It is swimming carnival season in Australia. This usually means youngsters from about Year 2 and up are requested to swim a distance of fifty metres or one size of an Olympic-size pool – if they are saying they’ll.
As a mother or father of main college youngsters, I lately went to my baby’s carnival to indicate my assist.
As a drowning prevention researcher, I used to be already properly conscious of the dire state of youngsters’s swimming talents – and so wasn’t anticipating all youngsters to have the ability to compete. But I used to be shocked to see quite a few rescues in the course of the day. This is the place youngsters are unable to complete occasions and need assistance to get out of the pool.
What is occurring?
A drop in swimming potential
We know swimming potential is declining in Australia.
One in 4 faculties not holds a swimming carnival at all, citing low swimming abilities on the primary cause. When they run carnivals, academics estimate 50% of eligible youngsters don’t take part.
In a 2025 report, surveyed academics advised Royal Life Saving Australia virtually half of Year 6 college students can’t swim 50m and tread water for 2 minutes – the minimal water security necessities for his or her age.
Parents reported 46% of youngsters aged 11–12 (years 5 and 6) can’t swim 50m. An estimated 46% of youngsters aged 7–14 should not have the minimum safety skills set for youngsters aged 6.
Teacher survey responses recognized about 31% of colleges not supply swimming skills programs as a result of value, resourcing and time. Parents report similar barriers to enrolling their youngsters in personal swimming classes.
Are dad and mom overestimating potential?
But the rescues at our faculty carnival led me to wonder if there was one thing else at play.
At my baby’s college, dad and mom had been requested to evaluate their baby’s swimming potential on the carnival permission notice. The data was used for lane allocation with weaker swimmers to race in outer lanes, nearer to lifeguards.
So maybe some dad and mom had been overly optimistic about how properly their baby can swim. Research reveals dad and mom typically overestimate their baby’s swimming potential and subsequently underestimate their drowning threat.
But in defence of fogeys, youngsters hardly ever have the chance to swim 50m, continuous. Lessons are sometimes held in smaller, learn-to-swim swimming pools or these which can be solely 25m in size.
For residents in nation areas with seasonal swimming pools (like my dwelling city), their outside 50m swimming pools are additionally closed for half the 12 months.
What can dad and mom do?
So, as a rustic that’s imagined to be a “nation of swimmers” with a robust lifesaving historical past, how can we counter this decline and keep away from youngsters needing to be rescued at their carnivals?
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Encourage dad and mom to prioritise swimming classes over different sports activities wherever potential. This recognises studying to swim is a non-negotiable life talent that each reduces drowning threat in addition to opens up the thrill of swimming for health and enjoyable. Even in case your baby is in highschool and also you’ve let swimming classes slide, it isn’t too late for them to study and enhance.
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Check your baby’s potential towards the national standards. If you’re undecided their potential is the place it ought to be for his or her age, think about some top-up classes or a vacation intensive program.
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Observe how your youngsters are doing in swimming classes. Ask for suggestions from their academics. Where are they as much as by way of water security?
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Get within the water together with your baby, ideally at a 50m pool. Swim alongside them and see how they go at finishing a size continuous. Explain what to do in the event that they really feel like they’ll’t make it, both practising floating on their again or holding onto a lane rope.
This is important
We don’t need the swimming carnival to disappear forever.
Nor do we wish it to be only for the highest swimmers. My child’s swimming carnival was described as being for “competitive swimmers only”, which is a part of a growing trend amongst faculties.
Amid record drowning deaths in Australia, and through a summer season when 79 people have misplaced their lives to drowning, guaranteeing our youngsters know the right way to swim safely has by no means been extra necessary.