When can we stop swimming?!!

[redkite27]

My ds who is 9, has now completed stage 8 of swimming lessons and just about to start stage 9. Picture shows the new list of competencies he has to complete for stage 9. I have added it so you can see what he is able to do.

My question is when does it stop?! The swimming pool tells me the whole lot of lessons finish at stage 10, but when have other stopped going to lessons every week? What he is going to be doing now sounds quite advanced.

I don't mind him carrying on and I want him to be a strong swimmer, capable of using all pools and flumes and swim in the sea (safely of course) and really enjoy water as he grows up but just not sure how long he should carry on to achieve this?

When did others stop the lessons?

@redkite27 yes so by stage 7 they've learnt to swim and can do al the strokes competently. Level 8-10 is learning different skills. Very few where we are did Levels 8-10, in fact most of DDs diving lessons ended up as 1:1. Your pool has obviously linked them all together for the swim stages.

For us all the 8-10 ones were done later in the evening and apart from the other classes as they need the full length of the pool.

Stage 4 feels quite early?

@Singleandproud thank you that is really helpful.

Stage 4 is too early, they haven't even started swimming any real distance or mastering the strokes properly - unless it's a different leveling system.

If you stopped at grade 5 or 6 then if you took swimming up as an adult you might want a couple of improver sessions to sort out technique, grade 7 you'll have learnt how to breath properly and would have the skills to do lengths for fitness if you wanted.

£40 is extortionate (although normal now in a lot of places I expect) DDs was £7 a lesson, proper club swimming was £30 a month with access to the pool 5 X a week.

It says competitive swim at the top.

Can he only do 5m under water at the moment as per stage 8? I'd aim for a bit more but 15 is over half of a 25m pool.

It sounds a bit tedious tbh. I can do less than that list and am a confident, regular swimmer. If you want him to swim for fun rather than competition, I wouldn't push it.

Most early squads in a club start around stage 5-7 dependent on if they have their own LTS programme. But agree with earlier poster who said one persons stage 4 is another's stage 8!

So if he's not interested in taking swimming up as a sport I'd let him leave anytime he wants to now.

Your child's in stage 8, he can swim 😂
If he enjoys it keep going, if he doesn't stop.
Most families do swimming lessons until their child can swim unless they enjoy the sport side of it.

We stopped with Covid when my DC were age 9/10. The 15 year old has just asked to start again, so we’ve picked up lessons again, pretty much where he left off, but he’s much more powerful/ strong in his swimming now, it’s great to see.

(One to one lessons though as I didn’t want him in with 10 year olds… but I’ve not been paying for swimming for 4.5 years.)

So even if you stop now you can still go back to lessons later.

In my experience most people stop at stage 7

You're more than advanced enough to stop now if you want

If he likes swimming and is interested in doing races and competitions then find a swimming club to join. If not, you can stop when you feel he's a good enough swimmer for whatever purpose you want swimming to be.

My son was 8/9. He'd had enough wasn't fussed about perfecting his front crawl technique but was confident in the water and could swim a length. So I let him stop, there was no point in pushing something he was starting to not enjoy. He loves swimming when given the chance but just didn't want to do the technique.

We stopped at the stage you're at now. Neither wanted to do club, both had a lot of other activities they preferred and swimming was always a bit of a hassle. That was about 6 years ago and absolutely no regrets. They can both swim well enough that, if they want, they can spend an hour doing lengths and do then well, I have absolutely no worries about letting them go and meet friends at the pool as I know they'll be safe, they have fun swimming as they're good at going underwater and that sort of thing, they're strong and confident enough to join in with a game of water polo when on holiday and when they've done watersports courses they don't mind capsizing and will deliberately fall and jump in as they know they can get to safety. It did everything we needed it to,

He's only 9 which I think is very young to stop formal lessons in a life skill. My DC did swimming until they were teenagers so that they didn't lose technique. That meant they went up to level 10 in lessons then joined swimming club and got to the A squad before stopping. Both swim well enough to do lifeguard training. One of them still had a corkscrew kick after completing all the swimming levels (took her club a good while to correct it) so there can still be major errors in their swimming at that level.

Forgot to say. My eldest is very sporty and when she gave up swimming at 15 she noticed very quickly she was losing strength so started two other sports to make up for it. It's a fabulous exercise and difficult to replace.

Sounds fine to stop. People seem to get a little obsessed with swimming lessons.

Yes 😆 My Ds has been in stage 10 for ages. He has done the swim england awards (including honours) but still they won't graduate him. Why would they? They'd lose out on the monthly dd 😁. He quite likes it though as also swims with a club and is happy to get as much time in the pool as possible.

Unless he is a squad swimmer it seems unnecessary, especially if he is not enjoying it,

When you want to. I only paid for lessons to get mine swimming, they learned stamina from practicing with me. We swim in a tidal pool 250m now do nothing wrong with their ability but was down to them not lessons

@thereisamouseinthehouse this is exactly what I want them to be able to do, strong water confidence and able to do all kinds of water activities safely - sailing etc

I started a thread on this last week! My DD just finished stage 6. I got a mixed response. DD has agreed to do a block of stage 7. Stage 7 is the last stage at our pool!

Nah, you could have stopped then.

Honestly, I stopped both of mine with swimming lessons once they could swim... Call me nuts, I thought that was the point. Swimming lessons to learn to swim.

Neither expressed any desire to take it further and I didn't push it, as I always thought lessons were expensive for what they were. Both are sporty (to my DHs and my surprise!) so we weren't worried about them loosing out on exercise.

Stop lessons but continue swimming every month or so just for fun. Try different pools with slides etc.