Swimming in the school day

[Pluto9]

We have just moved into Herts - I’m keen to find a school which teaches swimming to save me getting up every Saturday with my girls? Any ideas?

[sirfredfredgeorge]

eh? Swimming is part of the primary curriculum, so all schools will teach it to a greater or lesser extent.

There are plenty of swimming lessons out side of school which don't take place (early) on a Saturday.

[Clovertoast]

Well thats not true at all sirfredfredgeorge Ive had 3 kids through different primary schools and not one had swimming lessons !!

[Butterymuffin]

It's been cut at a lot of schools, so children may only have one term of it during a year, for instance.

In any case, a lesson with 30 kids isn't the best way to learn swimming. I would suck it up and take them yourself. As SirF said there are plenty of lesson times and days available.

[steppemum]

sirfred is right though.
The NC says that every child should be able to swim 25 metres by the end of year 6, and the school is supposed to ensure that.

I am an ex teacher and have 3 kids through different schools, and yes, most schools have swimming lessons.

BUT how they deliver them is very different.
eg
school 1, all kids in year 3 go to swimming pool on week one. Those who can do 25 metres do not return next week, they don't need lessons. Those who can't have lessons until they can, so they drop out as soon as they can. (hated this system)
school 2, small school, all of key stage 2 goes in summer term every year.
school 3 every year group goes from year 1 -6, but only for 6 weeks each year, so the school has a swimming slot and rotas its kids.
school 4, swimming done in year 3 and 4, for the whole year , once per week. If you join school in year 5 and can't swim, tough.

pros and cons to all of them, but school 4 is the best in terms of learning.

As to the OP. This is possibly the least important thing on the curriculum to chose a school over (and I am a passionate supporter of school swimming)

Mine did after school lessons during the week (saturday morning is sacred in our house)

[HamishBamish]

Swimming is part of the curriculum here too (Scotland), but imo they don't replace the need for private lessons. In our school they all go together regardless of ability although they are separated by lanes. Those who can 'swim' are basically left to their own devices, even if their technique isn't right.

If you can afford it I would keep the private lessons going and try to move them to a more convenient time.

[Wolfiefan]

Don't know what it's like with you but where I live parents take kids to after school lessons. Yes they have lessons in school. But for a few weeks each Yr. So Y1 one half term and Y2 the next etc.
Unless you can find a (private?) school with its own pool on the premises then I don't think you will find what you want.

[8pawsgood]

Get up and take your kids, they'll love that you're watching them and you can tell how great they are..Also take them to some fun sessions with their arm bands on, fun builds water confidence.

[pigeon13]

If you are anywhere near Letchworth, you could try St. Francis' College. My younger daughter is there and they do swimming once a week - during the school day. The classes are small so they get a lot of time being taught the basics. It was a real relief not having to teach her to swim myself.

[pigeon13]

If you are anywhere near Letchworth, you could try St. Francis' College. My younger daughter is there and they do swimming once a week - during the school day. The classes are small so they get a lot of time being taught the basics. It was a real relief not having to teach her to swim myself.

[pigeon13]

If you are anywhere near Letchworth, you could try St. Francis' College. My younger daughter is there and they do swimming once a week - during the school day. The classes are small so they get a lot of time being taught the basics. It was a real relief not having to teach her to swim myself.

[Daffydil]

St Chris in letchworth have a pool too, so assume they do swimming.

DS has lessons after school, rather than a Saturday morning.

[Yokohamajojo]

Our school do swimming in Y4 for the whole year but for 30 mins with 30 kids of varying ability in the pool so I wouldn't rely on that for actually learn confident swimming.

My son goes to a swimming class after school and I think the last lesson is 5.30 for the lower levels and up to 7pm for the later levels

[Pluto9]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I do enjoy watching the kids and going in with them but we also have dance, piano lessons, trampolining - time to cut schedules down....sometimes, I can't remember what day of the week it is!

[Wolfiefan]

Doing too much? Swimming is an essential skill. If the school don't teach it then I would prioritise that. Not sure I would choose a school purely based on whether they did swimming though? What about their bullying and homework and home/school contact policies? Do you like the school? What's the journey like? Is your child likely to get in?

[steppemum]

to be honest, even if the school does swimming lessons, they arent great. The goal is water survival, so getting to the end of the length. They are rubbish at teachign strokes etc.

Mine had out of school lessons, as did a few others. When I helped out with swimming class at school, the kids who did out of school lessons were in the top group, and STREAKS ahead of any other child, so year 4, top group (swimming lesson kids) can swim, about 200-400 metres.
next group down, kids getting 50 m badges as a struggle. These kids had been swimming every year woth school for 6 weeks worth of lessons.

If you want them to swim, you need to do decent lessons

[Norestformrz]

Swimming is compulsory in the primary curriculum. If your child’s school isn’t providing lessons remind them they don’t have the choice.

[user789653241]

But mrz, they don't need to have it in every year group though. So depend on what year group OP's dcs are, they may not have swimming lessons.

[Norestformrz]

No they don’t but clover says her kids never had one swimming lesson. That’s illegal

[ArbitraryName]

DS’s school does weekly swimming in Y4. He says it’s rubbish, but he’s by far the strongest swimmer in the group (he’s finished the ASA stages, can easily swim a mile, and swims twice weekly with a club).

I’m not convinced he’d learn anything in the lessons if he actually needed them. Apparently his group were asked to swim a width (they can only swim widths) of butterfly and the teacher was demonstrating the wrong technique. He knows what the right technique is and was bemused that the teacher was telling them just to flail their arms around in a circle. But, the aim of the lessons is only to ensure they can meet the KS2 criteria, not to perfect DS2’s butterfly technique.

[ArbitraryName]

DS1 has never had a school swimming lesson in his life. He went to a school that did them in Y6 and then we moved to a different part of the country where they did them in Y4 and 5. He couldn’t swim
25m at the end of Y6 (due to coordination issues, and not having lessons til we moved here - because in the area we used to live you’d be more likely to find a unicorn in your back garden than to get a swimming lesson place for your child).

[Hersetta427]

Dd is in yr 6.she has had a total of two terms of swimming her entire primary education so I definitely wouldn’t rely on school to teach your child to swim.

[Kokeshi123]

I have to say, I really really really would not trust a school to actually "teach" swimming. The kids will spend most of their messing about in the changing rooms and standing around waiting for their turn. In order for such low-intensity lesson to produce results, the weekly schedule will have to devote a lot of time to swimming, which will leave less time to other things like academics. To be honest, "I don't want to do swimming lessons" seems like a really odd thing to focus on when it comes to choosing a school. There are about a hundred far more important things to prioritize.

It sounds like you have a lot on, so you might want to a) make some choices about cutting a couple of activities, and b) consider putting your kids into short-term intensive private swimming lessons. They make MUCH faster progress one-on-one so you can get them to a decent level with far fewer sessions, making this a more time-efficient option (and cost-wise, a smaller number of private lesson is probably about the same as year after year of group lessons).

[user789653241]

mrz, it depend on how old clover's dcs are. When did it become compulsory for school to teach swimming in primary?

Anyways, I think school swimming lessons in England is minimal. If your want your dc to learn to swim properly, I would send them to lesson privately anyway.

[steppemum]

irvine, I qualified as a teacher in 1991, and it was compulsory then.
I think it must have come in with the first National Curriculum - so mid-late 80s?

[user789653241]

Oh, thank you steppe. I've heard from some teenagers/early 20s people at ds's club and some said they never learned to swim, so I thought it was a new thing.