All year 2 students in Canberra will soon be taught essential water safety skills, including treading water and basic rescues, as part of a new program being rolled out in all ACT public schools.
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The $300,000 Water Safety and Awareness program, which is being offered under a partnership between the ACT government and ACT Royal Life Saving Society Australia, will start in the third term of this year.
The program will help all of Canberra's 3,200 year 2 students, with evidence supporting the age group as the best to respond to the training according to Education Minister Joy Burch.
The program is part of a three-year contract with Royal Life Saving which will teach them sculling, treading water, how to use safety aids, basic rescues and survival skills while developing general awareness of risks around water.
Until now, schools have engaged in water safety programs which have been not been taught in a uniform manner.
"Schools have taken advantage of funding that has been available, but it's been inconsistently applied: different lessons, different ages, different schools. This will see all students in year-2 now have the benefit from the Royal Lifesaving Club," Ms Burch said.
Ms Burch said it was "imperative" students leave primary school knowing more about water safety which is also a key part of giving students "a 'holistic' education in sports and health and well being".
ACT Royal Life Saving executive director Cherry O'Connor was excited to begin the program, which will see a mix of pool-based and classroom-based lessons with "a dedicated 15 lesson block of water safety education for every year 2 student".
"The aim of the program is to teach them the basics and to make them aware of the risks around water and different water environments," Ms O'Connor said.
"The [water-related] incident rates are quite low, we're very lucky in that respect. We'd like to keep them that way, so this is a really enthusiastic, proactive engagement opportunity from the ACT government."
Royal Life Saving qualified instructors will deliver the pool-based lessons, while the the society is also developing resources for teachers to implement the classroom-based side of the program.
"The target focus is water safety awareness, specifically around survival skills - personal survival and basic lifesaving," Ms O'Connor said.
