How to use the month insight report. You may find that there are snippets of information that you can use to:

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1 Contents 1. Executive Summary: (p.1) 2. How to use the month insight report (p.11) 3. February National Data Collection: Parents who chose not to send their children to learn to swim schemes (p.11) 4. Interesting articles & conference summary (p.28) 5. What s on its way? (p.33) 1. Executive Summary How to use the month insight report You may find that there are snippets of information that you can use to: Gain buy in from your local leisure providers to support ASA programmes / advice Encourage leisure providers to review their current programmes Make evidence based decisions February National Data Collection: Parents who chose not to send their children to learn to swim schemes 23 Data administrators distributed a questionnaire to parents and guardians in England, whose children do not take part in an ASA learn to swim scheme. By the end of February 2013, 521 data sets were completed, obtained and analysed. Participant Characteristics (521 questionnaire responses) Of those who responded to the survey, most fell into the years age bracket. 5 respondents were aged under 16, and 17 were over 55 years. 78% of the respondents were female. Almost 20% of respondents were stay at home parents. Parents who were employed in intermediate managerial and superviser positions had a high response rate to the questionnaire. Of the total children responsible to the respondents, the majority were between 4-7 and 8-11 years. 17% were of secondary school age. Analysis: Swimming Traits When asked how likely they were to recommend various forms of exercise to a friend or colleague, one third of the respondents gave swimming a score of 10, with 10 being high on a scale of We developed Net Promoter Scores using the data from this question, with

2 swimming being the only sport to receive a positive score (43.6%). Comparing previous results we found that since November 2012, swimming, gym, football and golf have improved their NPS. Running, cycling, tennis, badminton, waterpolo and diving have weakened their NPS. 47% of the respondents rarely or never swim. Just over 20% of respondents swim at least once a week, with 1% of these swimming more than 3 times a week. One third of the respondents can swim m without stopping, with almost 40% capable of swimming further than 200m non-stop. 5.5% of respondents are dedicated to training or competitive swimming. 8% are nervous about getting into the water or feel uncomfortable in the water without the aid of floats or their feet on the floor. Results: Reasons for declined swimming lessons Lessons are seen as being too expensive was the most common factor (36% of responses) for people to decide not to sign their children up to the ASAs learn to swim scheme. 6.5% of parents believe that there are more important things to spend money on than swimming lessons. Almost 20% of parents and carers do not sign their child up to a learn to swim scheme as their child swims at school. 12% say that their child can already swim, with 11% of respondents children being taught by parents, and 5% being taught by a family member

3 or friend. Barriers to swimming lessons regarding the quality of the sessions which the centre puts on include sessions being too full with no places at convenient times (8%) and sessions being crowded (7.7%). When correlating the barriers to swimming responses to respondents job types, we found that 20% of self employed parents teach their children to swim. Almost 60% of stay at home parents say travel to the pool is a barrier to signing their children up to a learn to swim scheme. There is also a financial barrier for stay at home parents, both through lessons being too expensive (30%), or them having more important things to spend their money on (27%). Parents who themselves swim very rarely were the most likely to select barriers preventing them from signing their child up to a learn to swim scheme too expensive (33%), child s swims with school instead (41%), travel to pool is an issue (50%), and they have more important things to spend money on (32%). 34% of those able to swim m and 47% of those able to swim over 200m are likely not to sign their child/ren up to a learn to swim scheme as they teach their children how to swim themselves. These parents also believed that swimming lessons are too expensive. When asked what would need to change in order to facilitiate their child to learn to swim, reducing the cost of lessons was the most common response (56%). Increasing the availabilty of lessons, hosting family learning sessions, and reducing class sizes were all highlighted as changes that sites could make to encourage more people to sign their children up to a learn to swim scheme. Other reponses included: Offering more motivational tools like badges, Offering an Aquatic youth club for the older children, Make changing rooms more family friendly, Improve customer service, Change swimwear rules, to allow children to wear tshirts and full body costumes in the water, Offer lessons in shallow, warm water, Improve the quality of teaching (better training), Ensure that teachers are consistent each week; who are happy to get in the water when teaching young children, Provide basic teaching lessons to parents so that they are able to teach their children themselves. Results: Lesson Preferences (n=521) One third of respondents chose weekend mornings as their preferred time for their children to attend swimming lessons, with weekday evenings being the second favourite preferred time (26%). Weekend evenings were the least preferred time to attend swimming lessons, with only 1% of participants choosing this time. 90% of respondents thought that 5 or less was a reasonable price to pay for a 30 minute swimming lesson, with a maximum class size of 8 children. 15% of these wanted to pay 2 or less. 5 was the most common response (17%), followed by 4 (16%), and followed by 3 (15%).

4 The ASA are looking to offer medals to swimmers who complete certain stages of their learn to swim scheme. 72% responded that this is something their child would be interested in working towards. When asked how much they expected to pay for a swimming award/ badge and a certificate, 70% of respondents responded with 2.49 or less was the most frequently selected amount (20%). Letters home from school (55%) or leaflets put into children s school bags (40%) are considered to be the two best ways to let parents and carers know about swimming lessons. Personal s (35%), Facebook (24%) and leaflets in the post (23%) were also regarded as good ways to inform parents. Less than 5% of respondents deemed work s, phone apps, bright billboards, posters at their workplace and twitter to be useful tools to let them know about swimming lessons. Results: The Importance of Swimming Lessons (n=521) Enabling their child to learn how to swim to safety if they ever fell into water was considered the most relevant reason to enrol their child onto a learn to swim scheme (45%). Almost one third of respondents would consider stopping payment for swimming lessons when they feel their child is able to swim to safety when in danger. 27% of respondents would consider stopping payment if their child requested to stop their lessons. 9% of parents would wait until their child has completed the last stage of their learn to swim scheme. Other factors included when the child starts swimming at school (7.6%), when the child is able to swim 25m (6.5%), and when they have moved to a club (6.1%). Results: School Swimming (n=268) 53% of the 521 respondents have a child/ children who have received swimming lessons at school. Of these 268 parents and carers, 16% say that their child/ren swims each week, every term in every school year. For 15%, their child/ren swim weekly, during one school term, each year. 38% of these parents and carers were expected to contribute financially (usually over 2 per lesson) their child/ren s school swimming. Almost 60% of respondents children are taught to swim at school by a swimming teacher independent of the school. 18% of parents and carers are unsure of who teaches their child to swim during school swimming lessons. 23% believe their child to be taught by a teacher within their child s school. Over 50% of the respondents receive no updates on their child s school swimming lessons from the school (54.5%). When asked what their child/ren thought about their school swimming lessons, results suggested they were helping them to learn to swim (36%), great fun (30%), and also too busy cramped with a lot of waiting around (17%). 22% of children thought they were too short, none of them thought their school swimming lessons were too long.

5 Other responses regarding children s thoughts on their school swimming lessons included being rushed, and lessons seen as a reward, which could be withdrawn from the entire class as a punishment when a child misbehaves. Some parents also commented that the school swimming lessons were either geared towards non-swimmers or swimmers, and seemed unable to cater for both. 45% of parents whose children take part in school swimming lessons consider the school lessons to be great and teach their children an important life skill. 47% of respondents believe that school swimming lessons need to be supplemented with after-school lessons. 18.5% would like more advice to be sent to parents on how they can support swimming practice. If lessons became more worthwhile, 18% would consider subsidising them. 14% of parents would like their child s school to make better links with local swimming clubs. Results: Family Swimming (n=521) 44% of respondents swim very rarely with their child/ren. 23% swim approximately once a month. 12% swim with their children once a week. When asked if there is anything they would like their local pool to do/ provide in order to help with family swimming, discount family swim prices (56%), and discount child swimming lessons (43%) were both seen as being helpful to parents. Providing more play or teaching equipment during family sessions (34%) as well as having an instructor on poolside to entertain the kids during fun sessions (14%) were also viewed as ways a pool could help regarding family swimming. 27% of respondents would like their pool to provide family swim lessons. Suggestions from the findings: Over one third of respondents thought that children s swimming lessons were too expensive. Reducing the cost of swimming lessons was a common response when asked how to encourage parents to sign their children up to a learn to swim scheme. 5 or less was seen as a reasonable price to pay for a 30 minute swimming lesson with a maximum class size of 8 children. Some respondents requested that the ASA provide basic teaching lessons to parents and carers to enable them to teach their children to swim themselves. Additionally, 18.5% of parents whose children took part in school swimming lessons would like more information on how they can support swimming practice. As school swimming lessons are relied upon by some parents to teach their child to swim, school swimming lessons need to adequately provide children with a quality and quantity of lessons to achieve the key stage aims.

6 Focus areas for leisure providers Private tuition was not available at some pools, which was a preferred option for some parents Extensive waiting lists for learn to swim schemes more pool time could be made available for swimming lessons. Parents chose weekday evenings and weekend mornings as their preferred time. Ensure that teachers are consistent each week. Learn to swim rewards Motivational tools like badges were seen as positive reasons to sign a child up to a learn to swim scheme was the most frequently selected response to a reasonable amount to pay a leisure provider for a badge and certificate. Interesting articles & conference summary Local Government Association findings re sports participation Swimming was the most frequently provided sport across local authorities (alongside football). 89% of LAs provided swimming and 71% of LAs provided disability swimming. Swim Britain findings from focus groups with recreational and fitness swimmers Approved marketing messages: Don t be patronising with the challenge distance on offer. Avoid pressurising individuals of having to swim 4 laps each hence focus on team goals as well as personal goals help one another to achieve. Training should not be anything too bootcampy. Charity element is liked it s a good way to take the emphasise off pressurised sport performance. Don t bore participants with stats on marketing focus on feeling improvement, not proving improvement. For those individuals who want to swim alone, set an online forum where you can find a team on the day of the event. Price should not be more than the equivalent to 5x casual swims. Taking Part Survey findings 2012 Since 2010, the % of the population that can swim has increased by 2% to 83.2%. The number of people that can t swim has decreased. Interestingly, a higher % of the population cannot ride a bike than can t swim. Other changes over time are as follows:

7 Activity Percentage of population it is relevant to Change in percentage since 2010 Can t swim / scared of water 7.6% -1.7% Can t swim but happy to go in 9.6% -0.3% water Can swim up to 25% 24.6% -2.0% Can swim continuously 25.4% +1.3% between m Can swim continuously for >250m 33.2% +2.7% Swimming ability improves with affluence. Improvements in swimming ability are most noticeable in deprived groups of society (as expected given that swimming ability is higher with affluent groups) Greatest improvements in swimming ability were found in the North West and in urban areas. Greatest improvements in swimming ability are found in year old women. There are still more men that can swim than women. Rates of swimming ability improvement are more notable in BME groups, than white ethnic groups. Fit 4 Women Conference Inactivity costs the UK 8.2bn annually. Only 20% of the population does enough exercise. Only 13.8% of women do enough exercise. The most popular form of exercise with women is swimming (8.6%) followed by gym (8.2%) and athletics (3.7%) Word of mouth and local delivery appears to be key to women s participation. Inspirational role models work well significant peers are needed such as us mums. Providing clear instruction, times, pricing and content for activity is needed for women. Women like to know what to expect when it comes to exercise meet and greets and inductions work well. The first hello is very important. One of the most inactive groups of women = new mums with children aged under 12 months due to lack of time and loss of confidence. Work with midwives and GPs to prescribe suitable gentle exercise to this group: Waterbabies could work here. See Splash n Dash pilot findings will be available July Communicate with young mums through social media Proven methods that work in terms of encouraging female participation: empowerment through race for life social movement around a cause. Be passionate, Not precious Offering a new version of a sport can be a clever way to generate fresh interest. A good example of a swimming activity that has done this is MySwim organised in Loughborough University. Report due May Sustaining this interest is key though maintain through personal goals and linking to a cause such as race for life.

8 The Economy of Swimming by Kelvin Juba Approx 10m adults in GB swim once a year. This includes 4.9m adults swimming once a month, and 2.8millions swimming once a week. Income from swimming admittances in the GB public sector per year = 540.5m across 150m pool visits. This includes learn to swim ( 190m and 63m in the private sector) and water exercise classes ( 164.4m). Every new swimmer represents to swimming s economy. Sport & Recreation Alliance: Olympic & Paralympic Games Legacy Survey Prior to the Games, only 14% of clubs saw London 2012 as an opportunity for them. Since the Gsmes, 73% of clubs do not feel that the Government has done enough to create a sporting legacy. It is not enough to simply host the mega-event There is disconnect between what is actually happening at grassroots and what policy makers think is happening on the ground. Inactivity costs the NHS approx. 1.8bn and the economy 8.2bn annually Key factors that prevent clubs from growing membership: o Lack of funding 59% o It s too expensive to run the club 54% o Facility hire is increasing 51% o Can t access high quality facilities- 42% Although 79% of the public thought that the Olympics would increase the number of people taking part in sport this hasn t necessarily been reflected in sports clubs. Some sports believe this is because their TV coverage at the Games was limited, others say that it was sustainability issues (i.e. short term interest not converted to long term commitment). Clubs say that the Government did little to provide the resource needed to make this conversion happen (e.g. to help clubs increase their capacity and offer reasonable membership packages). This means that for sports that have experienced an increase in membership enquiries, they are hamstrung to reap the full benefits. Two in five clubs expect very little in terms of Government support at grassroots level. Their survey responses suggest that have been disappointed with the level of central support and have learnt to get by themselves. 51% of clubs say that they do not have suitable facilities to allow disabled people to participate in their sport. 64% of clubs say that they don t have suitably trained staff to accommodate the needs of disabled participants. 63% of clubs have a link to at least one school. Most clubs (69%) feel that the Olympics and Paralympics have not changed the way they link to schools. 20% of clubs said their links have actually got worse since the Games!

9 Sport & Recreation Alliance: Survey of Sports Clubs 2011 (NB: ASA are conducting their own similar survey across all swimming clubs in May 2013, which will be compared to the below results collected in 2011 from just 69 swimming clubs) 97% of clubs affiliated to the ASA 51% of clubs state that the ASA membership offers value for money. The rest say that ASA membership is: o too focused on elite swimming o club swimmers get very little back in return for their expenditure o Regional membership fees are even more costly In 2011 clubs were losing 1,397 on average annually. The challenges to clubs and causes to deficit include: increased facility costs (75%), access to funding and sponsorship (75%), maintaining, recruiting and retaining volunteers (70%), the increasing cost of training coaches (65%), generating sufficient income (64%), maintaining, recruiting and retaining coaches (62%) and recruiting new members (58%). The average swimming club has 22 volunteers. 57% of clubs have a volunteer coordinator. Over half of clubs have at least one volunteer role unfilled Club membership is growing. 25% of clubs are getting bigger and 14% are decreasing in size. Net growth of 11%. In comparison to other sport s the number of adult members per club is relatively low (16/22 sports). Top adult membership sports are golf, sailing, tennis and rugby union In comparison to other sport s the number of junior members per club is high (1/22 sports). Top adult membership sports are swimming, rugby union and football. What s on its way? Moving through to next month, the Insight team will be focusing on the following... Swimfit: A new M&E process for Swimfit Swimfit Mobile: Supporting the development and M&E of a new portable swimfit Level Water: delivering swimming lessons to children with physical disabilities. Swim Britain: The research will begin in April through National Data Collection and continue monthly until November when leisure provider interviews will take place. Events: Evaluating five events of various disciplines. The evaluations will seek the opinions of spectators, officials, volunteers and athletes EKE: Development a new add on for our outlook system (called EKE) that will identify who are the best people to ask about certain aspects of GPS. School Swimming: from now until the end of 2013, the Insight team will continue to build our understanding of school swimming and will respond to plans outlined in the School Swimming Manifesto.

10 BME persona design: Working with Sporting Equals to develop a persona that details the barriers and motivations of swimming and non swimming members of the public, from an ethnic minority background. Used to gain a greater understanding as to why there is such a low BME representation at elite level swimming. Women s Swim Networks: Working with SLM to present an online campaign, focusing heavily on social media and motivational messaging in line with ASA personas. Will be launched on 20 th May at Spelthorne leisure centre and Sudbury leisure centre. Active Universities: Loughborough University s MySwim project continues to be piloted as a way of testing the student splash persona. The project combines Swimfit Activator+ with aqua circuits, a recreational swim network concept and She Moves style social media. Waterbabies: The insight team are testing and learning from suggestions outlined in the family splash, learn to swim parent, supermum, shy wader, worn out working rush and dad s dunk personas at Wellington Children s Centre. The research builds on September s National Data Collection and will explore ways to: Increase water confidence of parents Increase water confidence of children under the age of 5 Help under 5 s meet their physical activity guidelines of 180mins a day Promote sustained swimming activity for parents Provide pre-school children with a head start for swimming Enhance parent and child relationships through aquatic activity Create a social encouraging atmosphere between parents Provide advice to parents on how to improve their own swimming skills and enhance the aquatics development of their children (coursepro) Reduce parental stress through the health benefits of swimming The pilot will run for 12 weeks (so a behaviour change can be tracked) between 17 th April 7 th July) and will provide dry and wetside learning for both parents and children together and individually. 17 x Swim Active: monitoring and evaluating 17 Swim Active school swimming projects across the country, that are funded by Kelloggs. Officials: explores how to build upon the official s development pathway Active Workplaces: An ongoing pilot with Leeds University that tracks the impact of an aquatic intervention (that includes aquatic champions in the workplace) and will be providing the evidence behind how aquatic activity can enhance workplace productivity, reduce absenteeism and lower employee presenteeism. The pilot launches on 22 nd April and will complete 12 th July. Findings will be available August 2013, which will compliment and further support the Active Workplace case studies released to AOs on 29 th / 30 th April. Swim4Health: An ongoing pilot with DC Leisure facilities. Exploring how aquatic advisors can encourage facility users through targeted advice and follow up appointments to increase their swimming participation in the long term.

11 2. How to use the monthly insight report The way you use this report will vary between person to person. It will depend on your job role, your current area of focus, and the clients you are visiting over the coming month. Informatics do not expect anyone to read through the report and make notes! But, you may find that there are snippets of information that you can use to: Gain buy in from your local leisure providers to support ASA programmes / advice Encourage leisure providers to review their current programmes Make evidence based decisions 3. February National Data Collection: Parents who do not send their children to learn to swim schemes Method: 23 Data administrators distributed a questionnaire to parents and guardians in England, whose children do not take part in an ASA learn to swim scheme. By the end of February 2013, 521 data sets were completed, obtained and analysed. Specific information: The findings presented in this report are generic. If a venue / area would like a more detailed breakdown, please contact sarah.melville@swimming.org and the informatics team will be able to provide the quote for the research report. Participant Characteristics (521 questionnaire responses) Of those who responded to the survey, most fell into the years age bracket. 5 respondents were aged under 16, and 17 were over 55 years. 78% of the respondents were female. Almost 20% of respondents were stay at home parents. Parents who were employed in intermediate managerial and superviser positions had a high response rate to the questionnaire. Of the total children responsible to the respondents, the majority were between 4-7 and 8-11 years. 17% were of secondary school age.

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13 Number of Children Number of Children years 4-7 years 8-11 years years years Analysis: Swimming Traits When asked how likely they were to recommend various forms of exercise to a friend or colleague, one third of the respondents gave swimming a score of 10, with 10 being high on a scale of We developed Net Promoter Scores using the data from this question, with swimming being the only sport to receive a positive score (43.6%). Comparing previous results we found that since November 2012, swimming, gym, football and golf have improved their NPS. Running, cycling, tennis, badminton, waterpolo and diving have weakened their NPS.

14 47% of the respondents rarely or never swim. Just over 20% of respondents swim at least once a week, with 1% of these swimming more than 3 times a week. One third of the respondents can swim m without stopping, with almost 40% capable of swimming further than 200m non-stop. 5.5% of respondents are dedicated to training or competitive swimming. 8% are nervous about getting into the water or feel uncomfortable in the water without the aid of floats or their feet on the floor.

15 Results: Reasons for declined swimming lessons Lessons are seen as being too expensive was the most common factor (36% of responses) for people to decide not to sign their children up to the ASAs learn to swim scheme. 6.5% of parents believe that there are more important things to spend money on than swimming lessons. Almost 20% of parents and carers do not sign their child up to a learn to swim scheme as their child swims at school. 12% say that their child can already swim, with 11% of respondents children being taught by parents, and 5% being taught by a family member or friend. Barriers to swimming lessons regarding the quality of the sessions which the centre puts on include sessions being too full with no places at convenient times (8%) and sessions being crowded (7.7%). Respondents were given the option to insert an additional answer if the above list did not fit their requirements. Some of these addtional reponses included:

16 Lessons in their local pools did not cater for children with disabilities and/or additional needs. Local pools were seen as having poor standards of hygiene, which discouraged parents from taking their children to use the facility. Teachers were seen as unsuitable so children were withdrew from lessons. Concerns included teachers being too strict, and not dealing well with a child in fear of water. Extensive waiting lists for learn to swim schemes Private tuition not available at their local pool Practical issues of a parent taking 2 or more children to swimming lessons Pools are too cold for the children What are the reasons for your children not a6ending swimming lessons out of school? I don't know where I can access swimming lessons More important things to spend money on No need for lessons- taught by parent or friend The LTS schemes near me are poor in quality Number of respondents I don't like swimming Child's preference Travel to the lessons is a problem My family is already too busy The lessons are boring The swimming lessons are crowded The LTS schemes near me are full My child swims with their school My child already can swim Too expensive When correlating the barriers to swimming responses to respondents job types, we found that 20% of self employed parents teach their children to swim. Almost 60% of stay at home parents say travel to the pool is a barrier to signing their children up to a learn to swim scheme. There is also a financial barrier for stay at home parents, both through lessons being too expensive (30%), or them having more important things to spend their money on (27%). Parents who themselves swim very rarely were the most likely to select barriers preventing them from signing their child up to a learn to swim scheme too expensive (33%), child s swims with school instead (41%), travel to pool is an issue (50%), and they have more

17 important things to spend money on (32%). 20% of the parents who only swim on holiday selected one or more of these five barriers. 34% of those able to swim m and 47% of those able to swim over 200m are likely not to sign their child/ren up to a learn to swim scheme as they teach their children how to swim themselves. These parents also believed that swimming lessons are too expensive. When asked what would need to change in order to facilitiate their child to learn to swim, reducing the cost of lessons was the most common response (56%). Increasing the availabilty of lessons, hosting family learning sessions, and reducing class sizes were all highlighted as changes that sites could make to encourage more people to sign their children up to a learn to swim scheme. Other reponses which are not specified on the graph below include: Offering more motivational tools like badges Offering an Aquatic youth club for the older children

18 Make changing rooms more family friendly Improve customer service Change swimwear rules, to allow children to wear tshirts and full body costumes in the water. Offer lessons in shallow, warm water Improve the quality of teaching (better training) Ensure that teachers are consistent each week; who are happy to get in the water when teaching young children Provide basic teaching lessons to parents so that they are able to teach their children themselves

19 Results: Lesson Preferences (n=521) One third of respondents chose weekend mornings as their preferred time for their children to attend swimming lessons, with weekday evenings being the second favourite preferred time (26%). Weekend evenings were the least preferred time to attend swimming lessons, with only 1% of participants choosing this time. 90% of respondents thought that 5 or less was a reasonable price to pay for a 30 minute swimming lesson, with a maximum class size of 8 children. 15% of these wanted to pay 2 or less. 5 was the most common response (17%), followed by 4 (16%), and followed by 3 (15%). The ASA are looking to offer medals to swimmers who complete certain stages of their learn to swim scheme. There will be bronze medals for swimmers who are able to swim 25m, silver medals for swimmers who are happy swimming over 8 lengths, and gold medals for swimmers who go above and beyond. 72% responded that this is something their child would be interested in working towards. When asked how much they expected to pay for a swimming award/ badge and a certificate, 70% of respondents responded with 2.49 or less was the most frequently selected amount (20%). 7% of the respondents would expect to pay 4.50 or over for an award/ badge and a certificate.

20 Letters home from school (55%) or leaflets put into children s school bags (40%) are considered to be the two best ways to let parents and carers know about swimming lessons. Personal s (35%), Facebook (24%), leaflets in the post (23%), and adverts in the local newspaper (22%) were also regarded as good ways to inform parents. Less than 5% of respondents deemed work s, phone apps, bright billboards, posters at their workplace and twitter to be useful tools to let them know about swimming lessons. Other responses included the adverts on their local councils website, and through the local library. Results: The Importance of Swimming Lessons (n=521) Enabling their child to learn how to swim to safety if they ever fell into water was considered the most relevant reason to enrol their child onto a learn to swim scheme (45%). One quarter of the respondents believed that a learn to swim scheme was most relevant through its ability to teach their children to understand the dangers of open water and know how to remain safe. Learning to swim independently for their holidays (12.5%), and remain fit and healthy (11%) were also given as reasons to enrol children onto a learn to swim scheme. Almost one third of respondents would consider stopping payment for swimming lessons when they feel their child is able to swim to safety when in danger. 27% of respondents

21 would consider stopping payment if their child requested to stop their lessons. 9% of parents would wait until their child has completed the last stage of their learn to swim scheme. Other factors included when the child starts swimming at school (7.6%), when the child is able to swim 25m (6.5%), when they have moved to a club (6.1%) and when the child has learnt the key features of each swimming stroke (5.5%). Other responses for stopping payment also included when the families financial circumstances no longer enabled them to pay for weekly sessions. Results: School Swimming (n=268) 53% of the 521 respondents have a child/ children who have received swimming lessons at school. Of these 268 parents and carers, 16% say that their child/ren swims each week, every term in every school year. For 15%, their child/ren swim weekly, during one school

22 term, each year. Altogether 2% of parents have child/ren who receive intensive school swimming lessons, swimming every day for 1-3 weeks, for a varying amount of school years. 38% of these parents and carers were expected to contribute financially (usually over 2 per lesson) their child/ren s school swimming. Almost 60% of respondents children are taught to swim at school by a swimming teacher independent of the school. 18% of parents and carers are unsure of who teaches their child to swim during school swimming lessons. 23% believe their child to be taught by a teacher within their child s school. When asked what their child/ren thought about their school swimming lessons, results suggested they were helping them to learn to swim (36%), great fun (30%), and also too busy cramped with a lot of waiting around (17%). 22% of children thought they were too short, none of them thought their school swimming lessons were too long. Other responses regarding children s thoughts on their school swimming lessons included being rushed, and lessons seen as a reward, which could be withdrawn from the entire class as a punishment when a child misbehaves. Some parents also commented that the school swimming lessons were either geared towards non-swimmers or swimmers, and seemed unable to cater for both. Over 50% of the respondents receive no updates on their child s school swimming lessons from the school (54.5%). Those that do receive updates receive them through methods such as an end of year report sent home that comments on swimming (9%), regular reports from the school (7%) and via their children receiving certificates/badges for their achievements (32%). 45% of parents whose children take part in school swimming lessons consider the school lessons to be great and teach their children an important life skill. 47% of respondents believe that school swimming lessons need to be supplemented with after-school lessons. 18.5% would like more advice to be sent to parents on how they can support swimming practice. If lessons became more worthwhile, 18% would consider subsidising them. When asked about the lessons being focused on a particular area, 9% would prefer the lessons to be more about water survival, 5% would like a focus on stroke technique, and 2% believe lessons should be more about personal fitness. 14% of parents would like their child s school to make better links with local swimming clubs.

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24 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% What are your thoughts on school swimming lessons? Please tick 45.0% 47.2% with the comments you agree with Great - teach my child/ren an important life skill Help my child/ren to swim, but they aren't enough - need to be supplemented with after-school lessons 18.5% Helpful, but more advice being sent to parents on how they can support swimming practice needed 4.8% School lessons have that much impact - prefer them to be replaced with other school subjects 14.0% 12.2% Schools need to make better links with local swimming clubs Provides my child/ren with a great opportunity to swim - Iwouldn't be able to provide this otherwise 17.7% I would consider subsidising school swimming lessons if it meant they became more worthwhile 9.2% It's great that school swimming exists - prefer the lessons to be more about water survival 4.8% It's great that school swimming exists - prefer the lessons to be more about stroke technique 1.8% It's great that school swimming exists - prefer the lessons to be more about personal fitness

25 Results: Family Swimming (n=521) 27% of respondents swim very rarely with their child/ren. 17% only swim when on holiday, and 23% swim approximately once a month. 12% swim with their children once a week and 11% swim once a fortnight. When asked if there is anything they would like their local pool to do/ provide un order to help with family swimming, discount family swim prices (56%), and discount child swimming lessons (43%) were both seen as being helpful to parents. Providing more play or teaching equipment during family sessions (34%) as well as having an instructor on poolside to entertain the kids during fun sessions (14%) were also viewed as ways a pool could help regarding family swimming. 27% of respondents would like their pool to provide family swim lessons. Other responses to help family swimming include warmer water and more pool time made available to family and fun sessions. Some parents commented that waiting lists for child swimming lessons at their local pool were too long, and they didn t feel comfortable taking their child to swim until they had taken part in some swimming lessons with a trained teacher.

26 Suggestions from the findings: Over one third of respondents thought that children s swimming lessons were too expensive. Reducing the cost of swimming lessons was a common response when asked how to encourage parents to sign their children up to a learn to swim scheme. 5 or less was seen as a reasonable price to pay for a 30 minute swimming lesson with a maximum class size of 8 children. Additionally, travel to the local facility, for their children to have swimming lessons, was a barrier for parents; particularly those who were stay at home parents. Some respondents preferred their child to learn to swim through school swimming lessons, or taught their children themselves, particularly if the parent is able to swim over 25m themselves. Particularly as 38% of parents whose child took part in school swimming lessons had to contribute financially to these lessons. Some respondents requested that the ASA provide basic teaching lessons to parents and carers to enable them to teach their children to swim themselves. Additionally, 18.5% of

27 parents whose children took part in school swimming lessons would like more information on how they can support swimming practice. As school swimming lessons are relied upon by some parents to teach their child to swim, school swimming lessons need to adequately provide children with a quality and quantity of lessons to achieve the key stage aims. Respondents of this survey felt school swimming lessons need to be supplemented with after- school lessons, and the school also need to provide parents with more information on their child s school swimming progress. It was also suggested that some schools need to improve or set up links with their local swimming club/s. This knowledge would allow those children who enjoy school swimming to join their local club, both improving their swimming ability, and increasing participation in swimming. See Insight Report #4 for more details on school swimming. Focus areas for leisure providers There were a number of areas highlighted which discouraged parents from signing their children up to a learn to swim scheme. All of these factors are the responsibility of the leisure provider, and could be focused upon, with the aim to improve participation: Poor standards of hygiene discouraged parents Cold water discouraged parents from signing their child up to a learn to swim scheme Private tuition was not available at some pools, which was a preferred option for some parents Change swimwear rules to cater for all cultures/ religions Extensive waiting lists for learn to swim schemes more pool time could be made available for swimming lessons. Parents chose weekday evenings and weekend mornings as their preferred time. Teachers were too strict. Pools should ensure their teachers are monitored, and operate at a high standard. Ensure that teachers are consistent each week. Learn to swim rewards Motivational tools like badges were seen as positive reasons to sign a child up to a learn to swim scheme. 72% of respondents stated that bronze, silver and gold medals as rewards for children who complete certain stages of their learn to swim scheme were something they would be interested in their child working towards was the most frequently selected response to a reasonable amount to pay a leisure provider for a badge and certificate. Family swimming Discounting family swim prices and improving the quality and quantity of family and fun swim session in the local pool are key ways to encourage parents and carers to swim more

28 regularly with their children. Reducing waiting times for learn to swim schemes is also vital, as some parents do not feel comfortable swimming with their children until their child has begun swimming lessons. 4. Interesting articles / Conferences summary Local Government Association findings re sports participation Swimming was the most frequently provided sport across local authorities (alongside football). 89% of LAs provided swimming and 71% of LAs provided disability swimming. 28% of LAs provided diving. Other popular sports provided were football (89% also), badminton (88%), Basketball (85%), Exercise classes (aerobics / zumba) (84%), fitness training suites and gyms (84%), table tennis (79%) and bowls (78%). Surprisingly, given how popular cycling has become across the nation (potentially due to Olympic success) only 57% LAs provide cycling. When asked which sports were increasing in popularity across all users and disabled users, the most common answers were: Swimming Athletics (but not with disabled users) Beach volleyball & Sitting volleyball Equestrian (but not with non disabled participants) Cycling and BMX Goalball Boccia (but not with non disabled participants) Handball (but not with disabled participants) Exercise classes (zumba, aerobics) (but not with disabled participants) Fitness suites and gyms (but not with disabled participants) Swim Britain findings from focus groups with recreational and fitness swimmers Approved marketing messages: Don t be patronising with the challenge distance on offer. Make it relatively challenging, with an option of swimming further. Avoid pressurising individuals of having to swim 4 laps each hence focus on team goals as well as personal goals help one another to achieve. The participants will need proof that the training will get the results it describes. Training should not be anything too bootcampy. Charity element is liked it s a good way to take the emphasise off pressurised sport performance. Don t bore participants with stats on marketing focus on feeling improvement, not proving improvement. This may help individuals get over the negative thought of ;having to go swimming and move thoughts to feeling good once you re in the water For those individuals who want to swim alone, set an online forum where you can find a team on the day of the event. Price should not be more than the equivalent to 5x casual swims.

29 Not interested in a ceremony after the event, but would like a goody bag. Break goals down into individual training plans. This is a key motivator for less experienced swimmers. Taking Part Survey findings 2012 Since 2010, the % of the population that can swim has increased by 2% to 83.2%. The number of people that can t swim has decreased. Interestingly, a higher % of the population cannot ride a bike than can t swim. These are positive findings however, it is important to consider the fact that number of people completing the taking part survey has halved over the last 2 years. Therefore % changes are need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Other changes over time are as follows: Activity Percentage of population it is relevant to Change in percentage since 2010 Can t swim / scared of water 7.6% -1.7% Can t swim but happy to go in 9.6% -0.3% water Can swim up to 25% 24.6% -2.0% Can swim continuously 25.4% +1.3% between m Can swim continuously for 33.2% +2.7% >250m Happy in a pool 98.3% +0.7% Happy in the sea 51.7% +2.3% Happy in a lake 35.0% +1.2% Can cycle 87.0% +1.7% Can t ride a bike 12.8% -1.5% Swimming ability improves with affluence. Improvements in swimming ability are most noticeable in deprived groups of society (as expected given that swimming ability is higher with affluent groups) Greatest improvements in swimming ability were found in the North West and in urban areas. Greatest improvements in swimming ability are found in year old women. There are still more men that can swim than women. Rates of swimming ability improvement are more notable in BME groups, than white ethnic groups. Fit 4 Women Conference Inactivity costs the UK 8.2bn annually. Only 20% of the population does enough exercise. Only 13.8% of women do enough exercise male exercise is increasing. Female participation only slightly increased since Olympics, despite 41% of women

30 stating that they were inspired to do more exercise as a result of the Games. The most popular form of exercise with women is swimming (8.6%) followed by gym (8.2%), athletics (3.7%) and zumba (2.4%). Marketing: 81% of women feel that there is a need for better role models (celebrities). Word of mouth and local delivery appears to be key to women s participation. Inspirational role models work well significant peers are needed such as us mums. Getting a masters swimming lane next to a club for parents is likely to stimulate young female participation. Drop out of sport is now not only prevalent at the ages of 14-15, but also at primary school ages The gender gap is reinforced at primary school. Providing clear instruction, times, pricing and content for activity is needed for women. Women like to know what to expect when it comes to exercise meet and greets and inductions work well. The first hello is very important. Be passionate, Not precious One of the most inactive groups of women = new mums with children aged under 12 months due to lack of time and loss of confidence. Work with midwives and GPs to prescribe suitable gentle exercise to this group: Waterbabies could work here. See Splash n Dash pilot findings will be available July Communicate with young mums through social media Proven methods that work in terms of encouraging female participation: empowerment through race for life social movement around a cause. Breeze Champions: Cycling women who organise rides in their own time. Offering a new version of a sport can be a clever way to generate fresh interest. A good example of a swimming activity that has done this is MySwim organised in Loughborough University. Report due May Sustaining this interest is key though maintain through personal goals and linking to a cause such as race for life. To keep parents bringing their young daughters swimming use text messaging, not letters home via the children as they can hide / loss / forget to pass on letters! The Economy of Swimming by Kelvin Juba Approx 10m adults in GB swim once a year. This includes 4.9m adults swimming once a month, and 2.8millions swimming once a week. Income from swimming admittances in the GB public sector per year = 540.5m across 150m pool visits. This includes learn to swim ( 190m and 63m in the private sector) and water exercise classes ( 164.4m). In addition to this, there is the potential of secondary spend to swimmers of food and beverage ( 80.8m pa) and swimwear ( 69.6m) Swimming organisations report income of 49.99m from clubs ( 42.28m), competitions ( 2.38m), workforce development ( 8.5m), tourism swimming events ( 4.08m) and award schemes ( 4.5m) Every new swimmer represents to swimming s economy.

31 Sport & Recreation Alliance: Olympic & Paralympic Games Legacy Survey There has been no Olympic and Paralympic Games to date that has successfully produced a sporting legacy so surveyed 150,000 sports clubs in UK to see if things had changed since London Prior to the Games, only 14% of clubs saw London 2012 as an opportunity for them. Since the Gsmes, 73% of clubs do not feel that the Government has done enough to create a sporting legacy. It is not enough to simply host the mega-event There is disconnect between what is actually happening at grassroots and what policy makers think is happening on the ground. Inactivity costs the NHS approx. 1.8bn and the economy 8.2bn annually What didn t the government do to help the legacy? o Extend the CASC scheme (community amateur sports club) to include gift aid on junior memberships and refine it to allow non-facility owning clubs to generate money to reinvest as a result of social events. o Reduce the cost of school facility hire o Increase access to facilities o Reinstate school sport partnerships o There is still too much red tape Key factors that prevent clubs from growing membership: o Lack of funding 59% o It s too expensive to run the club 54% o Facility hire is increasing 51% o Can t access high quality facilities- 42% o Can t access any facility they are fully booked 39% o Rep tape 35% o Lack of volunteers 31% o Lack of coaches 22% o Lack of equipment 20% o Lack of enquiries from potential new members 20% Although 79% of the public thought that the Olympics would increase the number of people taking part in sport this hasn t necessarily been reflected in sports clubs. Some sports believe this is because their TV coverage at the Games was limited, others say that it was sustainability issues (i.e. short term interest not converted to long term commitment). Clubs say that the Government did little to provide the resource needed to make this conversion happen (e.g. to help clubs increase their capacity and offer reasonable membership packages). This means that for sports that have experienced an increase in membership enquiries, they are hamstrung to reap the full benefits.