New South Wales school syllabus leaves water out of swimming lessons

The New South Wales education department’s seemingly counter-intuitive new Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) school syllabus has been attacked for potentially encouraging swimming and lifesaving lessons without one vital element – water.

The new syllabus enables students to “learn to swim” in the classroom – without ever entering a pool or other body of water.

This flawed policy has been criticised by teachers, swim schools and the Royal Life Saving Australia CEO Dr Justin Scarr, leading to a review by the department with assistance from RLS.

The NSW PDHPE syllabus is developed by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and plays a critical role in setting expectations and educational frameworks that guide, amongst many things, the provision of swimming, lifesaving and water safety lessons in primary and high schools.

RLS met with NESA in December and gained a commitment to working together early in 2026 to review elements of the syllabus, and strengthen the advice and support materials provided to schools, so that they can continue their critical role in water safety, both in the classroom and importantly, in swimming pools and at open water locations like beaches, rivers and lakes.

Scarr says that Royal Life Saving’s position is that being able to swim is critical to water safety, and that swimming and lifesaving skills are best taught in the water, usually at a local swimming pool or where safe to do so, in a bay, lake or beach.

Classroom-based water safety knowledge activities are important, but they can’t replace being able to achieve national swimming and water safety benchmarks.

“In a place like Australia, all children, irrespective of postcode or background, should learn fundamental swimming, water rescue and survival skills. While classroom activities are great, you can’t take the water out of swimming lessons, and you really can’t take swimming out of water safety or lifesaving,” says Scarr.

“The decline in swimming skills across the population is a major driver of higher rates of drowning, especially over summer. We estimate that 50 per cent of kids left primary school this year unable to swim 50 metres or float for two minutes – the national primary school swimming and water safety benchmark.”

He says the school swimming and lifesaving program has been a rite of passage for generations.

“It is how so many of us first learnt to swim, before moving to lifesaving lessons and the bronze medallion in high school – diving for bricks, swimming in pyjamas and learning CPR. We thank the Governments across Australia for their support for school swimming. It’s not only lifesaving but contributes to individual and community well-being”.

NESA said in a statement it would work with RLS to ensure communications to teachers and school leaders make clear the benefits of swimming lessons as part of the NSW curriculum.

“Swimming skills and water safety are an important requirement of the new PDHPE syllabuses being taught from 2027,” NESA said in the statement.

The new syllabus begins in 2027 but some schools will implement it from 2026.

IMAGE: Supplied RLS