DD and swimming class dilemma

[Whyohsky]

DD is an excellent swimmer for her age. Not something we pushed her into, we lived overseas for a while and she was always in the pool and is hence very good.

We are now back in the UK and she goes to weekly swimming lessons. She is streets ahead of other DC her age and it’s proving problematic. The classes are labeled 1-8 and most other children her age are in 1/2. She’s been moved to 5! She’s half the age of some of the others in her group, and terrified she can’t touch the bottom of the pool as she’s so small (though could swim if she needed to) since this group is held in the deep end.

What to do? She’s flat out refusing to get in the water at the moment!

You could ask for her to be moved down a group until she gains the confidence to know she doesn’t need to touch the bottom.

I don’t think her age should be an issue but she does need to be confident out of her depth so it sounds like maybe one stage down for a bit would be good. Otherwise she’ll be terrified and won’t learn anything

We had this, DS was moved to a much older class because he had the physical skill but was seriously lacking in emotional maturity. He was only 4 and in a class with 8-10 year olds.

We persevered but it was a rocky settling in period. To be fair he never refused to get in but we just kept encouraging, praising him when he'd done a good job and kept taking in out of class time to build up confidence. Plus as the year went on he got better at the simple things like listening, following instructions etc - all the things a 4 year old struggles with!

Can you take her lots on a weekend, after school and work on confidence in being in the deep end? Or talk to the teacher about meeting half way and joining a lower class for a short period of time?

Thank you for understanding! I thought I’d get told off for stealth boasting, which I’m not at all! I have suggested just redoing the same level again in order to keep her swimming and enjoying being in the water, but she doesn’t want to do that. It’s such a shame as she is really good, but the depth thing puts her off. I guess another option would simply be to wait until she’s older and take her when she’s better suited physically, but that seems like such a waste. We do take her swimming regularly outside of the class, to a water park type place so it’s fun as well as educational, for want of a better word.

Where I live, you can do stages 1-4 in a small shallow pool, then you repeat stage 4 in the big pool in deeper water.
So I’d suggest stage 4, or if she’s not happy as per your last post, give this term a miss but keep swimming and get her confidence up. Maybe even a year off.
Might be she’s not happy being with the bigger children either.
Or try a different teacher? My DS was terrified of water and but his teacher was brilliant.
I wouldn’t worry too much if you take her swimming.

Is 1:1 an option?

DS got stuck on one thing to finish a level for months. He had a week of 1:1 in the summer for 5x 30 min sessions and it made a massive difference to him.

On the face of it it was expensive but it worked out as 3 months of work for the cost of 4 months of lessons. I could have paid that long term in weekly group lessons for the same outcome.

121 might be a good option - will look into that and keep her swimming with us too.

DS was very similar. We have our own pool, so he was very confident in the water, and miles ahead of the others. I've given him a break on formal swimming lessons, and we just keep using our own pool and the nearby beach for fun swimming and keeping his confidence up. More formal strokes can come a little later when he is the same age as more of the students in his level.