Kim Stoutenbeek of the Youth Fund Sport Amsterdam embraces the plans of the municipality for the next three years, in particular because swimming for children with, for example, autism or a concentration disorder, is now gaining more priority. The fund, which reimburses the swimming diplomas of around 5000 children per year, started offering classes four years ago with a maximum of four children who need more attention. “Now that the municipality also takes forgotten target groups, we are reaching even more children together,” says Stoutenbeek.
Ambitious
But the agenda of the municipality is also ambitious, she thinks. “Everyone has to learn to swim, but where are they going to do that? It is necessary that swimming pools are added in the short term.”
In addition, she points to the fact that Amsterdam swimming pools often offer swimming lessons themselves, but do not put the range of other swimming schools in their swimming pool on their website. After all, these are competitive. There is nowhere an overview in Amsterdam which swimming lessons can be found in which swimming pool: that makes it difficult for parents to find a suitable swimming provider for their child
In the summer, the Sports Fund Sport Amsterdam presents an information point on their website, where all lessons of the 31 swimming providers who are affiliated with the Fund are easy to see.
School swimming or not?
Although school swimming has already been abolished nationwide, Amsterdam still offers this. Of the 239 primary schools in Amsterdam (211 regular and 28 special education), 127 will participate in school swimming next school year. That is eleven more than this school year. One reason for a school not to participate could be that the swimming lesson is at the expense of the class time. At schools where children already have a learning disadvantage, or a teacher shortage, for example, a swimming lesson during school hours is not desirable.
A solution could be after -school school swimming, there is still too little room in the swimming pools to enter it everywhere in the city. In addition, the municipality also says that the teacher shortage plays a role.