Why don't clubs encourage children to succeed anymore?

I'm a long way past the learn to swim stages now (my youngest DC is 16) so no recent experience but as so many of our teachers also work for EA I would hope they are ok. I know the pool hire costs are a difficult issue though, we have also had sessions cancelled with no warning at times.

I actually think the EA lessons are fine though, vast majority of the kids in the swimming club have gone through them including both of my two. There are massive varieties in the quality of the teachers, however.

@EspeciallyD so had we. I think there are differences in the contracts they have with different councils. The pool hire varies massively too, even when adjusted for space.

There will defo be private swim schools near you, give it a Google and you’ll find loads. Private gyms, hotels and schools all tend to have swim providers in.

different swim schools actually use different schemes. I took my eldest and the local authority ran one was by far the cheapest but also the worst. Big classes, poor child behaviour and very little actual swimming.

It's possibly because our club has been teaching there for decades, long before EA came along.

We are lucky then, some of our teachers work for both club and EA and it all works pretty smoothly.

Okay, ours isn’t allowed to as isn’t the neighbouring club.

Our club runs lessons in an EA pool from total beginner upwards.

If it’s the same as it used to be they won’t move them up till they are 5. I remember this exact thing with dd2 and she could swim. EA won’t let clubs run swimming lessons in their pools btw and a lot of clubs only swim in them so don’t run lessons any more.

It gets better though once they are in stage 3.

Dd is 15 now but started swimming with Everyone Active at 5. She spent 6 months being shouted at by the instructor who eventually sent her to level 2. Her explanation was a child her age should be swimming by now. Dd was tall and she thought she was 8 or 9.
Level 2 and 3 took 18 months of the teachers rounding up unruly kids and maybe 10 mins of swimming per half hour session.
By level 4 I had complained and asked when she'd be moving up a level. The senior tutor asked my terrified child to swim a 5m length. Across the deep end. Bless her she did it and she moved up.
For grade 4 and 5 she had a lovely teacher who took no crap off any of the kids- more than happy to ask unruly kids to sit out. She made dd swim just out of her depth as she twigged early on my tall child could hop across the pool.
Within 3 months dd was swimming 25m crawl and breaststroke and 50m backstroke, could jump into the deep end and surface and tread water.
When dd got her level 5 certificate the lovely teacher explained dd was completely watersafe and if she moved up a level she would just be consolidating what she already knew. We stopped lessons then but still saw the teacher at the pool till she retired and she always said hi.
I think group swimming depends a lot on the teachers.
If you're not happy I would save your money and look elsewhere.

We did Everyone Active and I can't complain. I thought my DD myself until she was 7. She then joined at level 4 and has just gone into level 8 2 years later. And the pool was closed for a long time during that due to covid. Some tea hers were better than others, but overall I am pleased with it for £26 per month.

No way my DD would have been ready at 5 to do swimming lessons in a group, she was so scared of the water then.

Everyone active will be using aqua passport to track progress, you can log in to the child's account and see exactly what the criteria for moving up to the next stage are, and how your child is doing against it - here at least you get no useful verbal feedback but if you look online you can see what is still required to be moved up.

Do you have a swimming club near you? A lot of them have a learn to swim pathway. My DD learnt that way as the prices were cheaper than leisure centre and quality much much better.

This is really just you having crap swimming lessons not a general characteristic of all after school clubs. £30 a month is really cheap, you may need to pay more for what you want (I paid £17 per lesson for mine, very good swim school and lots of progress).

This is how my children learnt to swim. I took them to a private school in the school holidays, every day for a week, and within a couple of courses, they were confident swimmers and were then able to join weekly classes at the local pool at a high level.

I don’t think that’s anything to do with not encouraging kids to succeed (I never really cared about those certificates), you just have a crap teacher.

Is there another club?

My DD is the same age and working towards Stage 3 badge, and has had distance badges/certificates up to 25m along the way too. I think the issue is these particular lessons, not all lessons generally.

Are there any independent schools with pools near you? Most hire out their pools in evenings/weekends for private and group swimming lessons which are usually open to the general public.
Often smaller class sizes and a nicer enviroment.

This is very common for council run swimming lessons. I believe you are better going for a private company for lessons...

Saying that....Unfortunately almost everywhere in England use Swimwell England and Ducklings programs which are terrible.

I was raised in Holland and learnt to swim in Holland and I now live in England.
I have two kids who are having swimming lessons in UK they started from as young as 3weeks old.
We have been to 4 different swimming places and even went private. I feel like traveling to Holland 🤣

England are simply crap at teaching kids to swim..

And the 30mins is pathetic should be an 1 hour.
3
0mins is over in no time not giving instructors enough time to focus on getting each child to master each move.

We currently have one instructor.. she is firm and consistent and does make sure each child does it correctly where as most just say well done well done Even though they didn't do it 🤣

It seems like you’ve got a rubbish teacher to be honest. Sometimes they do plateau a bit. red hats/stage 1 isnt really that demanding but I think it can be a funny class as the variation within it can be big. if you end up with a class with lots of non-confident kids it does seem to stretch the teachers a bit (eg you could have some that can’t put their face in the water and some who have been doing pre-school lessons for 2 years).

I wonder if it’s down to the individual teachers? My children swim at Everyone active and they have given my children so much confidence, my son is 5 and jumps into the deep end then swims almost 5m!
We have already said when they move to the next group, we will plan it around this particular teacher though as they adore him and he really has brought their technique on!

Go private, you'll see much quicker progress. A holiday school where they do a lesson every day is even better.

Yup once they can swim a width/length the council ones here are fine as they all go one after the other but it's too many ik the stage before.

There's a reason the local council lessons are half the price! Ours are massive groups where they seem to get about 5 minutes actually swimming ( and the instructor wasn't in the pool, don't know if that was a Covid thing). Switched to another school which cost more but only 4 in group so she's swimming at least half the lesson.