Kindergartens and schools 1.-3. in Valmiera region. class students learn to swim

The Ministry of Education and Science, together with the Latvian Swimming Federation, is currently looking for solutions to include swimming training in the educational process for Latvian students. Currently, there is no state funding for this. Municipalities and schools create their own solutions. It is more difficult for those that do not have their own swimming pool, but even those that do have to think about how to provide swimming lessons to the widest possible range of students. So, for example, the municipality of Valmiera region provides training for the children of the region in the Valmiera Olympic center, where even children of kindergarten age learn swimming skills.

Since the second half of March, the students of the Rūjiena preschool educational institution “Vārpiņa” have been going to the swimming pool in the Valmiera Olympic Center every week on Wednesdays, which is more than 40 kilometers away. There, they have the opportunity to learn swimming skills in a cycle of ten lessons with the funding of the municipality of Valmiera region. “We are very happy that we have been given such an opportunity, because this year the municipality of Valmiera region has opened such a program where trained children, six-year-old preschoolers are swimming. It is also necessary for children’s safety, to teach children to swim in the summer. I think that in this cycle of lessons, the children will learn it,” he says Baiba Riekstiņa, teacher of PII “Vārpiņa” in Rūjiena.

There are a total of three swimming pools available in the Valmiera Olympic Center – two small and one large. In them, district kindergarten and school 1st-3rd graders learn swimming skills. class students. The Education Department of the municipality of Valmiera district states that even last school year each district association worked according to its own program, but already this school year the municipality ensures equal learning of swimming skills for all educational institutions in the district. It is planned to maintain it in the coming years as well, eventually providing coaching courses for teachers. “In the city of Valmiera, pedagogues of educational institutions bathe their children themselves. There are courses for physical education teachers. Let’s look at the next ones again, because in order to be able to carry out the same process also the sports teachers of the region need supplementary courses, they must be provided with courses. Because at the moment we are buying the service from the Olympic center, which provides the preschool children of the region with its coaches,” says Iveta Paže, head of the Education Department of the municipality of Valmiera.

Juris Zīvarts, representative of the Ministry of Education and Science: “Of course, schools look at their opportunities, including the opportunities of pedagogues, because not every place, of course, can we get this swimming teacher. “Currently, we see that there is a need for additional funding. Also, its bad statistics show that we would like to educate not only children, but also that child becomes a parent and society in general. We see that the society also has such a different opinion on what constitutes safety at different water bodies.”

The municipality of Valmiera region is able to fully provide swimming training and also transport expenses for the students of the region with its own funding. However, in order to train wider groups of students, it would require additional infrastructure and also funding from the state.