Water Safety

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 3:06 pm on 11 June 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:06, 11 June 2019

I thank the Member for that. I congratulate, of course, her constituent for the work that she carries out in memory of her son, Christopher. We know that right across Wales, there are really dedicated groups of people who take up a cause because they have had that direct personal experience of it in their own lives, and the hours and dedication that they provide to those causes is a remarkable and heartening feature of that sense of community that we are still lucky enough to have in Wales.

The Member is right to point to the importance of what goes on in school. By the end of key stage 2, we are clear that pupils should be able to swim unaided for a sustained period of time, and 64,000 pupils in Wales attended school swimming sessions in the last academic year. Pioneer schools involved in the new curriculum have already recognised that the importance of swimming goes far beyond it just being another mode of physical activity. And in the development of the curriculum through those pioneer schools, the emphasis on swimming has moved towards its safety aspects as well as to its recreational possibilities. So, I know that the Minister for Education is aware of that work and is taking that forward into the broader development of the curriculum on which we are currently engaged.