Faversham Pools is a multi-pool complex in the heart of Faversham's town centre operating year-round. As a registered charity, we are committed to promoting physical, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing, as well as safety, through swimming and education opportunities. We work to encourage healthier lifestyles for the residents of Faversham and surrounding areas and our core values have always remained the same- developing our charity and facility to benefit our community and make them proud while ensuring swimming is affordable, safe, and accessible to all. By encouraging families to exercise together, we aim to contribute towards the reduction in obesity in children and adults, and an improvement in physical and mental health.

Swimming is a vital life skill; however, many families are unable to afford for their children to attend swimming lessons outside of the national curriculum of Key Stages 1 and 2. A large percentage of the fundraising you do for the London Marathon will be invested back into our community and allow us to offer a week-long swimming 'crash course' during the school holidays to children and young people from underrepresented/disadvantaged backgrounds, which covers basic water safety skills on levels 1 to 7 on the ASA framework. We use the STA levels (Swimming Teachers Association) so that the children attending can obtain swimming badges.

Swimming is a vital life skill, yet Sport England reported back in 2021 that more than 5 million primary school children in the UK could leave school without being able to swim the minimum standards required (swimming.org, 2021). When reported, this was due to the impact of COVID on swimming pools and schools such as closures, online learning and social distancing. Pre-pandemic, 1 in 4 children left school unable to swim; this has since increased to 1 in 3. The current cost of living crisis is having a further impact on children and swimming, which was once seen as a vital life skill, is becoming a luxury. We have had a ~30% reduction in our swim school admissions since the beginning of the year due to costs.

This work is important to us for many reasons. It aligns with our charitable mission, and many families simply cannot afford to send their children to swimming lessons despite the importance of being able to swim. With Kent's vast coastline, swimming safety needs to be considered and prioritised so that we see a reduction in the number of children in our community who are unable to swim.

Over the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time investing in our community and one thing that was highlighted to us when getting to know our community was swimming lesson provision. Faversham Pools’ charitable mission highlights our commitment to developing our charity and facility to benefit our community and make them proud while ensuring swimming is affordable, safe, and accessible to all.

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