What stage did you finish swimming lessons?

[Fiona8121]

My son has completely stage 5 but we're really struggling to get him into stage 6 (no availability when we're free). It's got me to thinking how important actually is stage 6 and would it be the end of the world if we stopped here. For context I'm happy to wait for a space -I've always considered swimming a life skill but at the same time would consider leaving now if they don't learn much more in the next stage?

Oh DD (age 8) is in stage 5 now and i've been wondering too OP.

I don't think they do any stage 6 lessons during the evening in the week and that's the only time we have free.

Hopefully she'll sit in stage 5 for a while ...

@SunflowerSmith

Mine finished when they could comfortably do a length, both aged 7. I take them swimming for leisure once a month, they're confident in the water and being underwater but had become bored with the lessons.

I was hoping mine would be bored but quite the opposite! She bloody loves the social side of it and seems to love the actual swimming !

Stages have changed since mine did lessons, but I stopped when they could comfortably do 100m+ non stop in breaststroke, crawl and backstroke, were comfortable and competent diving into the deep end, swimming down and collecting an object, able to handle basic snorkelling and able to treat water. With water safety on top of that. They were both about 7-8 when they hit this stage and stages after that really focused on competitive swimming and yes, butterfly, so we stopped.

They are both adults now and very strong swimmers.

I dont think its qorth it for the sake of it. We started early with child 1 and I reckon wasted years!

Hmmm, that depends I think on what you want out of swimming lessons, and starting later comes with its own problems. We started young, which meant DCs were able to doggy paddle around the pool on holiday from a very young age (both could swim 5m unaided at 2yo), which made holidays more fun: they could jump in, turn around, swim to the side, get out and repeat ad nauseum without our help. It is also good exercise and a fun activity for younger children quite aside from the useful skill they're learning. DD1 is 7yo, finishing off stage 7 and can swim a mile non-stop, so is essentially 'done' if she chose to be. She is now able to use the skill to do a Swimathon and triathlon this year (she's got the taste for earning & collecting medals). DD2 is 5yo and already nearly finished stage 5. It certainly doesn't feel like wasted time or money to me.
OTOH, a few friends' DCs who were later to start are definitely not flying through the levels as their parents thought would happen by starting later. They all took a very long time even to be confident putting their faces in the water, and it doesn't look to be making the process of learning to swim much quicker/cheaper.

My son is still doing Stage 7 lessons at 11. He says it's less instruction now and lots of swimming up and down.

My daughter (9) recently completed Stage 6 and was adamant she didn't want to do Stage 7, although I would have liked her to. She has been doing school swimming lessons as well but there is only one of those left now.

My daughter is in stage 6 and I'd be happy to let her finish now. She can swim lengths and is confident in her strokes, a little bit less in butterfly but she's not planning on entering the Olympics or anything.
She enjoys it though and wants to keep going and do lifesaving when she's finished all the stages.

Being able to swim 400m is a milestone that gets used quite a lot as an adult. PADI test for diving, requirement for open water swimming and so on. If they can do that, they are competent. The stages give them all the odd little skills they can use to get themselves out of trouble like being able to roll over in the water.

I'm with SkankingMopope - I started early with both of mine and they were both able to swim 400m by age 7. They could doggy paddle at 3. I think part of the problem is that the quality of lessons is so variable - at my local pool they were simply excellent: great instructors, small groups, affordable. It wasn't like that everywhere.

When they left home to go to uni. All have part time jobs as swimming instructors now, but get coaching at uni too.

I've tried to persuade my son to do a swimming teacher course but he says he doesn't have the patience despite the good rates of pay. It's a pity as our local leisure centre is looking for teachers and he'd probably find something in his university city too.