AIBU to withdraw DD from swimming?

We are in the same situation! DS7 has been stuck at level 2 for 13 months, with incredible little increase in % every lesson. Thing is we don’t see any big issues with his swimming. He progressed super fast until that level and he’s super confident in the water. He could totally be challenged to swim longer distances, as he does it outside lessons. He seems to perform all the exercises they ask him to do, and with good technique.
About 9 months ago the instructor said to get ready to move to the next stage next time, for which he got super excited. But that didn’t happen and we inquired twice, just to be told he’s not ready for the deep side of the pool (which we are not in agreement as we take him regularly there, in exactly the same pool). I am getting very frustrated and trying to keep it cool with DS, but he’s losing interest and asked to stop many times now.
I think we will give it another chance but if no progress by next half term we will change provider.

I’d agree with this. My eldest went to group lessons for a year and made very slow progress. My youngest had 1:1 and nailed it all in 3 months. Cost per lesson was higher for youngest obviously but we spent less overall

Yes, but she can’t do the main life saving skill of floating on her back. If you take her out now, you wont end up taking her every week if you’re going to wait until the summer holidays. So all the money you’ve paid for lessons will be wasted.

My ds just won’t / can’t do this. I think he struggles because he hates water in his ears. He is still in lessons but I fully expect him to be at level one forever. Sigh.

We ended up going with 1-1 lessons for dd totally ignoring the stages as she couldn’t progress due to refusing to do an underwater rollypolly. Dd is now 18 and still hates water on her face, but she can swim as that’s what I asked the teacher you focus on rather than ticking boxes.

I’m 50:50 on this. My dd got stuck on stage 1 for ages too - but thereafter she got through the stages swiftly.

with ds we took him swimming from an early age and he had got on rapidly but mainly I think because he swims with me every weekend so I can help him practice the things he’s struggling with. So instead of a 30 min lesson with 8 other kids, he has an extra hour in the pool every weekend. That seems to have made a huge difference.

Look around for different classes. I found a more "old school" swimming teacher that gives certificates for distance not the swim England stages. I had a child who would not put his face in the water and we were stuck for years. Her solution was to get him to feel really confident in both back stroke and the best you can do with breaststroke with your head sticking out. It worked. He got his 50m badge before he put his face in. Now dives in, proper front call, can do 400m. Loves swimming now. She teaches in a school pool she rents out not a leisure centre or private gym, she's always full and it's a bit word of mouth.

I never bothered with those lessons when they were small because the time commitment was several years to get a good stroke going.
Age 8 we did private lessons for 8 months and she picked it up so quickly and was an excellent confident swimmer able to a couple of lengths.

Take her out for 6 months then try with a new teacher. Both my DC found learning to swim hard, but got it quickly aged 7. DD went on to swim competitively so a slow start did her no harm.

I’d keep her in lessons but speak to the instructor about what you can do to address this issue- then take her “fun”
swimming and work on that one part with her.

Taking her out of lessons is only going to result in her falling more behind.

We had similar with our eldest. They were stuck at stage 2 for quite awhile as well and then stuck on stage 3 for even longer! Both times very soon after we moved her to a different teacher she had moved up within a few lessons! I think she had some poor teachers at various points tbh (but also some really excellent ones at others, the turnover at her swim school is pretty high). So I would look to move your child to a different class basically and see if that helps.

Don't pull her out of lessons. It will make it a big thing in her head and restarting will be a nightmare.

Get her to look at the ceiling and focus really hard on it, its the best way to keep your head in a good position

Take her. Her hips need to come up more not head back more. She might have in her mind that head back means legs up so pushes her head back too far? Could try all sorts her from being a star fish in the water to holding hips up etc etc She needs to play around and feel how the water works with her body. Don't always get time in lessons to figure that out.

Even if she isn't making official progress, she may still be progressing.

DD did well at stage 1 then spent absolutely AGES at stage 2. (Around 2 years but there was a Covid lockdown during that.) She then did 6 weeks at stage 3 before moving up to stage 4.

You can teach her yourself if she responds to it. Mine would just play around when we took them swimming and only do about 5 mins of 'proper' swimming practise.

We endured achingly slow progress in swim lessons for 2 years. Enquired about how much 1 to 1 lessons were. Bloody expensive. However, I took on extra hours at work and she started- she did 1 to 1 swim lessons for 9 months and became a very proficient swimmer- so much so that we were able to finish the lessons; so in the long term, it saved us money/time because 1 teacher being able to focus on 1 child means those little mistakes are corrected much quicker.

I would keep the lessons, take her swimming and try to sort out the issue that’s stopping her progressing in to the next level. Sometimes one small fear can provide a block, she’s probably panicking on her back and it just needs some guided practice.

Worth resting them for a few weeks, practice with her then restarting. Not all dc are ready at 5 anyway. My dc learned in a few weeks but was 8

I'd keep going, speak with her instructor and if you can keep practicing this in family swims
She'll get there.

We pulled DS4 from lessons. He started refusing to go from the changing room to the pool. We think it's a bit of separation anxiety as he is the same at school. Far too much stuff going on at home at the moment to have the energy to fight it otherwise we would have kept going. He was 3/4 of the way through stage 2. We are hoping during family swims that he gets the hump that DH and his Dsis are in the deeper bit playing games and he is stuck with mummy and all the babies in the shallow end and wants to learn again.

DD1 was at stage 1 for 1.5 years. It was annoying as she was also at 97% for almost 6 months. I think the time she spent learning the skill helped because she was only in stage 2 for 6 months. We noticed though that her swimming school sometimes keeps children in a stage longer when they know there’s no space yet in the higher stage which is so annoying. You can also look at another swimming school or teacher if you think the teacher is not helping

I wouldn't stop the lessons, but perhaps you should try a different swimming teacher.

Wow Erm this is a rather premature thing to do...
My child was in stage one for just over a year...

However if you think she should have progressed by now then you can easily ask to speak to her teacher and see what she needs to work on and why she's been at the same percentage for months then she can discuss it further with you and hopefully put your mind at rest. It might even make her think that actually oh maybe I do need to move that child up. Either way it might be worth discussing with the teacher and seeing?

Keep her in lessons, if she is struggling in lessons going swimming with you won’t improve things.