Grade 2 student Cooper Onyett drowned on May 21, 2021, at Belfast Aquatics at Port Fairy in Victoria's southwest while on a trip organised by Merrivale Primary School in Warrnambool.
The school sent parents permission slips and medical forms before the trip, asking them how far their children could swim.
Cooper's mother ticked a box confirming he was a beginner swimmer with little or no experience in shallow water, prosecutor Duncan Chisholm told the County Court of Victoria at Warrnambool on Thursday.
However, the school never passed information about students' swimming abilities to the pool before sending 28 grade 2 students there.
The students were asked to raise their hands if they could swim when they got to the aquatic centre, Mr Chisholm said.
Children who said they could swim were led to an inflatable obstacle course in the pool's deep end, however many were ultimately identified as weak swimmers and helped to the shallow end, he said.
Cooper was among the children identified as a weak swimmer and was spotted twice more outside the shallow area - jumping into the deep end and on the inflatable, which he was told to get off.
A swimmer who was with her daughter later saw the boy floating underwater and initially thought he was holding his breath.
"After about 40 seconds she realised something wasn't right," Mr Chisholm said.
Cooper died after attempts to resuscitate him at the pool failed.
Victoria's education department has pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety legislation over Cooper's death, admitting it failed to ensure people other than employees were not exposed to risks.
"Had the information about the children's swimming abilities been communities to Belfast, this could have assisted the risk of drowning," Mr Chisholm said.
Throughout Thursday's plea hearing, Judge Claire Quin repeatedly asked government barrister Carmen Currie why the school collected information about the children's swimming ability if not to disclose it to the pool.
Ms Currie said the information was collected for planning purposes, and the department could not "anticipate in every single case the exact information a provider might need" for a school activity.
It was up to the pool to ask for the information, the barrister said.
"The activity was swimming," Justice Quin said.
"Why get the information if you're not going to give it to the people who needed it?"
Ms Currie conceded the department should have mandated that information about students' swimming abilities be passed on to pools, and said that was now the case.
However, she said the department fell short in a "small" way, and there was no evidence disclosing the children's swimming abilities would have changed how Belfast Aquatics managed the activity on May 21.
Port Fairy Community Pool Management has also admitted breaching health and safety legislation and will be sentenced on May 31.
The plea hearing continues.
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