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

School lessons are a waste of time.

I was an overweight kid (still am tbh) but I could and can swim like a fish.

I was stereotyped into the non-swimmer group because I was fat.

So much for confidence building 🙄

I never did well at school swimming, I think it was because I lacked confidence in the water plus was generally unfit, uncoordinated (I am probably dyspraxic) and had so little body fat that I don't naturally float.

Me and the one Muslim girl in my class who used to miss school for months at a time were stuck in the lower group literally for years while everyone else moved up.

I would take her swimming yourself or book private lessons.

Ours maybe did 10 weeks total of school swimming in primary school, they were each 30 minutes lessons. It would have been a bit more normally but the pandemic impacted for the oldest and then everything was out of whack (in terms of which year groups got the lessons) still for the youngest. Fortunately our kids could already swim as they did years of private lessons. With school there were two teachers with close to 30 kids. More than 1/2 maybe almost 2/3's were already reasonably competent swimmers and were in the deep end with a single teacher, and the rest who really needed the lessons, didn't get enough pool time in a 10 week course to make any progress.

I know its fustrating but from our experience (similar age), school swimming lessons aren't great.

If you want her to improve you are going to need to enroll her in lessons outside of school, and/or take her lots yourself.

We love water related holidays so the kids being able to swim has always been important to us (and they love it and are very good). But even if you don't do a lot of water holidays, your child is getting to the age where her friends might start having swimming parties or going swimming without parents so you might want to focus on trying to get her skills up this year. Personally I think being able to swim a couple of lengths unaided without getting tired is the minimum you might want to aim for.

I will never understand the need for butterfly. I don't know who invented it but they were a bit dim as it uses a huge amount of energy to get not very far. . Australian Crawl ( what you guys call front crawl) is much more sensible as is breaststroke. Backstroke is underrated. A lot of kids can swim a long way using backstroke as they don't have the breathing issue. None of my very strong swimming teen/adult DC can do a stroke of butterfly. They all grew up on the Northern beaches of Sydney. Besides the Olympics I don't know anyone who can swim butterfly. Pointless.

The way I saw school swimming lessons is as an extra for the majority who already have swimming lessons (I know this depends on area) and an introduction and basics for those that can’t swim at all or swim very little. My children took ages to learn from age 5 and 4 for younger one but they got to a point where it all came together and they are great swimmers now.

I am a swimming teacher, school swimming is no where near the same as actual going to the staged lessons, and requirements for school are for them to be able to swim basic recognisable front crawl, back stroke and either butterfly or breaststroke for 25m, rather than the full standard wanted in actual lessons.

I predominantly teach schools, and our group sizing is much bigger and the range of abilities in the group can vary widely - I have some complete non swimmers in the same group as stage 3/4 swimmers and can have upto 20 children in the group, which is double what we have as a max in a standard group staged lesson.

Also at stage 3 the requirement is only swimming 5m with feet off the floor, which in a school lesson that might be harder to do due to the way the pool is set up for the lesson.

I would say if you want your daughter to progress to improve you need to go back to group lessons or even 1:1 to help get her up higher.

School swimming lessons are notoriously a token gesture/waste of time, and would never get someone swimming who couldn’t swim before (in my opinion). Which is a shame as not all families can afford lessons.

the intensive courses over a week in the school holidays are good for rapid progress

Take her yourself. Honestly if been in year 3 then not swam regularly she probably gone back a stage. She needs to be taken regularly. Also school swimming lessons are limited as it's literally a block then it's stopped until the next year.

OP, I've been a teacher for over 40 years. I'm in Australia, so swimming is a must, but even here, school swimming lessons, once a week, one term a year, just don't cut it.

They are a great pre summer boost for those who can already swim, but they're the absolute bare minimum and usually have larger groups than normal swimming lessons.

You may have done well in your swimming lessons years ago, but I'd put money on you not having completely clear recollections of how everyone else was going. In my 42 years, there have always been some students who have really struggled.

As others have said, the fastest progress will come when she swims more regularly. If you can afford it, go back to group lessons but also take her to the local pool at least once a week yourself too.

I do think there is not enough focus on distance nowadays and it means kids have poorer fitness. When I was a kid you did the treading water and blowing up jumpers etc but there was lots of opportunity to get distance badges, I did loads right up to 2k etc, I wasn't in a club or anything. My kids didn't seem to do any distance badges apart from one year when eldest had a teacher who got how much they liked getting them, he got 200, 400 & 800m (she offered a special one off longer session to try for the longer badges) but that teacher then moved on. The swim england syllabus is poor on this, if you follow to the letter I think you only do regular lengths from stage 5 and there's no requirement at all for longer than about 200m.

You need to take her at least biweekly to see any real progress

I don't really know why people think this its not been true for my kids or my nieces nephews. It does take longer than a year though. In my family young kids get taken to the pool for fun, weekly. Then once they are 5 that's replaced by a weekly 30 min lessons at a good quality swim school - 4/5 kids in a class. They would have all been about stage 3 in a year or so & able do 10m, then would have taken another year/18m to get to stage 5 and be swimming lengths of backstroke, front crawl & breastroke. Then another year/18m to get to stage 7 and be doing 400m/800m badges etc, and swimming all 4 strokes well.

That's just from weekly group lessons. Then most have been ready to stop at about age 9.

It was very similar when I was a kid although children tended to start a year or so later at nearer 6 & finish nearer 10.

School lessons were never enough on their own for most kids to swim well, neither is only one year of group lessons, but you do not need to be going 2/3 times a week to learn to swim.

Sadly I think you stopped private lessons at a crucial point. I had to fight a bit as my 5 year old had been in stage 2 for 18 months. She kept touching the bottom of the pool because she could. When she was moved to stage 3 she was in deeper water so that safety net was gone, she had to swim and got a lot better. Then our pool (while she was still 5) announced they were closing the pool for 4 months to replace the roof. I immediately went elsewhere to get her lessons as I could not risk her going backwards when she is only really starting her ‘independent’ swimming journey.
I think school swimming lessons have always been a farce, even in the 90s when I went. My friends who couldn’t swim were ‘taught’ in the shallow end, don’t think any of them learnt to swim. I could already swim so was instructed to ‘go to the deep end and swim lengths until it was time to go back to school’ I mean I was pretty happy with the arrangement but there was no teaching involved! The school ones aren’t consistent enough.

School swimming lessons are utterly pointless. The ones who can't swim don't actually learn and the ones who can just bumble about doing nothing much. My 8 year old can swim 1000m and swims with her club 3 times a week and they won't even let her into the deep end in school swimming. I understand why as they have to cater to everyone but she gets nothing out of it at all.

She learned to swim through a mix of leisure centre lessons and a weekly 1-1. It was expensive but neither of us can swim at all so we were never going to able to teach her.

We do private lessons in a private pool. Lots of companies do that sort of thing now. Two adults with 4 children. Cheaper than 1 to 1 but still lots of attention. My 6yo started in September and can already swim 7-8 metres in 3 different strokes. She is very confident in the water though. I have friends whose children started lessons at the local pool at the same time and they're not doing as well as she is. I think because the class sizes are bigger?...I'm not sure.

I am a swimming teacher and can echo what others have said. It is difficult to learn to swim in half an hour a week if you don’t go as a family as well. If you take them yourself, then you can reinforce what has been learned in the lesson and also have fun in the water so her confidence improves. Otherwise 1-1 lessons are the answer but practice in between is still needed.

Can I point out that while offering swimming as an opportunity is on the curriculum... the overacting aim is to be able to swim 25m by the end of KS2. Thats it. If you want her to achieve this faster or exceed it you will need to put in the donkey work yourself and pay for private lessons or take her more regularly. Many parents see this as a necessary skill which they are not going to leave to bargain basement swim group lessons (which schools almost always are- especially if offered at subsidised or no cost to parents). The aim of the national curriculum is basically to give children a chance of not drowning if they fall in the river. I seriously would advise against critiquing the school as swimming is the least of their problems and your child would be considered to still be ok as she has two years left anyway and they have no control over the swim school spec. The leisure centre will simply brush you off with something along the lines of thank you for your feedback, we follow the national guidelines blah blah blah. Bottom line.

She just needs pool time

She'll get it

It's not the school's responsibility it's yours as the parent.

Forget about the school swimming lessons. Even when I was a kid, they were utter rubbish.

Book her in for proper lessons. My kids had weekly lessons from age four to eleven.

On top of that,we went to our local pool weekly during the summer hols so they could play around and have fun in the water.

She needs to practice more frequently, of course she isn’t going to progress in group lessons at school. How much time are they even in the water?!

I might go against the grain here but I kind of understand your point that just being able to swim in one stroke is most important. I am a keen and strong swimmer since I was very young and can comfortably swim 2.5 miles without stopping. I never had any lessons, my parents took me at least weekly and taught me and they had no swim teacher experience. I do remember school swimming and I taught 2 other kids to swim.

My advice is go as much as you can yourself. Make it fun, get some toys off Amazon like diving sticks to retrieve, that’ll also encourage going under water. Once they like being in the water, use the sticks to encourage going further, make it a game e.g if you swim to it without touching the floor 3 points, minus 1 point for every touch down. Don’t make it a chore.

Swimming is such an important skill but best not to hate it!

If you can afford to, get her private 121.

I agree OP. Are they really teaching butterfly arms??!

To be honest schools will take the entire class probably. They will need to make provision for the children who are scared to take their feet off the bottom, or even scared to get in the water, right up to those who can swim a range of strokes out of their depth for some minutes. Plus I bet they aren't in the water long by the time they allow changing time for all the kids. If you want your child to swim properly change your "we go swimming as a family every few months" to we go swimming as a family every couple of weeks, or get her some more lessons.