Swimming lesson gripes

My 5 yr old is doing lessons on a Saturday and I really like the fact that this particular school don’t close for school holidays (unless it’s Christmas Day of course), they just run right through. Also we pay monthly rather than having to commit to a term at a time. It really suits us anyway.

We are in about our 7th different swimming school for DD - we have moved several times because of timings or because she isn't making progress. Usually the progress stops when the classes become huge - maximum of 4 sounds brilliant).

Apart from the 1:1 lessons (which were brilliant but we couldn't afford to keep them up) we have never really had any opportunity to actually talk to the teacher or get any kind of feedback, verbal or written. I know they are super busy but just a quick "she's doing well but just needs to work on her arms a bit more" or whatever, once a month would be helpful. She is now 8 so is able to understand and relay what has been said to her more but when she was younger she couldn't do that.

One school gave awards every term but just said level 2 or whatever and you had no idea what they had done to get that award. I suspected they gave them out as a matter of course whether they achieved them or not which made the whole thing meaningless. I do agree with the idea of at least one a year though as long as it is for something the child can actually do.

The other thing is actually teaching. She has had several teachers who just got the kids to take turns swimming up and down but didn't actually show them or tell them what to do. Some children make progress just with practise but unco-ordinated kid says like my DD need to actually be shown every step. Her current teacher is very good- will actually take her arm and show her what to do with it etc.

Just popping back to say that of course DC need to have passed whatever it was for each stage/badge to get the certificate. I think it was at around stage 4 - 6 that some children plateaued/struggled to progress whereas others continued to whizz through.

We used to get a "tick-list" report for each ASA stage "working on"/"can do consistently" even if the child didn't pass the stage.

Are you using a private pool OP? If so, you might want to have a policy on changing rooms if they are communal. How long can Dads take their DDs in the boys changing rooms/ Mums their DSs in girls.

- At least one Award achieved within 12months. (Be that Stage, Distance or Skill)

No way, completely the wrong idea, any suggestion that awards are anything but achievement based completely ruins the whole point of awards and would completely rule out the swim school.

It would be impossible to know if you'd given awards when they weren't really achieved, or you held back the awards to match the expected cadence.

Mind you, distance awards themselves seem like pretty silly things to me anyway, and I'm glad DD's doesn't give them.

Sorry on time!

Start on time and finish on tile.

DD had swimming lessons from about 4-8 (and a spell of baby swimming). Swimming definitely has to be fun. DD's teacher seemed to come armed with inflatables and big floating mats for the last session of term so the children could just have fun. Intensive courses (so five sessions in a week) during holidays are also popular round here.

My biggest gripe would have been a combination of one or more of dirty/wet/cold changing rooms.

When the children were little (so feet couldn't touch the ground) I was also concerned about teacher to pupil ratios and having a lifeguard/helper/parents observing on side was a must for me (even if it is just one parent promising not to be engrossed in a book/phone as a rota).

I think a lot of schools have a system of "a badge/certificate per term" (three terms/year). If the children weren't ready to progress a stage they at least got a badge for distance in a particular stroke (even if it was just 10 metres), DD seemed to like that.

Another observation is/was that most children are pretty hopeless at translating instructions into technique when they are little. The number of times we watched children bobbing about in their own daydreams whilst the teacher thought they were explaining something (still happens at swim squad sometimes)! We asked the teacher to get DD out of the pool and move her arms/head/legs so that she understood what was required.

We had a variety of lessons starting with groups of 6-8 (but invariably a couple would be at parties/unwell), shrinking to 2 or 3 as well as some pricey private lessons where the instructor walked behind the pupil adjusting technique or ducked under water to watch a length/width. The latter were by far the most beneficial.

Good luck OP. It is such a useful life skill.