Supporting Black Swimming Association with Welsh swimming participation evidence: analysis and interpretation of the Sport Wales School Sport Survey
Key Information
Lead Researchers: WIPAHS team, with input coordinated through project leads working with Black Swimming Association
Subject Area: Physical activity, sport participation, equity, inclusion, swimming, children and young people
Project Duration: 2025-ongoing
Partners: Welsh Institute of Physical Activity, Health and Sport (WIPAHS), Black Swimming Association (BSA)
Further Information: maggie.miller@swansea.ac.uk; WIPAHS@swansea.ac.uk
Challenge
Black Swimming Association is seeking clearer evidence about swimming participation, capability, access, and inequalities in Wales, particularly among children and young people. While the Sport Wales School Sport Survey is a rich national dataset, extracting swimming-specific insight is not always straightforward from the public reporting alone.
The challenge is therefore not simply finding data, but interpreting and synthesising it in a way that answers practical stakeholder questions. This includes questions around how many children participate in swimming, how often they take part, how this varies by age and demographic group, and what can be said about confidence, capability, and unmet demand.
This matters because better use of existing evidence can help shape more targeted programmes, strengthen advocacy, and support funding and partnership conversations around equity in swimming.
Method
The work involves reviewing and interpreting available Sport Wales School Sport Survey materials, including public reports, appendices, and supporting data tables, with a specific focus on swimming-related indicators.
WIPAHS is mapping Black Swimming Association’s priority questions against what the survey can answer directly, what it can answer partially, and where additional Welsh or national datasets may be needed. This includes identifying relevant measures relating to participation, frequency, capability, and demographic breakdowns.
Alongside this, the team is producing a clear evidence matrix to help distinguish between robust findings, partial insights, and current evidence gaps. The aim is to turn a complex dataset into a more usable evidence base to support decision making and future project and research funding.
Findings
Early work suggests that the School Sport Survey can provide useful insight into children and young people’s sport participation patterns and can contribute meaningfully to swimming-related questions, particularly where swimming appears as a named activity or where broader activity patterns can be disaggregated.
At the same time, the analysis is likely to show that some of the most policy-relevant questions, such as precise rates of occasional versus regular swimming participation, or detailed ethnicity-specific breakdowns, may not always be cleanly available in a single published table. In those cases, the value of the work lies in carefully identifying what the survey can support and where supplementary sources are needed.
Impact
This work will help Black Swimming Association make better use of existing Welsh evidence in its advocacy, funding applications, and partnership development. By clarifying what the data shows and where the gaps remain, the project can support more informed decisions about where further research, community engagement, or programme investment is most needed.
The work also demonstrates the value of WIPAHS as a bridge between research and practice: not simply generating new evidence, but making existing evidence more accessible and useful to organisations working on the ground.
In the longer term, the project may help strengthen the case for more inclusive data collection and more targeted attention to inequalities in swimming participation and water confidence.
