ESSEX County Council’s education director will be invited to a meeting to discuss what can be done to ensure every child in Tendring can swim before they finish primary school.

The move comes after Ben Quartermaine, 15, drowned in July. He died in the water to the east of Clacton Pier after getting into trouble while swimming.

Clacton councillor Andrew Pemberton put forward a motion at a meeting of Tendring Council calling on the authority to offer swimming lessons to every school child in the district and to teach them how to deal with a rip tide or strong current.

The issue was debated at a meeting of the council’s Cabinet on Friday. Mick Skeels, councillor responsible for leisure and tourism, said schools have a statutory obligation to provide swimming lessons.

He said: “Children should be able to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres using a range of strokes, and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations by the time they leave primary school. It is not clear every school in the district is meeting this obligation and we need to try to understand why and if we can support schools to ensure this vital strand of education is taking place.

“There is far from any guarantee free swimming lessons provided by ourselves would attract any additional children than are participating in a learn to swim programme. It would make sense we focus our efforts on ensuring our children are taught to swim competently and proficiently in their school.

“It is important the council does not make decisions in isolation, but through a partnership approach with water safety professionals.”

An amended motion will now go before the next meeting of the council to invite Essex County Council’s director of education to meet the district council’s community leadership committee.

Mr Skeels added the council is working with the RNLI, coastguard and police to review additional safety measures along coast and aims to implement any recommendations before next summer. It is also working with Swim England and the RNLI to roll out the Swim Safe course, which previously ran at Dovercourt.

Councillor Anne Davis, who presented the motion on behalf of Mr Pemberton, said: “To help prevent a future tragedy, we need to have a practical response.

“Tendring Council must be seen to take action to hopefully prevent a similar tragedy.”