At Tulip Academy, we take great pride in upholding swimming information that aligns with the DFE  standards. Our primary focus is to ensure deliver high-quality swimming lessons to our pupils. Our goal is to enhance their swimming capabilities, ensuring they can swim competently and confidently over a distance of at least 25 meters. With Castle sport complex dedicated instructors, students are equipped with the knowledge and practice of various strokes, , enabling them to become well-rounded swimmers. Safety is paramount in our approach, and we place a strong emphasis on teaching key safety skills to our pupils, emphasizing the significance of water safety alongside the joy of swimming. By fostering a love for swimming among our learners, we aim not only to provide them with valuable skills during their formative years but also to cultivate a lasting interest in swimming that may persist into adulthood.

Hydrotherapy

At our Springview Campus we are very lucky to have our own Hydrotherapy pool in school. Weekly hydrotherapy sessions are offered to all students on site with additional hydrotherapy opportunities offered to pupils with significantly restricted movement and students with PMLD (Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities).

Hydrotherapy offers tangible benefits to the health and wellbeing of children and young people with a range of disabilities and health conditions:

The warmth of the water has an effect on muscle tone and decreased spasticity.

The child being able to float in the water assists in the movement of their joints – which is either more difficult or painful normally.

Water pressure and the movement of the child or young person through the water helps to reduce residual lung capacity. This enables more efficient lung function and reduces the risk of chest infections developing.

Our Physiotherapy team regularly work with children who need this input within the pool and issue physio plans that staff can follow.

There is a stimulation Vocalisation in the water and the interaction within the water can help children to tolerate touch and engage in more eye contact.

Hydrotherapy has additional therapeutic gains for pupils with complex learning difficulties, such as ASC or sensory processing difficulties. Being submerged in water provides calming support, pressure and buoyancy that helps pupils with their sensory regulation. Hydrotherapy also has a positive impact on pupils social interaction and self help skills.  It is known to have the following benefits:

• Improve communication: Many of our pupils struggle to engage socially with both peers and staff. They find it difficult to communicate with other people outside of highly structured communication sessions. Because hydrotherapy means working with another person, as well as engaging with other pupils in the pool, it can help to improve social behaviours in autistic children. The nature of sessions conducted within the pool can offer children on the autistic spectrum a structured approach to forming bonds with others and learning social skills while in a relaxed state.
• Regulate emotions and/or behaviours: Research has shown that exercise such as swimming has been proven to help reduce undesirable behaviours in children with autism. These behaviours can hinder normal social interactions, and therefore a reduction in these behaviours also has social and emotional benefits too.
• It can aid sensory processing disorders: Many people on the autistic spectrum also suffer from sensory processing disorders. Children with autism can often struggle with a sensory overload, when one or more of the body’s senses experience over-stimulation from the environment. The sensation of water on the body can help to reduce stress caused by sensory processing disorders, calming and soothing children with autism

Finally, our children and young people access the pool to help to build water confidence. The children work within the pool on different tasks to help build up their confidence in and around the water. We aim to ensure that pupils have a good level of confidence to enable them to enjoy water based activities both in the context of the school but when out and about in their personal lives.

Hydrotherapy Pool Details:

• Temperature of pool is 34.3

• Length 12 meters

• Width 5 meters

• Mini depth 0.3

• Max depth 0.8