How long to move from Red Hats in swimming?

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DD had just turned 4 in mid December 2023. Started foundation level lessons the Jan after.
She has a 30 minute group lesson (anything from 3-8 kids a week)

She swims for fun 2 x a week otherwise.

She's extremely confident, happy to be out of depth, jumps in happily ), can do forward rolls under water, retrieve weights to a depth of 1.2m

(but she could do this before starting lessons)

How long would you expect her to be in red hats/how much progress should she make in the 4 months.

Just trying to guage if her teacher is good/of she's on track etc.

Other parents are saying their kids have been in red hats for a year or more!

Bump

I think 'red hats' is something specific to your location rather than universal.

Indeed. Never heard of it.

Red is the first stage in Swim England's learn to swim stages and is used nationally.

OP have you looked at the skills for stage one and whether you think DD can do them? Do you have any way of viewing their assessments? We have an app to view what they've achieved in lessons but it is quite slow going.

As per others, you'll need to explain what swimming stage "red hats" refers to.

But, as you mention she's just started I'll assume it's Stage 1 or 2. This is all about building foundations for swimming and building water confidence and starting to swim unaided. It could easily take a young starter a year, but some might breeze through in a term. It sounds like your DC could do quite a bit before starting so probably would be quicker. Do you not have a portal or something you can see what elements she still needs to complete, or can you ask the teacher? I found it best not to sweat progression through swimming atages - if they move up quickly at one stage they inevitably then stall in a later one for ages - quite often because there's just one thing they don't "get". They will get there at their own pace.

It swimming England I think. Foundation. And they wear red swimming hats?

Have you discussed with the teacher? She definitely sounds like she more than meets all the requirements for stage 1/2 judging by the swim England online checklist which are red hats they move to yellow at stage 3.

I would approach the teacher and ask what needs to happen before she moves up it sounds like it could be because there isn't space in the next class which would annoy me as she's not going to progress if she's kept in the first group.

My 2 were in red hats for over a year. Just bobbing around holding onto a woggle. It was such a waste of time. Moved them to 1:3 lessons at a private pool and within 6 months they were swimming unaided with their face in the water.

In fact husband said it was only 3 months before they were actually swimming.

No idea about red hats, but swimming progress varies wildly between children - one of mine took years to get past the verge-of-drowning stage whereas the other was a complete water baby. Movement through the groups always seemed very arbitrary and more to do with vacancies and teacher convenience than child skill.

My dd was in red hats for 18 months and my ds for almost two years. It was painful. However, both of them, for some unknown reason, were scared of the water so a lot of that time was spent getting them happy and confident just being in the water. I expect most kids are in the red hats for a considerable amount of time (6 months to a year) although not as long as my ds. I've also found that they spend less and less time in each subsequent group. So 18 months red hats, 10 months orange hats, 9 months yellow hats, 6 months green hats etc.

I would also add, as we were approaching the two year mark for my ds, we went on holiday and within an hour of arriving and getting into the pool I had him swimming. So group swimming lessons aren't the best for him- I really should have paid for a 1:1 once he was happy in the water to help push him forward faster rather than left him dwindling in red hats for 2 years.

Honestly although its apparently a national scheme there is massive variations between teachers in the same school, let alone between different schools and areas.

Plus different children react differently to different teachers and techniques so progress is really hard to compare.

Almost 2 years in red hats for DD! But she started from absolutely nothing aged 4 just walking across the pool because she wouldn't get in properly. From what you describe I wouldn't think your DC would be in red hats for long at all.

DD2 has been in red hats for 8 months and still won't put her face in the water so I think my two are just not water lovers! I really should look at getting them private one to one tuition the amount we've spent on swimming lessons but it's at a convenient time and location and I like that they have a physical activity.

Depends on the child. My son was in red hats for about 4/5 months, my daughter zoomed through it in less time and in the year she’s been swimming has now gone into stage 3 (yellow hats). In my experience orange and yellow hats takes the longest to work through, but that could be just my kids.
we had a portal where we could see what they needed to do so we could work on it when we went swimming, or give the kids some prompting before class.
teaching quality does vary, I’ve seen some looking totally uninterested, if my child was in their class and taking a long time to progress I’d be moving them, however if the teacher looks engaged and they are having fun then I’d leave them to it for a while longer she’s still very young and has plenty of time to work her way up.

Just bobbing around holding onto a woggle

This description really made me laugh.

This is so true. I don't know why some teachers think it reflects well on them or their centre if a child hasn't moved up after two years in any of the stages, but one of my local centres seem to think they can milk it for eternity and they also bad mouth one of the other centres 'standards' but if you look at the criteria for a stage they are so broad and left to interpretation of a teacher. Mine progressed to stage 9 but the centre didn't do it on a day that worked for us so we had to move centres, firstly they were back-squadded to stage 8 spent two years getting nothing out of that until I complained and then magically put in stage 9 a further two years and looked to be completing most of the milestones as far as I could see, I asked for their completion percentage and was told 22%. I immediately gave notice with a complaint about how unmotivated by their teacher they must be to not be able to progress any further for a stage they were deemed to be good enough to be in 4 years previously.

We do swim England which are stages rather than colours. The stages are listed on the swim England app and it breaks each stage down into the specific competencies they need to achieve to pass that stage. Our leisure centre has an app and when I log into the child it says progressing or passed for each competency. Once they've passed them all I get an email telling me the availability for the next stage.

Generally mine have passed a stage each year, they are 7 and 8 and in stage 3 and 4. It didn't work like that in reality though and one got stuck in stage 2 for 18 months and then passed stage 3 within a month.

I also have no idea about red hats. Swim England says it should take less than a year per stage. The first stage is usually less than this and I’ve found some kids seem to get stuck at stage 4 or 5 for a while. If you go on the swim England website they have a list of what you need to be able to by the end of each stage. My kids’ swim school assesses them towards the end of each term but kids are moved up before this if they’re ready.

I guess I just don't think she's made any progress is 4+ months ... Especially as we swim twice more in the week.

The normal teacher seems to drag them around by their noodles a hell of a lot... Perhaps because she's got up to 8 kids to get through all the drills? Is this normal? When the substitute teacher fills in, they seem to be doing a bit more independent work. So he'll make them propel themselves at least! And only correct direction etc by pulling on noodle.

I am questioning whether to bother really! I might move her to another pool and see ...

So, the lessons are with Better and this is the foundation level.

It has red, amber and green.

So it's like 3m for red, 5m for amber and 10m for green.

My son was in red hats for 2 years so I'd not expect much progress in 4 months. There's a lot of children per class so they don't really get much personal focus per lesson.

4 months from first lesson to moving up a stage. I don't think woggles were used at all in the lessons, occasionally floats. After 3 months in the orange hat group she can now swim a width by herself on front and back.

I'd see if you can find 1:1 lessons. To be honest if all she does most lessons is faff about with a woggle and wait for 7 others to have a turn she's likely to lose interest in learning to swim pretty soon.

My 4 yrs old is in stage 2. There is one swimming teacher and one assistant in the water and 5 children in her class.