to not want to pay for other kids to learn to swim?

[tomdayleymum]

DS about to go into Year 3. Got a letter from school saying that from now til next July Year 3 will be going swimming and please can we have a voluntary contribution of £3.25 per week?

He can swim very well thanks to me paying for him to have private lessons. If other parents haven't bothered (or can't afford) to teach their kids to swim outside of school hours then fine, let the school teach 'em. But I don't want to pay for him to go in school hours when he could do with catching up on his reading instead.

AIBU?

I can tell you the cost of swimming at the local pool for one school where I worked - £3000 for 12 one hour sessions with 2 life guards and an instructor.

The year 5 and 6 classes walked to the pool - 40 mins each way - to save transport costs. Each class had 6 sessions. No bus meant that there was no cost at all to parents, but the school had to find the £3000 from within their normal budget.

My 10yo DS1 has a reading age of 17+ (the scheme only goes up to 17...).

I can't take him swimming because I have epilepsy, and it is unsafe for me to do so.

Is it fair that he has to sit through being taught what a homonym is when he could be learning to swim?

And YABU for complaining that swimming lessons cost you £3.25.

Swimming lessons here will be £6.00 a lesson through the school as of September. And I still have to pay, despite my disability meaning that I cannot work.

So try and realise that while YOUR DS might need reading practice more, others might need swimming practice more.

It's an essential life skill, and you are getting away lightly with a sub £4 cost when other people have to pay far more for school swimming.

So if there are 60 kids splitting the cost for the 12 sessions you end up with £50 per child for 6 sessions - that's £8.33 a session - is that higher, lower or the same for termly class-based lessons, if booked directly with the pool?

I ask because at our local council-run leisure centre, it's £28 a term per child for group classes, and £19 for one-to-one, and it seems crazy if LA run schools are then paying more for swimming lessons at the LA run pools than the public do.

The pool our school hires is a small shallow teaching pool.

The teachers are outsiders and adequate, but not inspiring )I've been parent helper and watched.

We have Y5-Y6 squad swimmers training 3+ times a week and getting county times.

We beat far bigger schools at the local gala.

This is why parents resent paying twice.

I still think they are wrong and that it's really selfish of them not to want to help certain DCs in the class get opportunities their DCs take utterly for granted.

"Given that many schools have swimming pools"

I think i might inhabit a different universe!

As to the costing more than the £1.60 i quoted as you have to accompany them, at the age of school swimming lessons (8+) they're allowed into the pool on their own. No adult required

I can't help thinking that given many schools have swimming pools

Many schools? Really? I can think of 2 in my borough.

Swimming is good exercise.
Swimming with your mates is fun.
It's not much money.
It's voluntary anyway.
You are being unreasonable.

If the OP had posted are schools getting good value for money with the complusory swimming lessons and how many children actually learn to swim I suspect this thread would have been revealing.

I think she has extrapolated from her belief that the lessons are pointless (don't add to swimming ability and a disproportionate loss of resources, time and money for gain) to thinking the reason they are provided, is for the few children who cannot swim because parents haven't made arrangements.

(Sorry if I'm wrong OP)

I'm in the camp which agrees that swimming is important, good exercise, fun and a safety issue throughout life.

However I think provision via NC is hit and miss and often miss. Despite schools and teachers best efforts, a lot of resources are ineffciently used. Children who would really benefit, get a 'token' benefit and others who already swim with clubs and outside of school, miss school to spend a considerable amount of time on a coach and in a changing room for 20 mins swim time.

None of the schools when I grew up had pools, nope, probably because it was in London and they tended to be old Victorian buildings in very built up areas. But there was a thread on here a couple of months back about kids swimming in the outdoor school pools, and suddenly all these parents started posting on the ones at their kids' (state) primaries. And now I find our local junior has one, too. I never would have imagined schools - let alone primaries - had them, but it seems they do.

Two in a borough is a fair number if they share those facilities with other local schools, too, surely? That was my point.

As to the costing more than the £1.60 i quoted as you have to accompany them, at the age of school swimming lessons (8+) they're allowed into the pool on their own. No adult required

I wouldn't personally send DS swimming at 8 by himself. Though probably that's an only child thing - be fine with older sibs.

And it isn't as low as £1.60 here, either! Oddly enough it's cheaper to sign them up for a course of 12 swimming lessons than it is to take them swimming, even just with their admission charge. Not sure how that's calculated, but the case.

School swimming lessons failed completely for our 2 daughters. I now have one who is incredibly anxious about swimming and one who was in a group where the instructor scared them to bits and they consequently learnt nothing. We were asked to pay for extra lessons for her with same insturctor and I refused as if she hadn't leant with them she was never going to. School said fair enough.....our biggest problem is eczema/asthma and the chlorine and believe me we have done everything including plastering in ointment before getting into pool. Also triggers asthma off. And no, I didn't take them swimming when little due to their medical conditions.....so please don't tar all non swimmers or blame parents for not teaching their kids to swim.....there are often reasons why.

M44 - have you looked for no-chlorine/low chlorine pools in your area?

I swim in a pool that uses UV to clean the water, so only use a tiny amount of chlorine in addition to this. I can really tell the difference between swimming there and in other pools.

M44 I'm actually in the same boat with DS. I started him on an Aquatots course at 1, and he had shocking eczema all over hos body as a result. Spoons is right - this may help.

YABU and selfish. It wouldn't bother me, I would be glad to help those who didn't have a chance to swim. Why are so many people so selfish to only care about their own kids and their precious bubble existence? It's time we cared about all children and their chances. Not to provide our children with things to gain advantages over others not so fortunate but to make sure all kids have equal chances.

I am, by the way, very much in favour of swimming at school- for many reasons......just frustrated that our experience was rubbish, coupled with health issues......

Thank you for the link- nothing accessible for me.....nothing in my city and I don't drive. Ho Hum!

I'm sorry, M44. It's hard, isn't it? I felt really shitty when I realised my poor baby was covered in eczema plaques because I'd been dutifully trying to get him swimming very young. It's a horrible feeling. I'm really lucky though, because there is a low-chorine pool in our town. (And as it's at a private school, they share it with a local state primary as part of their efforts to retain charitable status, helpfully enough.)

My dd1's school has a pool-very pongy- even if she goes in the pool area she starts to wheeze and itch so we excuse her from swimming- I hate doing it, but I would rather have a child who can breathe and doesn't have to intensively treat her skin for a week following swimming. I know she can swim and she loves other sports....but yes, it is hard. She is at secondary and people constantly ask about her skin and her asthma- through concern, not teasing or stigma etc...

I know of one state school in the COUNTY I teach in which has a swimming pool (it's used for training teachers in the county to teach swimming) - and as it's 30+ miles away I suggest that it is unlikely that it would be efficient use of resources to take our school's pupls there rather than the pool in the nearest town....

I would agree, btw, with comments above about 6 or 8 week stretches of swimming lessons being insufficient for non-swimmers to learn to swim. That's why we do a full half-year for 2 year groups - each child going through our school will have 2 18-week series of swimming lessons, and that way they really do learn to swim (only 1 child from the lowest group last year couldn't swim a width by the end of the lessons, and that is a child with some physical difficulties who will have another 18 week stretch of lessons next year).

In DSs school it's £2 a week but it has it's own mini bus as its a special school. I pay it. There's also about. 10 trips a year with 'voluntary contributions' I pay it. And I'm not working ATM I'm DSs unpaid carer till he improves/ I can get a job around him.

His skills have improved significantly after starting that school. They spend 1 morning a week on swimming lessons.

His old school didn't do swimming lessons and he didn't come on at all there.

No correlation.

YABU. If you're that concerned spend the extra hour reading with him at home

It's a non-problem.It's a voluntary contribution so don't pay it!
Also explain to the school why not.Chances are you won't be the only parent feeling this way .

At least they get the chance to go swimming. My dd has lessons but I was looking forward to her having extra lessons to help her improve. She went twice in year 3! Although tbf we don't have to pay. Maybe if we did it would actually happen.

Teacherwith2kids I didn't know of any in my area of London growing up, and in fact I would have been inclined to ask if they gold-plated the whiteboard markers at schools too had anyone suggested a primary might! We all went to another part of London to swim, in a coach; we were just lucky that the GLC/ILEA were in situ at the time, so it was afaicr free. But as I have found, in other areas there are several state schools with pools. Mine, for example - I can name three; his Aquatots was at a state special school, and he's going to be going to a primary school with another, and then there's a 3rd I know of. Probably more I don't. And other parents on MN are saying their primary schools have them. Obviously not suggesting building pools/schlepping miles, but in those areas that do have them, it seems odd they aren't a, well, pooled resource. (That also goes for the secondaries with them - two of four state secondaries in this town definitely do, and I don't know the other two don't.) Obviously this is a really well resourced area educationally, in fact it was a key element to the decision to move here in the first place, but it won't be the only city like it. And if schools without pools are struggling to manage that tuition for their kids, surely schools with should help out, if possible? There are plenty of village primaries in the county who I'm sure would be delighted to benefit, too.

M44 I am hoping DS will be okay by the time he hits junior, as they can outgrow severity, but won't hold my breath, tbh. His father and I both have skin and breathing problems and they seem to have strengthened in severity with him. But I did improve massively with age, so I suppose I can hope? Unfortunately he went paddling in chlorinated water last week and his eczema has flared after months of improvement, so back to being strict on him again. It must be so tough on your DD; nobody wants to be different at her age. Glad she is getting concern/support instead of teasing, though.

YABVU

It's PE! If he was really good at football, would you complain that he could already play and didn't need to play with his class??

Maybe you should home educate.