Information about Swimming at Joy Lane Primary School

The Staff, Governors and Friends of Joy Lane Primary School are committed to ensuring the long-term future of our swimming pool. Our recent objective was to bring about the refurbishment and upgrading of the pool which has allowed us to have a swimming facility on site that is a quality resource for all of the children at our School and the local community.

Being situated close to the sea, we are very aware of the importance of swimming as a life skill. We have, therefore, made a commitment to include swimming as an important part of our curriculum. We are very fortunate to have a heated indoor swimming pool on-site for all of our children to use. As a School, we heavily subsidise the on-going running costs to ensure that our pupils receive a very high standard of lessons in a warm, clean and well maintained pool. It is essential that all families in our School community help contribute towards the cost of their child’s lessons which will ensure the long-term future of swimming at Joy Lane Primary School.

Joy Lane Primary School also now employs a full-time swimming coach, Mr Dowling, who oversees and teaches swimming lessons at the School. Mr Dowling is an ASA Level 3 Club Coach and has been teaching swimming for 18 years. He is also a qualified and experienced primary school teacher having taught for several years in Folkestone and Rainham. All other swimming teachers are fully qualified instructors with a minimum ASA Level 2 qualification and fully DBS checked. If you have any questions about swimming lessons, please feel free to contact Mr Dowling via the school office on: swimschool@joylane.kent.sch.uk

Assessment Criteria

Joy Lane Swim School have recently changed the way they assess our school swimming lessons to the STA School Swimming Academy Programme. This fantastic programme is specifically designed for primary school children and ensures the pupils work towards the National Curriculum requirements for strokes and distances. It also helps pupils develop water confidence, key lifesaving and water safety skills. You may find the levels and assessment criteria different from the old system but it is better suited to teaching larger groups with a range of abilities. Please see the link below for further details.  We continue to use the ASA assessment system in our after-school lessons as these are designed for smaller groups of swimmers which are all of the same ability.

If you would like to learn more about the assessment criteria we follow at Joy Lane Primary School, please follow the link below.

https://www.sta.co.uk/school-swimming-academy/

If you would also like to read our swimming booklet which provides parents and carers with information about swimming at Joy Lane Primary School, please Click Here.

Please CLICK HERE to see our Joy Lane Swim School Policies including Joy Lane Swim School Emergency Action Plan, Normal Operating Procedure and Risk Assessment.