The Royal Life Saving Society’s Drowning Prevention Week 2026 followed in the wake of a string of tragedies during the spring heatwave, re-igniting the debate about water safety, especially in open water such as rivers, lakes, reservoirs, canals and the sea.
The tragedies, mostly involving children and teenagers, are a stark reminder that water safety is not optional – it’s essential. Behind every headline is a preventable loss, and for families, friends and communities, the impact lasts a lifetime.
Prior to his role with GM Active, our Head of Business Operations, Jon Keating, spent more than 20 years working strategically in school swimming programmes as a co-ordinator/advisor with the ASA and Swim England. He began his career as a swimming teacher over 30 years ago.
Over that time, he’s witnessed significant investment, policy changes and campaigns aimed at improving swimming and water safety.
And yet, he says, some of the most fundamental challenges remain remarkably unchanged.
This is not a new conversation.
In 2006, the government introduced the Top-Up Swimming Programme to support children who had not achieved the Key Stage 2 swimming standard.
The intention was positive, but the programme highlighted an inherent weakness.
A significant proportion of funding was consumed by transport and logistics. While getting children to pools was essential, it meant less investment was available for the teaching and learning itself. The programme delivered benefits but ultimately proved difficult to sustain.
For me, the lesson is clear – we have recognised the problem before, but we have not consistently addressed it in a way that creates lasting change.
Swimming remains part of the national curriculum, yet accountability around delivery and outcomes remains unclear.
Schools face enormous pressures around curriculum time, budgets and logistics. However, unlike many other curriculum subjects, swimming is not meaningfully scrutinised through inspection processes, and schools are not held directly accountable for outcomes.
If no one is checking, it’s no surprise it’s not always prioritised.
This is not a criticism of schools. Rather, it highlights a systemic challenge. When resources are stretched and accountability is limited, swimming can inevitably slip down the list of priorities. But that’s not the only issue.
For years, being able to swim 25 metres has been seen as the benchmark for swimming competence. The reality is more complicated.
Many water-based activities require participants to be capable of swimming significantly further. More importantly, distance alone tells us very little about a person’s ability to survive an unexpected immersion.
Twenty-five metres represents a bare minimum standard, not a meaningful measure of water safety. It does not reflect the fatigue, panic or unexpected situations people encounter in rivers, lakes, reservoirs, canals or the sea.
For parents, meanwhile, keeping children in swimming lessons beyond achieving 25 metres can be difficult – financially, logistically and emotionally as children get older and push back.
But as a parent myself, that parent/child battle may be one of the most important you ever have. Continuing lessons isn’t about performance; it’s about skills that could save a life.
And back to swimming as part of the National Curriculum – it is predicated on achieving 25 meters as much as how to survive in water, especially open water. Shouldn’t there be more emphasis on the latter?
A number of school swimming providers would say they do teach water safety. Both at the pool and sometimes in school assemblies and I know Swim England and STA certainly have guidance for this.
But a measure of the level of inconsistency of water safety delivery is the fact that almost none of it – to my knowledge – happens at secondary school.
Teaching water safety at a pool or in a school assembly isn’t a real-world example as mentioned above.
Too often, success is measured by distance alone. What can be overlooked are the skills that genuinely save lives:
Instead, we’re focusing on getting from one end of the pool to the other, rather than what to do when things go wrong.
I’m going to be controversial now – and make no apology for it.
Cold water shock can dramatically reduce a person’s ability to swim.
Anyone who comfortably swims 25 metres in a warm (certainly compared to open water) swimming pool may struggle to swim even a few metres in open water. Sudden immersion in cold, open water can, and does, almost immediately affect breathing, co-ordination, decision-making and physical capability.
This raises an uncomfortable but important question…
Are we creating a dangerous illusion of safety by defining ‘can swim’ way below what’s needed in real-life situations?
If we’re not prepared to teach swimming to a standard that genuinely keeps people, especially children and teenagers, safe – are we at risk of giving them a false and dangerous sense of confidence?
Because if someone knows they ‘can’t swim’, they may avoid the risk altogether. But if they believe they can, that’s when the danger begins and the tragedies occur.
Most swimming, and what little water safety education there is, takes place in the primary school years. Yet many drowning incidents involve teenagers and young adults.
This is the age when independence increases. Young people spend more time with friends, make more decisions for themselves and as history tells us, are more likely to encounter open water environments.
Risk is often highest at exactly the point when education becomes least visible.
We teach the basics early – but we don’t reinforce them when the risk is highest, what I call the missing piece: teenage and young people’s water safety.
There is currently limited water safety education in secondary schools and beyond. Yet there is a significant opportunity to deliver targeted interventions before the spring and summer months, focusing on:
If we know incidents increase during the teenage years, why aren’t we doing more to reach young people at that point?
I’m not a psychologist, but I am the father of two teenage boys.
It’s at this age that risk-taking behaviour is not unusual. Dares, bravado and social pressure have always existed and are unlikely to ever disappear.
This raises another important question: should young people experience open water safely as part of their education, rather than encountering it for the first time in uncontrolled circumstances?
Prevention strategies must be realistic. They need to speak directly to behaviours and consequences.
Back in the day, public information films about learning to swim were given air time on TV. Not the way to reach today’s younger generation. But the right message in the right place is what’s needed.
This advice from the RNLI is priceless and could save a life:
Motorcyclists are familiar with the powerful ‘To die for?’ signs found on some roads with poor safety records. Perhaps we need similarly impactful approaches around high-risk open water locations.
Indeed, a Channel 4 news report on the heatwave tragedies featured footage of a stretch of water with signs displaying a stark warning message, ‘People have drowned here: do not swim or wade’. More of those would be a good start.
Inequality remains a major issue, too. Access to swimming is not equal. Many children from more affluent families benefit from private lessons and additional opportunities outside school.
Others have to rely entirely on school swimming provision. When school swimming does not work effectively, inequalities widen.
And when inequalities widen, risk increases.
Over the past two decades there have been periods of progress. But progress has been inconsistent.
The pandemic undoubtedly disrupted swimming provision and created additional barriers. However, many of the underlying issues existed long before Covid and continue today.
Here’s the wider challenge. If fewer children learn to swim, participation declines. Reduced participation can weaken demand for public swimming facilities, placing additional existential pressure on leisure centres and community pools.
The consequence is a worrying cycle:
Fewer swimmers > reduced participation > greater pressure on facilities > pool closures > reduced access for future generations
There’s a generational element to this. Swimming is often learned behaviour. Parents who cannot swim are less likely to introduce their children to swimming.
Over time, participation declines further, creating a long-term erosion of swimming culture and water safety knowledge.
We risk creating a perfect storm – a downward spiral of less demand, fewer pools and fewer opportunities.
This is not simply about today’s children and young people. It is about future generations.
None of this is about assigning blame. Improving water safety requires collective responsibility from:
We all have a role to play. We all need to be pulling in the same direction and be prepared to ask difficult questions and make meaningful changes that include:
The UK is surrounded by water and criss-crossed by rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs.
Open water is not a niche issue. It is part of everyday life. That means water safety cannot be viewed as optional. It is an essential life skill.
Drowning is preventable. We know that. The question we have to ask ourselves is simple:
‘Are we doing everything we can, or just enough to say we tried?’
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