Swimming lessons should be essential!

There absolutely needs to be a radically different approach to swimming lessons. Swimming as a sport is not the same thing as water safety and the Swim England scheme is basically a barrier to water safety for a lot of kids whose parents can’t afford to have them spend a year in stage 4 learning butterfly, all while they still won’t reliably go in deep water and can’t cope at all without goggles.

There needs to be a basic scheme for kids who aren’t interested in swimming as a sport, where they learn to swim 100m in one stroke, tread water, float, experience falling in in clothes. That’s it. You could have it over with pretty quickly.

Our local pool; 6.50 adult swim , 5.75 for kids ( I have 2) , bus is £4 EACH return journey, so taking my kids for a swim is a £30 excursion. I'm a single mum on a low income.

Are you me? 😂

I genuinely just sank as a kid. I just couldn't float, and swimming was a huge struggle because of it. Combined with sensory issues around getting a wet face, and a deviated septum that means I can't "close my nose"... I rapidly developed a total dread of going under and never managed to get past that, despite years and years of swimming lessons.

Someone else's job? Like a... Swimming teacher?

How lovely 🙄 Was your son one of ones "taking the piss" out of other kids who couldn't swim? I hope not and if so I hope you didn't encourage it.

I couldn't swim until I was 10. The school lessons just didn't click for whatever reason and I missed loads anyway because of a serious illness. My parents couldn't afford extra lessons when I was younger, especially as it would be likely I'd miss some.

I did learn via outside lessons, I was the oldest in that class but thankfully people were very kind - if I'd been laughed at I wouldn't have had the confidence to carry on.

There are lots of reasons some children can't swim and sneering about it/assuming the parents are "negligent" is just stupid to be honest.

My son is 4 and we've just started him on lessons - one to one SEN lessons due to additional needs, £150 for 10 weeks and we're praying he actually gets in the pool on each one.

All those saying their kids were in swim lessons from birth, I'm genuinely curious - if they'd somehow fallen in a river or something at say 2 years old, would they actually have been able to do anything to help themselves based on a very supported/structured set of lessons weeks prior to falling in? I'm struggling to see how they'd remember/link the lesson to suddenly being in genuine danger? Genuinely asking as I've always been curious!

Growing up I had a pool at my primary. So did swimming lessons often.
Where we live now. Primary years 3 - 6 benefit from swimming lessons every year over the course of 2 weeks. And then additional lessons after school during them 2 weeks, at a slightly cheaper rate than taking them to a pool. Only 1 of my DC took up the after school lessons on top of the during school ones as he's a water baby and is very nearly swimming (amazingly confident under water though!)
During the summer months we also benefit from a family member with a huge pool, big enough for them to learn to swim, so that's what we have been doing the last couple of years.
If we didn't have these opportunities, they wouldn't get to swim and learn so often, as the cost of swimming lessons around here is crazy money, especially for 3 children. But then again, I had loads of swimming lessons over the years, and turns out I'm a rubbish swimmer anyway. 🤣

I’m a terrible swimmer and DH can’t swim at all, we made sure DD wa sin lessons from 2. She’s very confident in the water, she’s still learning but I want her to be able to say yes to everything. I want her to be able to try whatever she wants. Not being able to swim is limiting.

The problem is there an enormous chunk of parents who see teaching there child to swim as someone else’s job
granted not every parent can get there child to swim but you can get your child water confident then fine tune it with the odd lesson

This is interesting, we are in Scotland and my children have never had 1 swimming lessons through school. I did as a child. It's really disappointing as, like so many others have pointed out, lessons are often not an option for so many.

Depends where you live and what kind of lifestyle you live. If you don't live near any body of water, and never go on holiday near one, and never go to swimming pools for pleasure, then sure, not essential.
But there's a booming market for adult swimming lessons where I live, because so many adult immigrants come here unable to swim, having not really needed to before, and then realised how much they are missing out because summers revolve around water here. When you spend your summer at a cottage by the lake, with everyone swimming except you, you soon realise how essential it is.

Not necessarily neglect (if it's the case I think you mean) they were on holiday, it's not like they had a pool/pond in their back garden with a toddler.

When did you grow up? I’m 44, and swimming lessons were perfectly normal! Not every child had them but they weren’t some sort of obscure peculiar thing only embraced by the eccentric!

When did swimming lessons become the norm? When I was growing up I think only one friend had them, and most of the rest of us could swim too but had been taught by parents/family.

What would help is if swimming and lessons were more affordable, not for parents to be made to feel guilty if their child can’t swim.

I do. Hotel pools are shallow

Do you not go on holidays with swimming pools?

My local council pool closed the waiting list for swimming lessons in 2021. Now on the rare occasions they have places they post on Facebook and the first parent to ring up gets the spot

So I started taking my son to private lessons - expensive but fortunately I could afford it. Unfortunately the pool closed permanently after a month. I've been looking for lessons elsewhere but everywhere is full. The one place I did find recently with spaces is charging £58 per 30 minute session (no, that's not a typo).

I had swimming lessons every week at primary school and still came out a non-swimmer. I was a really skinny kid but what there was of me was quite solid, basically I couldn't float. Whenever the teacher tried to get us to float I would just sink like a brick. Consequently every moment became a struggle to keep my head above water.

To make matters worse I couldn't get my (generously proportioned) nose to close sufficiently to stop me getting a partial lung full of water on a regular basis leading to a brisk outbreak of coughing and drowning.

I rapidly came to hate swimming and everything to do with it, used to pray for verrucas so that I would be banned from the pool and sent to do other games.

Sometimes no amount of trying is going to get your child swimming.

Wow I'm really surprised at the costs mentioned on here. Our local pool costs less than £5 for an adult swim and kids are only a cpl of quid. Adult bus fare is only £2 and kids are free (or £1 if they're older). Our pool also has family sessions where its absolutely free to swim but that's about an hour once a week.

I do think it's important to teach your children to swim though. We just took them regularly when they were going and by the time they started the school lessons they were both top of their own classes. Holidays can be the best place for solidifying their skills as they're in and out of the pool too.

I’m not convinced of the need for actual lessons for very tiny ones. Better. IMO (if a parent is confident enough) to take them swimming maybe once a week - in a nice warm shallow pool - and just get them used to being in the water and enjoying it. That’s how mine learned anyway - both were swimming very early, inc. under water - albeit no proper strokes. Those came later, with lessons at maybe 6, when they were already very confident in the water.

Too late and not enough!
I helped at my kids swimming in Yr 4. 2 competent swimmers out of 45. 5-6 could manage a width. The vast majority complete non-swimmers with approx 10 children that had never been to a pool before.
A very average area, not especially deprived.

I don't see how this is an essential life skill. My mother can't swim and she is doing just fine in life. I never had swimming lessons as a kid but I knew how to float and my friend taught me basic swimming skills when I was an adult. Apart from being swept by a tsunami, I think my chances of drowning are lower than average because I can't swim well and, hence, never put myself in situations where I might need to.

It’s £75 a month here, two children code together £150.
They do scouts for £10 a month now, but nothing in that kinda of price bracket!
The lessons are crap too, lots of queuing, too many at once and little progress.

I took my DS to swimming lessons at the local leisure centre aged 2. All good, he enjoyed splashing about, and it was in a baby pool where I was in the water with him so he felt completely safe.

When he turned 3 the leisure centre lessons said that parents had to watch instead of being in the pool, and I didn't think my DS would follow instructions properly or be safe doing that, so I paid for a term of Turtle Tots where I was in the pool with him. This was in a different pool, which was part of a gym and quite dark and he couldn't touch the bottom.

He was absolutely terrified and refused to let go of the side of the pool for the whole sessions. The other kids were fine and were going along with the lessons. My DS was not fine. His fear got worse week on week, whatever I or the teacher said or did. He sobbed to me that he was scared he would "drop down to the bottom".

I stopped taking him after 4 or 5 attempts because it was making the situation worse and he was getting less confident around the water.

He's 4 now, and I take him to open sessions at the leisure centre pool every couple of weeks or so and he enjoys a splash about, and can doggy paddle a little bit wearing armbands. I know armbands aren't generally recommended but my DS asked for them "because then I might not drop down".

He's confident and has a happy relationship with the pool again now. Next year I'd like to try him with lessons again, maybe once he's got used to being in school and listening to a teacher properly. Until he is a confident swimmer I would never let him be unsupervised around any deep body of water.

I don't feel guilty about taking him out of swimming lessons aged 3 because they weren't helping him be a safe swimmer. It just wasn't right for him at that time. He was becoming afraid of water, it was horrible for him and no fun for me, and for those reasons it was a waste of money.

No 3 or 4 year old needs swimming lessons. A great thing to do, sure (mine did), but it's very far removed from a need.

Likewise, fun trips to the pool before that are important if you want them to swim well at a young age. Many of us are happy for our DC to learn slowly at an older age. Swimming is nowhere near my list of important things for under fives.

Thank you!