A drowning in Whanganui last month has prompted questions about how prepared our children are for the water. Photo / 123RF
Following the death of Chase Swanson-Ewing in the Whanganui River last month his mother issued a plea for swimming lessons to be mandatory at school.
Reporter Liz Wylie asks if enough is being done to teach children how to survive in water.
In the midst of her grief Whanganui woman Louisa Baldwin issued a plea for mandatory swimming lessons for children.
Her 14-year-old son Chase died after he got into difficulties in the water and did not resurface after diving off a pontoon at the Aramoho Whanganui Rowing Club.
"We are an island nation surrounded by water with many lakes and rivers - we should all be able to swim," Baldwin said.
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Now, surf lifesaver and swimming coach, Phil Gilmore, has echoed those calls for improved water safety education.
"If children are taught to float, dog paddle and not panic in the water that would save lives," he says.
"Some children are not learning even those basics."
Gilmore has been working with schools in the Castlecliff area on a voluntary basis for several years and says schools are under-resourced to provide swimming education.
The New Zealand school curriculum specifies that all children should get the opportunity, through school, to learn basic aquatic skills by the end of Year 6 but schools say it has become increasingly difficult for them to deliver on the requirement.
Although Chase had those basic skills, his mother said he was too inexperienced to pull himself out of difficultly and the friend who was with him in the water was not able to rescue him.
She said people made hurtful comments on social media that her son had not had swimming lessons.
"I did pay for swimming lessons for him a couple of times and they weren't cheap.
"He found excuses not to go and neither parents nor teachers can force children to get in the water."
Whanganui Intermediate School (WIS) associate principal Darren Torrie said schools that own their own pools are not fully funded to operate and maintain them.
"Schools with their own swimming pool receive no additional funding to cover running costs, which in the case of Whanganui Intermediate exceeds $10,000 per year," he said.
"There is also a misconception that schools without their own pool get subsided to take students to a local pool for lessons. This is not the case.
"Limited access to local pools, due to time available, adds to the difficulties schools face."
Despite the difficulties, Torrie said the majority of students are happy to get into the water when they begin their intermediate education.
"Our swimming programmes are developed around water confidence and water safety rather than swimming lengths and distance."
The change to a water confidence focus has resulted in greater uptake in the numbers of students swimming, Torrie said.
While some WIS students are very keen and also attend swimming clubs others are reluctant.
"Most can float and swim to some extent although there are some who don't bring togs to school or are reluctant swimmers.
"This may be down to body image rather than swimming ability," he said.
"Of course, the reality is we can't make kids get in the pool if they choose not to."
Baldwin said she appreciated the pressure schools were experiencing and the reluctance of young people to get in the water with other children.
She saw bullying by peers as a serious barrier to some young people becoming confident swimmers.
"The pressure young people feel about their abilities and their bodies makes it really hard for them.
"Being body-shamed when you're only 12 because you don't meet some ridiculous ideal is just so wrong."
Around half the schools in the Whanganui region have managed to retain and maintain their pools and that has mostly been achieved through community fundraising and stringent efforts by staff, parents and Boards of Trustees.
Carlton School principal Gaye O'Connor battled the Ministry of Education to keep the school's covered pool open when it developed cracks after the Kaikoura earthquake in 2016.
After discovering that the damage could not be covered by either the school's or the Ministry's insurance policies, O'Connor persevered and the Ministry eventually decided that the circumstances were exceptional and agreed to meet the repair costs.
The school's budget allocation for pool maintenance was just $400 a year.
Phil Gilmore believes that there are enough remaining public and school pools in Whanganui to enable truly effective and comprehensive water safety education.
"We have the pools and we have people who can deliver the education," he said.
"We just need the Government to fund it."
Whanganui MP Harete Hipango has indicated to Gilmore that she is supportive of a programme that would lead to a decrease in drowning statistics.
Although Whanganui Labour candidate Steph Lewis has not met with Gilmore she believes that better water safety education is needed.
"We live in a region that provides so many opportunities for people to be in the water but also many risks and we need to do what we can to help keep everyone safe."
Lewis said the Government's $396 million maintenance and improvement funding that will be paid to schools as part of the Government's infrastructure package will enable schools to repair and maintain pools.
Gilmore believes problems with school pools date back to the introduction of Tomorrow's Schools - reforms that changed the governance, management and administration of New Zealand schools in 1989.
"The liability and health and safety regulations were very daunting for school staff and parents serving of Boards of Trustees," he said.
"I know that firsthand because I was a board member myself and with the lack of funding to maintain pools, many schools opted to close them."
As a surf lifesaver from age 11, Gilmore has spent over 50 years saving swimmers who get into trouble in the water and said he is still deeply upset when someone drowns.
Louisa Baldwin has not met Gilmore but says she looks forward to doing so.
"I'm having some very dark days at the moment but thinking ahead, I would like to do something positive in Chase's memory.
"Maybe I can help bring about change so that other parents won't have to lose their children."
Forty-three South Island co-ed principals have asked the national body to intervene.
