School Swimming Lessons: An Impossible Dream or a Realistic Plan?

In his column of 7 March in Trouw, Pepijn Keppel makes a strong case for reintroducing compulsory school swimming. His argument — that rising swimming-lesson costs and closing pools are contributing to a rise in drownings, and that school swimming is the answer — sounds logical. But it's also a bit of a shortcut. It overlooks the reality of today's education system, where the pressure on primary schools is already sky-high and adding extra obligations is simply an illusion.

📚 Educational reality versus wishful thinking

Today's primary education is packed with compulsory subjects such as maths, language and citizenship. Each of these has a set number of hours that schools are required to deliver, and there's already plenty of wrangling over that because of shortages in teaching time and staff. School swimming doesn't just mean extra lesson time — it also means travel time, changing time and a whole lot of practical organisation. Together this can add up to 100 to 180 hours per school year. That time has to come from somewhere — and that means cutting into essential subjects in which many children are already falling behind.

🔍 The problem with the classic approach

The classic approach to school swimming assumes that pupils travel to the pool as a group, get changed, take a swimming lesson and then return to school. This is a logistical nightmare for schools, and on top of that it makes the actual swimming time inefficient. Swimming instruction needs to be effective and purposeful. What's more, various studies show that children only really benefit from swimming lessons when the frequency is higher than the traditional weekly or fortnightly lessons of school swimming.

🏊 The number of hours needed for a swimming diploma

Research shows that earning a swimming diploma takes a considerable number of hours. On average, achieving an A diploma takes 51 clock hours, which works out to 68 lessons of 45 minutes. Earning the complete ABC diploma takes an average of 84 clock hours, or 112 lessons of 45 minutes.

If you offer school swimming just once a week, that means a child needs almost two school years simply to earn the A diploma, given that a school year has only 41 teaching weeks. Never mind the fact that school holidays interrupt the continuity time and again. To achieve enough of an effect, a child would really need to swim twice a week. For the full ABC diploma, a child would have to take part in school swimming for several school years. That's simply unfeasible within the current education system.

⏳ Lost time and educational impact

On top of that, a great deal of time is lost around the lessons themselves. Assuming a 45-minute lesson, changing time of two times fifteen minutes and travel time of two times ten minutes, a single swimming lesson takes 95 minutes in total. That lost time comes directly at the expense of other primary-school subjects.

✅ Swimming-lesson leave as a feasible alternative

The Nederlandse Stichting Water- & Zwemveiligheid (NSWZ) also wants to give primary education a voice on the subject of school swimming, and is therefore sending out a survey this week to 7,000 primary schools. This survey aims to clarify what impact school swimming would have on mainstream education. The results will be shared with the House of Representatives and can be used in the decision-making process, or as a starting point for further research by the government. Beyond that, NSWZ has long been advocating an alternative: swimming-lesson leave. Parents are given the option to have their children take a weekly swimming lesson during school hours, without this coming at the expense of the educational curriculum.

👶 Why swimming-lesson leave works for young children

Swimming-lesson leave would apply to children in groups 1 and 2, with a swimming-lesson starting age of 4 (group 1) and 5 (group 2). These young children aren't yet able to get changed on their own before and after the lesson, which means they always need supervision. That makes it practically easier to grant swimming-lesson leave, since the reception classes have a more flexible daily schedule and missed lessons have less of a negative impact on learning development.

From group 3 onwards (ages 6–7), children become independent enough to change on their own, but supervision to and from the pool is still necessary. Teachers are authorised to accompany pupils to and from the pool, but they aren't allowed to help with changing. This means schools depend on volunteer parents to take on that task. On top of that, group 3 is considerably heavier than groups 1 and 2 in terms of subject matter and workload. Missing lesson time in this group therefore has a far greater negative impact on educational performance.

By applying swimming-lesson leave to the youngest pupils, education in the higher classes stays undisturbed, while children still get the chance to become water-competent in an efficient way. This is a win-win situation for children, the swimming sector and primary education. This proposal is currently being examined and will be presented as a recommendation to the House of Representatives.

💰 Money isn't the problem — the approach is

Keppel rightly points out that the Netherlands has plenty of money, given the recent budget windfall of 8 billion euros. But simply allocating money to an obligation that increases the educational burden and hasn't been proven more effective falls short. The Nederlandse Stichting Water- & Zwemveiligheid (NSWZ) stresses that priorities need to be clearly set first. Swimming lessons are without doubt a priority, but before money is directed towards them, research and expertise first need to show how those resources can be spent in the right way.

NSWZ advocates taking a close look at the current subsidy schemes and operating grants, particularly at municipal and semi-commercial pools where the municipality acts as operator or property owner. This would allow public money to be deployed more effectively to encourage swimming lessons. In addition, there's a third — and certainly not unimportant — group: commercial swimming schools and pools. These often fall outside most subsidy schemes and therefore have to pass on all costs, including rising expenses, directly to their customers. This leads to unfair imbalances in the cost structure of swimming lessons.

🎯 Conclusion

The case for school swimming stems from an understandable concern for water safety, but it hasn't been thought through within the context of today's primary education. It demands an enormous investment of time and comes at the expense of essential subjects. NSWZ offers a more realistic and flexible alternative that improves water safety without placing an even greater burden on education. It's time to do more than just call for change — it's time to genuinely look at workable solutions.

🔁 Share this article to keep this discussion going! #watersafety #education #schoolswimming #swimminglessons #NSWZ

Source:

Trouw article 7-3-2025: https://www.trouw.nl/sport/verplicht-het-schoolzwemmen-voordat-de-dijken-breken~bac345c3/