Officials at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have strongly denied reports that swimming is to be dropped from the list of sports that pupils are expected to practice in PE lessons at secondary school.

The proposals on guidelines for PE published by the QCA are part of the organisation’s draft ‘programmes of study’, published as part of the national curriculum for pupils at Key Stage 3, or between the ages of 11 and 14.

According to The Times newspaper, the QCA proposals omit a specific mention of swimming, instead grouping it in a general reference to “fitness and health activities”.

This is reportedly so that the QCA allows schools to have more freedom to offer activities that suit individual pupils.

The QCA also recommends that pupils participate in either games, gymnastics, dance, athletics, outdoor adventure activities or fitness and health activities in order to boost their PE skillset.

A DfES spokesperson said: “It is not true that swimming is being ‘dropped’ from the Key Stage Three curriculum.

“Schools will be able to offer swimming, just as they do now, and the government is committed to swimming. Our last survey showed that 83 per cent of secondary schools offered swimming and we only recently underpinned our commitment to swimming with the announcement of a £5.5m scheme to help non-swimmers at primary schools.”

A QCA spokesperson added: “The context of this is that we are designing a curriculum that creates more space for individualised learning.

“This is about looking at the principles that we need to think about in providing these subjects while schools decide how what is taught fits in with other aspects of what they do.

“One of the key things to motivate kids to get involved in physical activity is to find things that they enjoy doing and getting better at. We want schools to look at facilities and build a curriculum that is much more localised and personalised.“

According to the National Curriculum, schoolchildren must be able to swim 25 metres by the time they are 11 years old. However, some water safety campaigners believe that the 25 metre rule is an inadequate reflection of a child’s ability and safety within water.

The QCA proposals are due to be put out for consultation in February 2006 and will be introduced in schools by September 2008. Details: www.qca.org.uk or www.dfes.gov.uk

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