To celebrate the launch of their new lifesaving swimming lessons in this Olympic year, Total Swimming Academies and Edge Hill Sport are bringing together a host of Olympians for a children’s 'Oceans of Fun' event including eight time World Record Holder, Five Time Olympian and BBC commentator Mark Foster.

At Sunday’s event, each child will have loads of fun exploring a wide range of new activities from Mini Water Polo, Synchronized Swimming and will even get the chance to race Team GB Olympians.

Total Swimming Academies are delighted with the success of the new partnership providing swimming lessons at Edge Hill University which now teaches 400 children each week.

Set up by Liverpool born Olympic Medallist Steve Parry, Total Swimming Academies is a nationwide organisation that delivers swimming lessons to over 4,500 children every week in 20 venues across England and Scotland.

Discussing the partnership with Edge Hill University, Steve said: “Edge Hill Sport undertook a very thorough process to find the right partner to take over the provision of child swimming lessons at the facility.

"I have been very impressed that we had to go through several stages before convincing them that our experience and approach to teaching children to swim and be safe in and around water is the right one for the people of the Ormskirk area.

"I was delighted when they chose us, and overwhelmed with the support from their team. The fact we can now give more children the opportunity to learn how to be safe and have fun in the water can only be a good thing, and with 400 local children already signed up after the first month we are only confident this partnership is going to be a great success.

"Throughout my career in swimming, I have been lucky to have so many positive experiences. Swimming is a fantastic sport but it goes further than that – it saves lives.

"I can’t wait to see how many more local children progress on our programme!"

Steve Parry is one of Britain’s greatest swimmers, with career highlights including winning the Bronze medal for the 200 metre Butterfly at the 2004 Athens Olympics and setting an Olympic record in the semi-finals, impressively beating Michael Phelps – one of only four people to ever have done so at the time.

After retiring from professional swimming, Parry went on to create Total Swimming Group and Total Gymnastics Group. Businesses under these groups include Total Swimming Academies, Becky Adlington’s SwimStars and Beth Tweddle Gymnastics, which together have over 30,000 children taking part on their programmes every week.

Parry is also the Chair of the outdoor swimming and water safety programme Swim Safe. Run jointly by Swim England and the Royal National Lifeguard Institute – which has saved over 142,000 lives since it started nearly 200 years ago – it teaches young people how to have fun and stay safe when swimming outdoors.

Parry was recently entered as an inaugural member of the Swim England Hall of Fame, for his professional career and services to swimming.