After almost 8 years of hard work, dedication and commitment by children, parents, staff, governors and the local community, Stepgates Community School is proud to announce their new swimming pool is finished and ready for use.
Our children have not had regular swimming lessons since our last pool was condemned in 2012 and subsequently demolished. Fundraising started in earnest almost immediately and our original plan was to build an indoor pool. In the end, this proved too costly and the plan to build an outdoor pool was hatched.
We have raised over £100,000 through various activities with the help of FOSS (our PTA) including Curry Nights, Disco’s, Tombola’s, Auctions etc and we have been very fortunate to receive funding from local charities including Chertsey Combined Charities, The Peter Harrison Foundation and The Asmir Begovic Foundation.
When planning permission for the outdoor pool was finally granted by Runnymede Borough Council in December 2019 we appointed our contractor Darren Ridley from Aquatech Pools. The build was completed in June despite being hampered by the effects of Coronavirus, but, Covid-19 prevented us from timetabling the pool for use by our children.
We were delighted however, to offer our Year 6 Leaver’s the opportunity to take the plunge for a morning of fun and games in the new pool during the last few days of their time at Stepgates before moving on to secondary school; Mrs Ford was determined they would use the pool at least once before they left after fundraising since joining Stepgates in Reception!
We are over the moon that swimming lessons resumed in school on 16th September; a warm humid day, perfect for swimming outdoors! Once again it was our Year 6 children who were first in the water. We are all very excited at the prospect of offering our children the opportunity to learn this life saving skill – 80% of our children do not have swimming lessons elsewhere! Living in Chertsey we are surrounded by water; rivers, lakes and quarries all in close proximity, it is vital that our children not only learn to swim but develop a healthy respect for the water and the dangers it can present.
We are not done yet however. We are now fundraising for the teaching and safety equipment required to enable our younger children to enter the pool safely i.e. safety handrails and platforms and the second phase of our project which is to install showers and changing rooms next to the pool. The children will have to use the changing rooms inside the main school building for the time being and we have no showering facilities as yet.
The Peter Harrison Foundation have once again come to our aid and have agreed a donation which equals 50% of the funding required for the showers/changing rooms. We are working on other bids to cover the rest of the costs involved.
Sadly Covid-19 has managed to entirely halt our usual fundraising activities this year but we are investigating new ideas that adhere to social distancing guidelines and we hope we will be in a position to welcome our KS1 children into the pool in the not too distant future.
Our official ‘Opening Ceremony’ has been postponed until social distance restrictions have been lifted and life has returned to normal. We are keen to invite everyone who has contributed to this project and celebrate this incredible achievement with them all.