Panathlon’s swimming programme helps introduce young people with disabilities and special needs to the water and build their confidence and skills.
Since its launch in 2013, we’ve had to expand our programme every year to cope with the demand to participate in our galas. We have separate competitions for primary and secondary ages as well as impairment-specific events (deaf, visually impaired etc).
We hold a competitive pathway of local, county, regional, divisional and national finals, with our larger events staged at prestigious venues such as the London 2012 Aquatic Centre and Stoke Mandeville Stadium.
In the last two years, we have diversified our offering even further in response to the pandemic, including the introduction of new ‘Discovery’ galas to help address the decline in swimming participation due to Covid-19.
The Discovery gala format gives pupils an accessible, positive and pressure-free experience and rebuilds water confidence – something which had become a barrier to participation, along with draining of school pools, expense and lack of lesson time in the dwindling number of local authority facilities.
“This has been really valuable,” said Amy Wareham, Head Teacher of Matching Green Primary School in Essex, whose pupils used to receive one term of swimming per class, but that stopped last March due to Covid. Many pupils hadn’t swum at all for two years and others had never swum outside of school.
Amy added: “I know some of them wanted to swim but just didn’t have the confidence in themselves to take that next step. Hopefully this will inspire them to do it. Today will show them that if they can do this, they can go on to achieve other things.
“Today will be a reference point for us as staff to say, ‘Remember when you swam at the Olympic pool and it was hard? You did that, so what else can you do?’ It’s a great platform for even more achievements in the future.
“After all, swimming is a life skill. It’s just as important as teaching them how to cross the road. Experiences like this are magnificent for them as an introduction to water skills and the concept of competing.”
Panathlon’s swimming programme helps introduce young people with disabilities and special needs to the water and build their confidence and skills.
Since its launch in 2013, we’ve had to expand our programme every year to cope with the demand to participate in our galas. We have separate competitions for primary and secondary ages as well as impairment-specific events (deaf, visually impaired etc).
We hold a competitive pathway of local, county, regional, divisional and national finals, with our larger events staged at prestigious venues such as the London 2012 Aquatic Centre and Stoke Mandeville Stadium.
In the last two years, we have diversified our offering even further in response to the pandemic, including the introduction of new ‘Discovery’ galas to help address the decline in swimming participation due to Covid-19.
The Discovery gala format gives pupils an accessible, positive and pressure-free experience and rebuilds water confidence – something which had become a barrier to participation, along with draining of school pools, expense and lack of lesson time in the dwindling number of local authority facilities.
“This has been really valuable,” said Amy Wareham, Head Teacher of Matching Green Primary School in Essex, whose pupils used to receive one term of swimming per class, but that stopped last March due to Covid. Many pupils hadn’t swum at all for two years and others had never swum outside of school.
Amy added: “I know some of them wanted to swim but just didn’t have the confidence in themselves to take that next step. Hopefully this will inspire them to do it. Today will show them that if they can do this, they can go on to achieve other things.
“Today will be a reference point for us as staff to say, ‘Remember when you swam at the Olympic pool and it was hard? You did that, so what else can you do?’ It’s a great platform for even more achievements in the future.
“After all, swimming is a life skill. It’s just as important as teaching them how to cross the road. Experiences like this are magnificent for them as an introduction to water skills and the concept of competing.”
At our North London Primary Discovery Gala in April 2022, teacher Terry Charles from Longshaw Primary Academy said: “Lockdown has obviously had a very negative effect on children’s wellbeing, but today’s event really managed to turn the tide and help children to become more outgoing and positive. Being part of a team and representing their school is something they really feel proud about.”
Alongside Discovery, our original gala format for swimmers with a variety of impairments and a mixture of abilities and experience returned after the Covid-19 lockdowns. This has been of immeasurable value for pupils who were been denied such opportunities for so long.
“It’s just what these kids needed after the last two years,” said Shirley Cornish, who was watching her 13-year-old son George represent Centre Academy School from Ipswich in Panathlon’s South East Regional Swimming Final at the London 2012 Aquatics Centre in April.
“Often because of their disabilities, they are not pushed into situations for fear of making them anxious, or they are told they can’t do it. It can be so de-motivating. It’s working to the lowest denominator.
“Here, it is really lovely for them to be put in a situation where they do initially feel frightened and nervous, because it’s a competition. That is part of life and we shouldn’t shield them from it.”
Leslie Gadogbe, Head of PE at Marylebone CE Bridge School in London, said: “Other students see this team competing, winning and coming back into school with medals. That increases everybody’s motivation and there are now many more engaging in swimming because of it. They all want a piece of the action!”
Schools were overjoyed when our programme of face-to-face competitions returned to their calendars for 2021/22. Last academic year we staged 45 external swimming galas with 2,204 participants across England and Wales, assisted by 416 trained Young Leaders (older pupils who officiate and guide the competitors).
The return of external galas seemed a distant dream back in September 2020, so in response to lockdown regulations we launched our Virtual Panathlon programme while our out-of-school competitions were prohibited. It proved so popular that it continues to this day, even though restrictions have now been relaxed.
Virtual Panathlon gives school staff the resources (instruction videos, information packs, score sheets etc), knowledge and ideas to run Panathlon activity safely in school by themselves.
This includes virtual swimming, with activities for use in 5m and 10m school pools. The activities encourage swimmers and non-swimmers with SEND to participate in challenges and enjoy a positive experience at an in-school gala.
Competing individually or part of a team, swimmers’ scores are added across the activities to form an individual or team total, which allows each student to compete on behalf of their school. Each school is sent certificates and stickers to mark their achievements.
“My SEND pupils have loved Panathlon’s virtual swimming,” says Angela Allen, PE Coordinator at Kingfisher School in Oxfordshire, where over 50 children took part. “I initially decided to do it with only the more able pupils, but gradually introduced the skills to more pupils and was astonished by how many children managed to complete all the events.”
PE Lead Michelle Cook from Dee Banks School in Chester built Panathlon’s virtual swimming format into the whole school’s swimming and PE curriculum. She used it to allow SEND pupils to work towards their swim awards and Year 6 swimming ability targets.
She said: “Using your Panathlon model has really helped build our own framework for how best to engage SEND pupils in competitive sport across the board.
“The virtual swimming competition has helped build a sense of achievement and we are proud to be part of the bigger Panathlon picture.”
For further information on any of Panathlon’s swimming programmes, please contact our Chief Operating Officer Tony Waymouth at: tony@panathlon.com
