Inclusion 2024 project has been so inspiring and really rewarding

To mark National Inclusion Week 2024, Swim England is highlighting key projects which provide equal opportunities and promote inclusive participation.

Here, Swim England’s school swimming and water safety development officer Lorna Goldie details a collaborative project which has seen thousands of children receive water safety delivery.

It’s been three academic years in the making but Inclusion 2024 has certainly delivered on its targets.

Inspired by the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, Inclusion 2024 had one key aim – to enhance accessibility of physical education and school sports for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

A recently-published evaluation has detailed the successes since its inception.

Overall, more than 5,000 schools have been involved in 2,800 activities with 55,000 interactions with pupils, and other participants.

Inclusion 2024 is funded by the Department for Education and The Youth Sport Trust leads the initiative. Swim England, along with other high-profile organisations such as the Activity Alliance, the British Paralympic Association and the National Association of Special Educational Needs, all worked collaboratively to steer the project.

For the School Swimming and Water Safety element, 16 lead inclusion schools were involved in the project but we have engaged with a total of 635 schools, providing water safety training to almost 6,000 SEND youngsters in the last three years.

This has resulted in improved water safety knowledge of pupils with SEND – and, just as important, increased confidence of both swimming teachers and school staff to offer pupils with SEND water-based physical activity sessions.

Other key elements of Inclusion 2024 are supporting families and offering training to swimming teachers, school teachers and university students.

Increased confidence

By having that engagement with the universities will mean the next generation of school teachers could potentially help thousands of children and young people with special educational needs be safe in, on and around water.

Current teaching staff are also more knowledgable and confident, while families have been more engaged with swimming as a result of the project.

So, what’s next? Well, Inclusion 2024 was extended for 12 months to continue working with the lead inclusion schools to identify best practice and to share learnings from the project.

Swim England has developed a school swimming online assessment tool, which will support all schools and not just those involved in Inclusion 2024, to identify bespoke areas of improvement for their school and water safety programme.

Both schools and swimming lesson providers are able to complete the survey by clicking here.

Inclusion 2024 has been such an inspiring project to be involved with.

To work with children and young people with special educational needs and see them develop from someone who might initially be nervous about getting into the pool to having increased confidence in the water is really rewarding.

The impact is obvious when you see a young person rotate and float on their back and are aware that’s what they should do if they fall into water.

The messaging from the Water Safety Code is key and the fact we’ve helped so many young people learn this information is the element of this project which gives me the most pride.

Long may that continue.