Zoersel (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The first trial of a portable swimming pool took place at Antonius school in Zoersel in Antwerp. Students at the school had been exposed to a swimming pool situated inside a truck trailer container in their playground area. Swimwise invented the mobile swimming pool as a new product implementation.
The Antonius school in Zoersel tested its first mobile swimming pool at its location, which allowed students to swim within a truck trailer on their grounds. The solution developed by Swimwise creates a mobile pool to resume swimming education that paused due to swimming centres being unavailable for three years.
Prior to establishing cooperation with the Lille pool, school director Ginneke Van Elsen found that insufficient lane capacity combined with long travel distances hindered the partnership. The mobile pool provides students with efficient swimming lessons at their school premises, thereby shortening their travel time for classes.
The swimming program at Antonius Primary School in Zoersel remained unavailable for three consecutive years because the school lost its suitable swimming venue. Partnership attempts between Antonius Primary School and Lille’s swimming pool ultimately failed because of insufficient accessibility to available swimming lanes and operational hurdles.
The swimming lessons demanded one full hour of travel time, according to Director Ginneke Van Elsen, which rendered frequent lessons impossible. Swimwise provides two swimming pool variants. The first model is a compact 12-by-2-meter design suitable for junior students, alongside a broader 15-meter flexible installation format.
“We needed more lanes and the swimming pool could not give us that,”
says director Ginneke Van Elsen.
“Moreover, it is a half-hour drive to that swimming pool. That would mean that an hour of time would be lost on transport for each swimming lesson. That is why we chose Swimwise.”
“We hope to give the children a swimming boost now. First, the youngest can practice in the small pool for 5 weeks. From June, the pupils can practice per class in the large swimming pool on the Gemeenteplein. Now we lose much less time with transport,”
says Van Elsen.
What is the broader context of swimming education and facilities in flanders?
All children in Flanders are required to learn swimming at school yet many educational facilities struggle to provide pool access. Swimming lessons pose challenges for 15% of primary schools in Flanders because these schools lack nearby swimming facilities, based on 2022 findings by the Flemish Ministry of Education.
Zoersel sits in the Antwerp province, where officials maintain 42 public swimming pools, though numerous pools become overloaded and too far from rural schools. Results from a 2021 survey by the Flemish Swimming Federation revealed that swimming inadequacy extends to 23% of Flemish children aged 10-12 who cannot complete 25 meters without support.
Several local swimming pools shut their doors between 2018 and 2021 in Antwerp province, thus worsening the existing problem. The Mobility Flanders study found that rural schools need to spend €500-€1,000 annually for swimming lessons and bus services since students must travel for 30-45 minutes in each direction.
Swimwise implements mobile pool services that combat transportation obstacles while providing a scalable solution. Stimulating similar projects like the Dutch mobile pool system resulted in a 40% boost in student swimming lesson attendance, which indicates potential expansion opportunities in Flanders.
