Effects of Using Different Learning Styles in Swimming in KS1 - Dissertation Example

A critical investigation of the effects of using different learning styles in swimming in KS1 Introduction The activity of swimming is a preventativelearning experience that not only teaches a sport to children, but prepares them for the dangers of water. Even though it may seem that water is a benign space, the truth is that it accounts for a significant number of deaths per year. Cultural disparities in infrastructure has caused some groups to have less access to swimming, thus putting them at higher risk for incidents. Swimming is also a social space, a place in which a natural hierarchy is developed and in which an unspoken set of rules govern behavior. Therefore, in creating curriculum that includes swimming, a social, safety, and culturally relevant system of skills is given to those participating in the educational venue. The ASA School Swimming Strategy Because of the many reasons for the advantages of having a swimming educational curriculum, it is crucial to critically evaluate the nature of swimming instruction as supported by the state. The ASA has identified four key elements that should be addressed where swimming is concerned: To ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn to swim To ensure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy swimming or water based fitness activities for health and fun throughout their lives To ensure everyone achieves their different personal goals throughout their lifetime To ensure we achieve gold medal success on the world stage (ASA) The problem with these objectives is that they skip the most crucial objective, which is to provide instruction that asserts the safety issues that must be addressed where water is concerned. While fitness and enjoyment are socially important aspects of the sport, the basic instructional value should be focused on presenting this as a life saving set of skills which can help preserve life when confronted with water disasters and threats. In section 2.1 of the ASA School Swimming Strategy, the concept of water safety begins to be addressed, however this is not listed in its primary goals. Oddly enough, one of the goals listed, that gold medal swimming talents are to be sought within the strategy, places an emphasis on a very small percentage of the population, where safety is a universal goal. This is an odd construction of focal points for a strategy that intends to cover the needs of all the participants in the program. While the strategy lists this a secondary focus, that it is listed without the focus of safety included is a quandary. The WHO (World Health Organization) has determined that 400,000 to 700,000 people drown each year at a worldwide level. There are a great deal of issues that affect the nature of drowning potential, including race, age, sex and the participation in instructions on water safety and swimming. Because many areas do not have sufficient infrastructure to support swimming as an activity, drowning becomes a real threat (Hastings, Zaharon, and Cable 915). The strategy outlines ways in which it helps schools systems to meet the criteria that are listed in different programmes. One of the programmes is the “Every Child Matters” programme that supports the idea that schools should be a place in which life long skill sets and protections are created so that the child has the best possible chance at a good outcome as an adult. Swimming, according to the ASA helps to provide this programme with some of its goals through achieving systems that create activities for extended school programmes so that there are places for children to go outside of the regular school time period (ASA). Again, this does not address the nature of the contribution of water safety that will provide further protections and skill sets that can save lives. Other programmes such as “Aiming High for Young People” and “Physical Activity and Sports Strategy for Young People” are also addressed to emphasize the importance of swimming as an activity, rather than providing a skill set for safety (ASA). The problem with simply framing the concept of swimming through its value as a healthy activity is that when financial concerns are relevant, the safety factors do not empower the need for funding a swimming curriculum within the physical education if they are not used as a purposeful factor in providing water safety education. Culture and Swimming The activity of swimming represents a great number of things to Western culture. The first level of importance is in creating skill sets for swimming is in preventing issues of safety through properly preparing students for confrontations with water. However, this is not the only reason to provide students with an education in water skills. Swimming is a social activity, the level of participation in direct relationship with the skills that one has for water sports activities. Swimming can include relaxing within water with others, to doing more extensively physical swimming that works as a cardio training event that includes resistance. The health and fitness aspect of swimming is in balance with the social nature of the pool, the way in which swimming provides a community in which hierarchies are established, and unspoken rules are established. Jeff Wiltse explored the ways in which swimming pools in communities in the United States provided a social center. In addition, they are the evidence of municipal engagement in life through community centered areas of social importance. Wiltse describes the type of social contact as “sustained and interactive” where community life was “fostered, monitored and disputed” (6). The concept can be equated to a referential space in which society was played out within a framed setting through the same type of interactions that larger scale society participated in experiencing. The swimming pool became a confined space in which society provided a context for culture. Wiltse goes on to describe the beginnings of the existence of the public pool as it served as a public bathing space for the poor. The intent was to provide poor, urban men and women a space in which to bath, although publicly and through a ’swimming bath’ which meant that the dirt of others was being sloughed into the slush of the water. The concept of transmission of disease through stagnant water that was not treated had yet to be established. As there were no places for people to bath in poor neighborhoods, and because people tended to equate being dirty with “disease, immorality, and disorder”, the public baths provided a space in which to wash away the filth for the good of the nature of the community (Wiltse 9). When understood for the social space that the municipal pool held within culture, the importance of the nature of its origins, the pool has been a space in which the morality and order of a community was renewed. Swimming also provides connectivity through shared skills within a community. In the culture of those who ’swim’ they are connected by the skills that they have acquired to keep themselves safe within a somewhat treacherous environment. However, because they have all been prepared to handle the threats that come from water, and because they share these skills, the connectivity that develops, a social group is created in which similar skills provide community. One of the separating factors, however, is that there is a disparity in the financial investments made in training within the middle class community in comparison to the lower class communities (Collins and Kay 82). Because of the desire to have a well-trained athlete within a family, middle class parents will spend “time, moral support, transport, and money” in order to achieve that goal (Colins and Kay 83). Therefore, there is a direct association between not only municipal pools and community, but between prestige and trained skills towards sporting activities. Swimming provides students with an activity that promotes community. The nature of the activity can be seen as both solitary and team oriented, the nature of the competitive side of the event providing team skills, while the nature of swimming for pleasure can be done through solitary goal setting. As well, swim settings provide for context in which to experience community when conducted at a public swimming pool. Through skills that are developed and universally understood by participants, a social group is created, thus creating a necessary component to the understanding of culture within a student. Beyond the skills needed to participate in swimming, and beyond those skills needed for safety, the inclusion of swimming as a known activity creates one more level of social inclusion. Another aspect of swimming as it is assessed for inclusion in a physical education program is through the ways in which it provides a skill set that can be done well by most members of a class, thus providing an equalized setting that isn’t always possible within a physical sport. However, part of the problems with a sport such as swimming as it does have some exclusionary factors that will deny certain social groups access. As an example, Muslim women cannot swim in public pool settings as their dress code has no allowance for wearing any type of swim wear. As well, it is likely that interactions with males in such a setting would go against the rules under which their religious defines their roles (Hardill, Graham, and Kofman 102). National Curriculum for Swimming The KS1 curriculum as described by the ASA for the National Curriculum for Swimming suggests that there are four basic expectations at this level of instruction: Move in water (for example jump, walk, hop and spin, using swimming aids and support Float and move with and without swimming aids Feel the buoyancy and support of water and swimming aids Propel themselves in water using different swimming aids, arm and leg actions, and basic strokes (Barlow and Keating). The following are the expectations of the K1 instructional curriculum: Swim between 10 and 20 metres unaided in shallow water, using their arms and legs to propel themselves Use one basic method to swim the distance, making sure that they breath Using floats, swim over long distances and periods of time with a more controlled leg kick. Join in all swimming activities confidently; explore freely how to swim in and under water Recognize how the water affects their temperature; recognize how swimming affects their breathing. Identify and describe the difference between different leg and arm actions (Barlow and Keating) The interpretation of the curriculum in regard to the expectations of the outcomes of the KS1 level of teaching swimming can be seen for the ways in which the expectations are centered on safety and a comprehension of the experience of swimming. However, there is a heavier level of experiential expectations than there are safety expectations. One of the primary issues of focus, however, is in looking for a confidence within the water, which is one of the primary ways to combat water problems. The four strands of the National Curriculum are as follows: Acquiring and developing skills, evaluating and improving performance, knowledge and understanding of fitness and health, and selecting and applying skills and tactics (Barlow and Keating). Through strategies of education in the field of swimming, the four strands can be reached in order to create a balance of knowledge within the beginning swimmer. As the educator builds the appropriate curriculum, these four strands of educational goals are central to creating effective training. According to Noble and Cregeen, one of the more important strategies to use during the course of teaching swimming at this level is in going through a series of confidence building activities (8). The movements, the methods of propulsion within the water, are an important part of understanding how to move in the water, but because of the sometimes frightening aspects of water, finding ways to build confidence is essential to creating the rest of the skill set required for water safety. At the KS1 level, bobbing activities, activities that require different methods of entering the pool, including jumping in to a partner, and those activities that engage the student against the nature of water so that breathing and balance can be successfully overcome within the water, provide confidence in the student towards the belief that appropriate movements will keep the student within reach of air and safety (Noble and Cregeen 9). In order to successfully meet the goals of the National Curriculum, the student must have the confidence to move forward towards deeper and more complicated skills. In addition, proper safety levels can only be reached when the student understands the level of physical need versus the ability of water to overcome the physical requirements of an individual is essential in creating a realistic confidence in the water. Physical Education The main purpose of physical education is to help children form habits of physical conditioning in order to support good health throughout life. Swimming is one form of physical education that can be done throughout life, without the need to stop because of any problems associated with the event of swimming. Because physical benefits can be experienced at all fitness levels without damaging impact to the body, swimming is encouraged at all age levels. According to DCMS, “offering free swimming is just the kind of imaginative action required to make us a more active nation buy 2012. We have chose swimming because its appeal is universal. It is the perfect antidote to the couch potato culture”. Where many other forms of sports are more physically demanding and provide comparisons between skill levels to the degree of causing distress for those with less skills, the skill levels of swimming decrease these disabilities. One of the most important problems with including swimming in a curriculum is the expense of having facilities available in which to teach students. According to Collins and Kay, the UK has not met the needs of infrastructure to fully support swimming instruction across all levels of socio-economic regions in regard to swimming. Additionally, Collins and Kay report that 83% of all swimming teams have 4 out of every 5 students from affluent middle class backgrounds (82). Therefore, the disparities in the availability of swimming curriculum based physical education is defined by socio-economic structures of various regions. Making a concerted effort for creating spaces in which to teach children swimming will help to associate a socially relevant activity that can occur throughout life to skill sets that provide safety. While the skills needed to swim are considered complex, they also can be learned by anyone at most any fitness level and used for those in geriatric age levels as easily as those of a young age to attain fitness goals. The exercise can be considered aerobic, thus allowing for the heart to be exercised (Vella, Berrange, and Oberholster 29). Therefore, creating the skill set at a young age allows for the use of it throughout life. Using it in physical education creates a foundation that is important to lifelong use Reaching Physical Education Goals According to a report about the efforts towards creating a useful swimming curriculum across the UK, the goals that are being set are beginning to see progress towards being reached. For the report, Her Majesty’s inspectors went to 30 schools and 17 school partnerships to see if the funding that had been provided to allow for the swimming curriculum was being spent in such a way as to see the goals set for the programme to be reached. The report summarizes that the goals were not being adequately reached, and that the main reason that this was the case was that not enough time was available to adequately teach the subject to students (Ofsted). Because of priority programmes that emphasize the amount of time spent on literacy and numeracy, the programs for physical education were being left with little to no time to address the learning outcomes and goals (Collins and Kay 84). However, despite the problems with literacy numeracy problems within the UK, with over 7 Million people suffering from illiteracy with England, physical conditioning also presents solutions to social problems (A Fresh Start). Swimming is not in the top sports activities pursued in British schools with “football, athletics, netball, rounders, hockey, rugby, and cricket” being among the top most pursued sports in the school system (Hardman and Green 103). Therefore, the programme that has been put into place is making only small strides in achieving the desired outcomes. According to the report made by the inspectors, where goals were not being achieved it was primarily due to “inappropriate curriculum; lack of time allocated for swimming; ineffective teaching; and poor leadership and management” (Ofsted). In pursuing swimming as a sport that is part of the average curriculum, direction to provide context for the instruction so that teachers are well prepared will provide for a better overall experience and goal achievement status. Conclusion Beginning level teaching of swimming as a skill set for safety reasons and purposes of social interaction can provide a student with skills that can last a lifetime for physical fitness goals. However, there are problems with the curriculum in the focus that has been implemented within the national strategies. In addition, the infrastructure that is required to allow for instruction is still not fully developed in all school settings. With the focus not aimed towards safety, it is probable that the importance of water safety educations has not fully been expressed to those who can effect the budget. Therefore a greater emphasis on the importance of water safety, coupled with information on the hazards of not having water safety skills would help increase the attention that the activity gains. As the importance of water safety is not exaggerated, the curriculum is lacking focus in this area. Swimming is an activity that provides a well-rounded experience from both a social level and from the level of sport activity. It can fulfill many of the needs as laid out by programmes that support the educations of children. As physical fitness is expressed through types of relevant activity that can be seen beyond competition and sport, more people will continue to participate throughout their lives. Thus, the need to have activity based physical education that can be translated for use through most of the cultures within the UK is vital to the health and well-being of the nation. The current curriculum needs to be assessed for its areas of focus and less emphasis put on the sport of the activity, rather than the safety issues, however, the need for the curriculum and the use of school systems to provide these skills will create a safer, more physically fit nation. (word count 3095) Works Cited A Fresh Start. Improving literacy and numeracy. A Fresh Start. 2011. Web. 20 May 2011. ASA The ASA School Swimming Strategy 2009-2013. ASA. 2008. Web. 19 May 2011. Barlow, Susan and Jon Keating. National Curriculum for Swimming. ASA. n.d. Web. 19 May 2011. Collins, Michael Frank and Tess Kay. Sport and Social Exclusion. London: Routledge, 2003. Print. DCMS. Massive sport reform to spearhead 2012 legacy plans: Free swimming plan for over 60s at the forefront. Department for Culture, Media, and Sports. 6 June 2008. Web. 20 May 2011. Hardell, Irene, David T. Graham, and Eleanore Kofman. Human geography of the UK: An introduction. London: Routledge, 2001. Print. Hardman, Ken and Ken Green. Contemporary issue in physical education. Maidenhead: Meyer and Meyer Sport, 2005. Print. Hastings, Donald W, Sammy Zahran and Sherry Cable. Drowning in Inequalities: Swimming and Social Justice. Journal of Black Studies. 36 .6 (July 2006) 894-917. Print Noble, Jim, and Alan Cregeen. Swimming Games and Activities: For Parents and Teachers. London: A. & C. Black, 2009. Print. Ofsted. Reaching the key stage 2 standard in swimming. Alexandra House. 2007. Web. 20 May 2011. Vella, Mark, James Berrange, and Evan Oberholster. Anatomy for Strength and Fitness Training for Women. London: New Holland, 2008. Print. Wiltse, Jeff. Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Print. Read More