Swimming has been found to be one of the best extra-curricular activities for children’s physical and mental wellbeing, with 86% of parents agreeing it is an excellent way of looking after your health. Indeed, swimming lessons come out as children’s most popular extracurricular activity (38%), ahead of football (29%) and dance lessons (21%).

We spoke to Keri-anne Payne, Olympian and Jonathan Michael, swimming teacher about the benefits of swimming.