Commited youngsters from a remote Orkney Island have been praised for their passion and enthusiasm for swimming - despite needing to take a ferry and two buses simply to get to lessons.
The dedicated seven-to-11-year-old pupils from Rousay Community School have been visiting the Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall to take part in the national Learn to Swim programme.
Delivered by aquatic providers across Scotland, the programme is a partnership between Scottish Swimming and Scottish Water,
The school initiative with Rousay school and The Pickaquoy Centre - one of two swimming lesson providers in Orkney - is completed in seven week blocks and was introduced a few years ago to give all pupils access to swimming lessons and to improve their water safety.
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To reach The Pickaquoy Centre, the pupils take a five-minute bus journey to Rousay port to board the Eynhallow ferry as foot passengers, before travelling 25 minutes to Tingwall port. Once docked, the group takes a further 25 minute bus ride, all accompanied by Headteacher, Katie Lucas.
Katie said: “As we don’t have a pool on Rousay, to ensure pupils don’t miss out on learning the vital skill of swimming, we take a ferry to the nearest pool in Kirkwall.
“The seven-week block takes place during months when the weather tends to be better – however we still experience transport challenges, especially when trying to keep the group of youngsters to a tight schedule.
“This year, 13 pupils went through the Learn to Swim programme. There was a real mix of abilities, some pupils were able to swim, others were complete beginners, whist a few had never visited the Pickaquoy before and rarely leave the island.
“Learning to swim is such an important skill and we want to equip our pupils to be safe in and around water. It is an added bonus that learning to swim brings a lot of other benefits too, such as improving a child’s physical and mental wellbeing.
“Swimming lessons have been offered at the school for a number of years but had to unfortunately pause during the pandemic. This is the first year we have been able to resume and it has been very well received by both the pupils and wider community.”
The Learn to Swim programme has more than 500 youngsters taking part at The Pickaquoy Centre on a weekly basis.
Calvin Reid, Operations Manager at The Pickaquoy Centre Trust, said: “It is so important to learn how to swim, especially when living in remote locations surrounded by water so we’re always delighted to welcome Rousay Community School– especially after the extraordinary effort they make to travel to the pool.
“The lessons are a mixture of abilities and ages, so we split the class. For the younger and non or weak swimmers we would focus on early skills development like breathing, body position in the water, sculling and other practices that will encourage skills in stroke progression.
“The older and stronger swimmers would look at focussing more on their techniques across the range of strokes, looking at areas for improvement where they could practise skills.”
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