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> In the UK, learning to swim is part of the national curriculum, unlike the US.

More details on exactly what kids in the UK are taught:

Swimming and water safety: All schools must provide swimming instruction either in key stage 1 or key stage 2.

In particular, pupils should be taught to:

- swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres - use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke] - perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curricul...

Key Stage 1 = Years 1 and 2, so aged 5 to 7 years. Key Stage 2 = Years 3 to 6, so ages 7 to 11.

From my own experience 25 years ago that last bit, about safe self-rescue, involved:

* how to enter water safely if you need to (ie. jumping or lowering yourself in, when not to dive etc) * making floats out of clothing (ie. your old pyjama bottoms) * swimming underwater, including through hoops weighed down on the pool floor with bricks (presumably to mimic navigating tight flooded spaces) * treading water (for AGES) * mushroom floating (not sure if there's a technical term for this?) * how to recover somebody from the water

We went once a week to the council pool on the other side of town and pretty much everyone, all 30 of us, had learned all that by the time we finished and left for high school aged 11.

>> "We went once a week to the council pool on the other side of town and pretty much everyone, all 30 of us, had learned all that by the time we finished and left for high school aged 11."

I had the same experience. Even the people that had a fear of water/drowning could swim at a basic level without assistance. I think we got a 1 hour lesson per week for around 8 weeks a year for 2 or 3 years.

In the US even when there are swimming lessons in schools, they're often dramatically understaffed (from my point of view) -- one teacher, no lifeguard, for 30 students. There are several recent incidents in the US of immigrant kids drowning in school lessons.

How was the staffing done at your school or elsewhere in the UK?

The class was usually split up in to groups of about 10, depending on age / proficiency. There'd be a teacher leading each group.

There would also be the lifeguards from the pool. If I remember rightly, this was at least two, if not more -- there always seemed to be one sitting up in the high chair, and there always seemed to be one patrolling the pool edge.

It was a 25m pool, and while the school was there it was closed to the wider public.

And one key phrase in there that emphasizes a difference between the UK and US is "council pool". My experience in the US - even in Massachusetts where they actually have functioning local government and aren't too afraid of providing public services - is that providing a swimming pool is a pretty low priority for town government. Often a pool will be provided by the local school system, but access will still be based on a membership fee, which excludes a lot of people from access.

With the austerity measures in place in the UK in recent years there have been a few cases of despair at councils closing their swimming pools and leisure centres to try to cut costs. This is often despite fewer and fewer people attending them over the years.

Public swimming pools are a rich seam for nostalgia in Britain. Many public swimming pools were originally built in Victorian times and so fall into the "Always There" backdrop of a city, things you never really enthuse about but would miss if they were gone.

http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/news/category/swimming-po...

Lidos, public outdoor pools, make up the other half of Swimming Pool Nostalgia. Most were built in the 1930s. They had already fallen out of fashion, really, when I was a kid -- since holidays abroad had become cheap -- but there was one quite near us, about 30 mins drive away, and going there was a bit of a treat.

There have been a few campaigns in recent years -- some successful -- to restore lidos or at least preserve them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lidos_in_the_United_...

Council pools will still charge membership fees or one off fees for use by non-members. Though these fees are probably somewhat cheaper than they would be if privately provided.

One off fees are fine - my experience in the US is that pools that allow any non-member access are few and far between.

> I consider it a basic life skill, as important as knowing how to cross a road.

Why?

As a horrible swimmer myself, I've gotten by just fine. Even went through a merchant mariner college (which is kind of like a watered-down Naval Academy) and earned a seaman license.

To improve your chances of survival if you fall into the water? Pretty important skill to have I think.

How many times have you felt into the water involuntary in your life? I can't count single time.

Once and another time I went in voluntarily to pull someone else out, in both cases had I not been a decent swimmer someone might have died.

Perhaps a dozen? Roughhousing by a pool or on a dock can lead to that.

Even leaving that out, the last time I fell into the water involuntary was a couple of years ago in my first kayak lesson. I did a stroke wrong, rolled over, and ended up in the lake.

Boy Scout summer camps, canoeing. The other guy didn't understand that you could, in fact, flip a canoe. Later, crossing an ice-slicked, narrow bridge in winter I fell into a creek (not very deep, not quite waste deep on me once I stood up, but certainly could've been more terrifying if I hadn't been comfortable in and around water and given it was about 20F outside and I fell through a thin layer of ice).

There's a risk of 'falling into the water involuntarily' in most activities involving small boats: canoeing, kayaking, sailing dinghies, sculling or rowing in a shell.

Not being able to swim precludes you from safely attempting any of these.

Perhaps also voluntary crossing of small rivers, small lakes, flooded areas. If you're lost in a mountain and your choice is to cross a river or do a 20km walkaround, being able to swim makes a big difference (chances are you'd avoid going in the mountains altogether, but that missing a lot of fun)

Also adults know how to avoid falling into water, small kids are not so good at this game yet.

Good, because if you can't swim, it only takes one time!

That can be said about any survival skill: hunting (e.g. shooting, searching), identifying non-poisonous mushrooms or plants, knowing how to make fire without dedicated tools, surviving in cold climate, hot climate, sea and etc. You simply can't know everything. It is nice to know these skills but there is low probability that you will benefit from them.

Only 20% people in Hong Kong (and I believe mainland China) know how to swim - doesn't look like a problem for them.

It's certain that many people will fall in the water. Taking that into account it is sensible to teach children how to swim. It is a simple skill that saves lives

>> Why?

I suppose there's the argument that most of the earth's surface is covered in water; it would be useful to not be afraid of it, to know how to move in it, and to be confident doing so.

But then, I grew up on an island where you're never more than 75 miles from the sea; undoubtedly that's affected my worldview.

> I suppose there's the argument that most of the earth's surface is covered in water; it would be useful to not be afraid of it, to know how to move in it, and to be confident doing so.

Yet we spend our entire lives--with the exception of a few excursions--on land. I agree that it's a useful skill, I just don't agree that it's as basic as walking or driving or cooking.

As the article points out, plenty of adults drown every year. Presumably these people thought the same way.

Another possible reason why there may be no differences in the UK is that some councils here offer free access to swimming facilities. A council I used to live under provided free access for everyone, then budget cuts happened and I think it's now limited to under 16's.

Might it be something to do with living on an island and historically there having been more boats and water transport issues vs, say, someone living in the center of the US (Kentucky? Tennessee? Kansas?)

My first son learnt to swim before he learnt to walk. A cousin fell into a swimming pool when he was two, almost died and has severe brain damage, so we wanted to be sure it couldn't happen to a child of us.