Fixed pool vital asset, says school

Manurewa South School pupils braved goosebumps to jump into their freshly reclad pool with Kiwi Olympian Dean Kent on Friday.

The repair bill totalled $77,000 money the school raised locally and through the Ministry of Education.

Principal Nola Hambleton said that if they did not learn at school, some of the pupils would never have a chance to learn to swim.

Last year one of the school's older pupils saved a younger sibling from drowning, and this was largely because of the lessons he took at school.

The swimming pool had been closed for two years because filling the cracks was expected to cost tens of thousands of dollars with no guarantee that it would last more than five years.

But the board voted to pull all strings to re-clad the entire pool using a product with a "lifetime guarantee", having realised its importance in teaching the community to swim.

The children have been swimming in it since the start of the school year. On Friday last week - the last day of the school's swimming season - they declared it open and invited Dean Kent to swim laps and speak to the pupils.

Water Safety New Zealand head Matt Claridge said pools were vital assets and he hoped the Government would help to preserve them.

Over the next few months the organisation will be campaigning for every school to have access to a pool, for all school teachers to be trained to teach water safety and for a push to get kids eager to swim.

A total of 239 school pools closed between 2003 and 2005.

New Zealand has had 37 drownings this year.

Most could have been avoided if the victims had basic water safety skills, Mr Claridge said.