AIBU to question school swimming progress when DD still can’t swim a width?

School swimming is supplementary at best, otherwise useless. Very few children learn anything new in them, too few lessons, too many kids, too infrequent.

You need to take her at least biweekly to see any real progress, mire likely 1-2 times per week.

I spoke to my DD swim club coach about this as he was also hired to teach the primary school lessons as per Nat curriculum

he said no-one can teach children to swim in such a short space of time, with such irregular lessons and parents not taking them to practise in between. It shouldn’t be an expectation, it won’t happen.

ours has lessons from 6months until 8 years old weekly. I didn’t feel they were good enough to stop until then.

The sad fact is that many swim schools are terrible. There are some good ones but good swimming teachers are hard to find and they're so crammed in they often don't have enough space. It's not aided by the fact that, as you've noticed, the Swim England curriculum that most schools follow is based on getting them competent at all four strokes in tandem. Which means that they spend years going to lessons whilst not actually learning to swim. Obviously if you go for long enough, they end up being able to swim every stroke but many people give up before this point.

Either just take her swimming yourself (only you know if she will be up for learning or will just want to muck about in the water) or find a better swim school. 1:1 lessons are expensive, but they progress so much faster that it's probably the same cost overall. If you go down this route make sure you tell the teacher you're not interested in them learning butterfly!

She needs to be swimming on a regular basis to make any noticeable improvement. Take her yourself. Swimming is a life skill and non negotiable in our house.

School lessons in local council leisure centre will not teach your daughter to swim if she couldn't before. They are only for around 30 mins for 2 weeks. As a teacher I've never seen a non swimmer learn to swim from these sessions. They are more of a taster session if anything.

The bigger issue is that she can't swim after having a year of private lessons. You need to teach her or pay for more private lessons.

Honestly, invest in some private 1:1 to get her strokes sorted out, probably need a teacher in the water to take her to deep end so she can't put feet down. 6 m is only a few strokes. When she gets breathing sorted out she will be able to go further. I definitely think paying for 1:1 is better at the start. Saves wasting two years of council ones.

My ds is a club level swimmer in at u11. He had school swimming lessons in year 3 and 4 but never showed much progress. Honestly I don’t think they expect any more than basic water safety. If you’re concerned about progress then I think you’re going to need to set the private lessons back up. Maybe try going regularly as a family until your dd feels more confident in the water? Practice jumping in, floating, breathing technique over short distances etc

Agree with comments made. Regarding feedback, have you asked for feedback or are you expecting it. Probably best to ask for it tbh

Imagine all schools are different, but mine was rather rough. We did swimming lessons one term a year, once every two weeks, had a 20min walk to get there, 25 minute session. Different ability groups, but lots of behavioural issues that made them virtually impossible to get much out of.
I had private lessons so was a good swimmer, but had friends whose only experience learning was from these, they can still barely manage a width!
I’d say go for separate swimming lessons if you can. Much more focused as smaller groups at similar levels with less messing about getting in the way.

Take her yourself.

When my DD was making zero progress I was in the water with her for a few sessions, to work out what the problem was. Once we worked on that, she flew in her swimming lessons.

Some things you cannot outsource!

Shes not going to have learned to swim if you go once every few months. I'd never expect school lessons to sort it. You've delegated this and its not working, can you afford a different swim school and ideally 121 lesson to catch up?

I remember sewing my kids' swimming badges on their towels. Happy days 😀I'm also pretty sure they were getting through the first few distances quite quickly. Can you ask the teacher if they're happy with her progress?

Maybe you should take her to the pool more often yourself to help her progress or get her some private 1 to 1 lessons which would be very beneficial at her stage.