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

The trouble with swimming lessons in this country is that the whole system is largely left to Swim England and similar bodies and therefore understandably focuses on swimming as competitive sport. As a consequence there's too much focus on developing skills in pointless strokes - useless butterfly etc - and not enough focus on being able to swim useful distances to stay safe in water.

The system in, for instance, the Netherlands is rather different. Passing the assessment for the "Swimming Diploma A" is a massive rite of passage for Dutch kids. The test is a big event with parents in attendance, and passing it is required for kids to be able to use public pools without armbands etc.

There's a strong focus on the skills needed to stay safe in water, and so the test includes sequences of skills like jumping into deep water fully clothed, treading water for 15 seconds, swimming a set distance and climbing out. It's supposed to simulate real situations like falling into one of their many canals.

I didn't expect any progress whatsoever from school swimming lessons tbh.
The only way to ensure you have a strong swimmer is to either pay for private lessons (way beyond stage 3) or take them frequently yourself.

I'd take her yourself weekly OP. Regarding the breathing thing, it might be worth trying a snorkel & mask (as this allows you to keep your head in the water the whole time, so it's easier). If she can swim a length with a snorkel, you'll know it's the 'coming up to breathe' technique that needs some work, and you can focus that with her.

As a teacher, I don’t feel like we ever see much progress in swimming lessons. I’m ‘trained’ to teach swimming so I can take my class. It was one day. How I’m expected to learn everything about teaching to swim in one day is beyond me. The children are split into two groups. One group gets the qualified swim teacher, the other group gets me. Which group should get the proper swim teacher is hard to say. Do the more able ones need her to progress their skills, or do the proper beginners need the skills to get them started? 🤷‍♀️

School lessons in 70s from my recollection were organised chaos and hardly learning any actual swimming.

I learnt far more from my parents taking me and brother weekly swimming. We had an excellent sports centre nearby with Olympic pools though.

My 6 year old son has been in the same bottom group in our local leisure centre for the last 2 years, we went on holiday in Feb and saw a massive difference in confidence but still struggled with moving his arms correctly. We have since started 1-2-1 lessons as a temporary solution who advised his issue is his breathing so they’re working on that, have seen a big improvement in the last 3 weeks thankfully.

The 1-2-1 is expensive but if you could look at it temporarily I think it’s a good investment.

Men would have never learnt with school The most important thing was a water confidence . Playing in the pool as a family , not being scared to go under or splashed in the face , playing games in the water . After that then swimming lessons as the will take the most out of them then.

I'm surprised that you're surprised tbh? If you've been taking her from time to time, why are you shocked at what she can/ can't do?

Is she very different when you go family swimming?

Can you swim op? I definately think you should be taking her regularly. Get her really used to the water. If you can swim I would recommend taking her into the deeper water. If the lifeguards see you are teaching her and you are a competant swimmer they should allow you in at the deep end.
Thats what I do with the 7yr old, although at the mo. she is over confident and underskilled 😂
Good luck, please keep at it, as imo, swimming is not a luxury but a neccessity x

My older one was so bad initially she had to change classes cos the whole class was moving up a stage and she wasn't able to- so had to move to another class

Mine got very little from group lessons, either the leisure centre ones or with school. In the end I paid for a block of 6 1:1 lessons over the summer holidays, and also bought the leisure centres summer swim pass. So they had 1 lesson and 3 swims with me every week for the summer. We did little else that year, but at the end of it they could swim.

I think YABU.

Our kids school does a total of 10 weeks swimming and thats it for their school swimming.

I've been taking mine to provate lessons.

It has taken a long time. But older one did her 400m a couple of weeks ago.
She really struggled at the start and hated water on her face- this meant she was held back in the classes and didn't progress.

I think if I had just let her have the school swimming and maybe just on holidays she wouldnt be able to swim at all.

If you want your kid to learn you're gonna have to go back to private lessons.

With my eldest we had a great teacher one to one called Tracey. She got them swimming and literally pretty much guaranteed that within a few weeks she would have them swimming on their own each lesson was 30 minutes and cost £30 It took mine 4 lessons and she did a length. Worth every penny. That was 2012.

With my youngest he didn’t really progress endlessly swimming lessons at school, half term intensive sessions it was ridiculous. He just wasn’t progressing. No instructor in the pool.

We have an outdoor heated lido and when he was ten we pretty much went every single day in the summer with his friends. We refused to pander to him (screaming and refusing to go out of his depth) unless we were throwing and catching, we took his friends. We would not just stay in the shallow end. We made him get out. (Even with lifeguards I was like no sit on the side). The choice was out of your depth swim from me to step Dad or me to sister or whatever. Then one day we turned around and he was swimming. Swim from me to step dad was 1/2 width and we buy you an icecream, then we said do the width you can have £5 done and we said fine do a length and we give you £10 and he did. The next day he did 30 lengths.

actually by giving him a clear choice swim or wait he chose swim. We did also bribe him a bit eg if you swim from me to S dad 1/2 width you can have an icecream and a width was £5 and a length was £10. If they were swimming these things always out of their depth and us swimming alongside. We also always grabbed him when we wanted us so there was no panic. If swimming lengths swim up the pool not down.

I was quite ruthless when they were little about never ever letting them use the steps to get in or out and teaching them to float.

She needs a proper weekly swimming club with small groups appropriate for her level or 1:1 lessons.

Trying to make a kid who can't actually swim learn butterfly arms is insane. As a kid I swam competitively at county level, Speedo training 3-4 nights/week and they gave up trying to make me swim the butterfly because I was so shit at it😅

What are you expecting from a 30 min lesson with multiple kids?! If you feel that strongly about progressing and being a good swimmer it’s up to you as her parent. You should have persisted instead of giving up because it was hard and she was reluctant. Why are you expecting her to be more enthusiastic and engaged with swimming at school than she was when you took her to private lessons.

I found that the 'crash course' council lessons worked best. They are available at our local leisure centres in the school holiday and they go an hour every morning for a week, which means they don't forget what they are doing in between lessons. Also my children hated going to lessons every week and preferred this.

I don’t think you can rely upon school lessons for your daughter to be a competent swimmer. My children had private swimming lessons, never more than 4 in a group and the teacher was in the water. They stopped when they were competent and had achieved all stages. It’s a life skill that all children should have IMO.

I live by the sea, I had my daughter at private 1:1 swimming lessons at age 4.5 and she could swim a length of pool a year later, however she continued lessons to an advance stage , we wanted her fully confident going in sea where we live, jumping off pier etc. school swimming lessons don’t teach them how to swim

@Nenanena I can thoroughly recommend private lessons.

They 'appear' to be more expensive but if you work out the cost per minute of one to one time they're actually much cheaper.

My DS was getting no where with group classes but has made SO much progress in private lessons it will actually cost me less in the long run as he will get to competent swimmer stage so much faster.

The private teaching your paid for doesn’t seem to be any good. Both my kids have had council lessons (didn’t go well/make progress) and private ones (improvement was swift). I think you need a new teacher.

school lessons aren’t really for learning to swim though.

She’s 9, you’ve been to the pool as a family semi regularly and often on holiday and she still can’t swim? You need to invest some effort into this yourself - what do you do when at the pool as a family? Is she still in armbands? It’s great that school are trying to help but it sounds like class behaviour will always inhibit any potential improvement so be a responsible parent and fix it yourself - swimming is a life saving skill. If you can afford holidays I assume you can afford to pop to the local pool occasionally? Sorry, I don’t mean to be a cow. Do you swim? If you don’t and are hard up there are often free holiday courses at town leisure centres for non swimmers in the summer holidays.

I don’t want to come across as rude but at 9 years old a stage 3 at school lessons will be bottom group (I’m a swim teacher). You’ll have some 9 year olds swimming at club level.

they won’t progress much in school lessons. They do as best as they can but the ability will be so varied

Children learn at different rates. If your daughter is nervous also then it could easily take 2 or 3 years of lessons with the local council to become a confident swimmer. I would get her back into some lessons and see the school ones as an extra practice. The abilities range so much in school lessons I think it would be difficult to teach. Also with all the holidays schools have they miss so many weeks.

You need to swimming at least once a week with her

They get 30 mins per week. In that time they're usually a group of 8. There will be very little progress at this rate, if you want her to swim better she needs 2-3 lessons per week. Just like maths, English etc. If you only did 30 mins of reading per week that was broken down into 30 seconds every 5 mins or so, you would never finish a book!