Tipperary Station School goes for swimming

Canal Educa brings you a school located in a small Australian community that has developed a project to promote sport. In particular, pupils at this school have been able to learn to swim or perfect their technique.

This is Tipperary Station School, located on a cattle station between the Daly and Adelaide rivers. The project is part of the Australian government’s Sporting Schools programme, launched to foster sporting activity in the country’s schools.

According to Jaki Ryan, a teacher at the school, a lot of the children taking part had never had a swimming lesson until then. However, in northern Australia, being able to swim is vitally important as the water in the local rivers is home to dangerous species for humans, like crocodiles.

What’s more, this initiative has succeeded in building up a generalised social atmosphere around sport. Thanks to this project, a sporting community has sprung up in which pupils, teachers and the rest of the community can enjoy shared sporting activities.

The school has also benefited as part of the funds assigned to the project were spent on coaching teachers and making swimming safer. After this success, Tipperary Station School is thinking about setting up a swimming club to preserve what has been achieved for future generations.

Projects like this one show what fun the relationship between school and sport can be.