TEACHING CHILDREN TO SWIM

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27303, 20 March 1954, Page 3

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SWIM

CLUBS THANKED FOR CO-OPERATION Many of the swimming clubs in Christchurch were doing a grand job in teaching children to swim after school hours, and the Canterbury Education Board should be grateful to these clubs for their close co-opera-tion, said Mr R. K. Milne at a meeting of the board yesterday. “We have sometimes criticised the clubs in the ppst, but they are assisting as much 4hey can,” he said. Mr Milne mentioned particularly the Addington, Phillipstown, and Beckenham swimming dubg. Schoolchildren at Claremont, South Canterbury, ‘had been greatly helped with their swimming since a learners’ pool had been provided at the. school, said Mr A. E. Lawrence. The .chair? man of the Claremont School Committee had said that the £3OO the committee had collected for the pool as its proportion was the best investment that could have been made in the interests of the children.

Mr F. G. Armstrong said that the small country school at Killinchy. with 23 pupils, had recently raised £375 for a swimming bath. The bath had now been built, and sufficient funds were in hand to build a dressing shed. About half of the children at the school could now swim. Even preschool children were being encouraged to learn to swim, and it was marvellous to see the amount of interest the new bath had aroused in the district.