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke

• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Like most Wirral schools, we use EdSential Schools Swimming Services through West Kirby Concourse with qualified and approved instructors who are fully DBS checked. 

One of the class staff from Brookdale also completes the ASA Level 1/National Curriculum Teaching Programme qualification as recommended by EdSential so they can support with the instruction.

More information can be found about EdSential and their service here: https://edsential.com/health-wellbeing/swimming/

In Year 4, we take the whole class swimming. They go every afternoon for a full week and are assessed by their group instructors during that week. Class staff accompany the children and ensure they are safe throughout the session while the lessons are taught by EdSential instructors.

At the end of the term we receive a list of the children who have met the National Curriculum standard and a list of those that have not; parents are notified of this via their child's end-of-year school report in July of Year 4.

If your child has not met the standard, as assessed by the EdSential Team, we provide further swimming instruction when they are in Year 5 and Year 6. The year 5 and 6 sessions are reserved for those children who did not meet the standard in Year 4 - like a learning intervention for any other subject at school.

Year 4 parents will receive notification of when the whole class swimming week will take place.

Year 5 and 6 parents will receive a letter notifying them if their child has been selected to participate in the intervention sessions and when they will be.