Koondoola kids get clued up on swimming safety

Koondoola Primary School hosted several Water Safety talks recently, to promote Swimming and Water Safety Awareness to primary aged students.

The children were all excited to learn more about being safe around all types of water, with most of them stating that their families commonly head to the beach, pool or river and engage in activities such as fishing, swimming or snorkelling.

The Royal Life Saving Society’s Community Education presenter, Sam Bell, remarked on the day, ‘It’s great to know that these children now have an increased knowledge on how to stay safe as we approach the warmer months.’

‘Many of the children went from not knowing how to identify rips, to knowing how to spot rips in surf, how to use aid to rescue family and friends and how to attract attention and call for help.’

‘The children at Koondoola were a great group who said they love learning how to swim in their swimming lessons and are excited to try new activities on the water.’

The school has a large proportion of children who come from multicultural backgrounds, and it is important for Royal Life Saving WA to target these schools to share education on why having water safety knowledge is so important in our state.

Alarmingly, in the last 5 years there’ve been 50 drowning deaths in WA involving people from multicultural backgrounds, this is 37% of all drowning deaths.

Royal Life Saving WA’s Swim and Survive Access and Equity program, supported by Principal Community Partner BHP, works hard to address these statistics, providing swimming and water safety education in communities who are at high-risk of missing out on learning these vital skills.

For more information on our Access and Equity program please click the link below.