In line with the Department of Education's P–12 Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Framework External link, Queensland state schools are required to provide a water safety and swimming education program in Prep to Year 6. Whilst schools are encouraged to implement the program as part of the delivery of the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education, individual state schools determine how they provide their water safety and swimming education program in line with the statement of expectations: water safety and learn to swim programs (PDF, 2.7MB) External link. This statement provides additional information about targeted programs, training, qualifications and competencies.
The program includes:
- Classroom prior learning — preliminary water safety knowledge and learning which can be delivered in a range of ways to suit the learning context, but is best delivered before students undertake the water location component
- Water location learning — focused survival swimming and rescue knowledge and skills designed to be delivered by school based staff (in line with Curriculum Activity Risk Assessment (CARA) guidelines) and/or qualified external swimming providers.
- The program is aligned to the draft National swimming and water safety framework and the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education.
- The program outlines a developmental sequence of competencies for each band of years and is grouped into categories: Entries and exits, Buoyancy, Submergence, Swimming for survival, Survival sequence, Rescue and lifesaving and Water safety knowledge.