EDUCATION chiefs have been criticised and ordered to shake-up their school swimming pol-icy after the drowning of 11-year-old Nathan Matthews.

Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) has been served with an improvement notice by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the tragedy, it was revealed yesterday.

As a result, new guidelines will be issued to all schools in the county later this month.

The council was criticised for health and safety failures in a report by the HSE.

Experts from the Institute of Sport and Recreation Manag-ement, based at Loughborough University, will offer guidance on school swimming policy and help train staff.

The investigation was spar-ked by the unexplained drown-ing of Nathan in two feet of water at Thame Leisure Centre last July during a supervised visit with Stokenchurch Prim-ary School.

His mother, Penny Matthews, who has been searching for answers since her son's death, said she was delighted that something good would come out of the tragedy.

Mrs Matthews, of Water End Road, said: "It's good to see things are happening and measures are being taken to ensure other peoples safety. That's some relief.

"If you serve someone with an improvement notice surely it means that they are digging, and that they've found some-thing. It still should never have happened, but slowly we're getting answers."

The HSE was called in to inv-estigate the youngster's death after he died in front of Year Six classmates on a school trip.

A report compiled by insp-ector Bryony Mitchell was handed to the council in Jan-uary.

It found the council had "failed to ensure" the health and safety of employees and other people (particularly children) using school swimming pools through a "lack of effective" written procedures for safe operation of the pools and "no arrangements" for monitoring school's application of control measures for pool use.

The council has been ordered to introduce a revised swimming pool policy by April 18, prom-pting a comprehensive look at staff training for all schools, including those with their own pools.

A council spokesman said the improvement notice was "not related entirely to the Stoken-church incident, but that inci-dent sparked it off".

Steve Edgar, the council's senior advisor in school imp-rovement services, said the county's swimming policy needed to be revised in light of "recent events".

He added: "BCC has been using some experts from the Institute of Sport and Recrea-tion Management based at Loughborough University.

"They've been looking at cer-tain policies with a view to modifications and changes where appropriate.

"As a consequence of this they are also giving advice in terms of a revised training programme which applies to those schools in Bucks that own their own pools or hire them out. Training programmes will be offered to all the relevant personnel at schools to ensure all the staff are ready."