to question school about their swimming lessons - because there's a charge?

[youarewinning]

DS (8) is year 4. He starts year 5 in September and they do 10 weeks of swimming lessons. It states they have 3 groups.

They ask for a 'voluntary' contribution of £25 per child (is subsidised by school) but also state if you can't afford it this term to speak to the office about paying it next term no pressure then?

I asked the swimming lesson manager where DS has his lessons what the school arrangements usually are because they provide 3 instructors.
Was told that its a beginners, intermediate and advanced group.

She then told me the advanced group usually only did from the deep end to the steps (about 15m) and stuck to front crawl and back stroke, diving under for bricks etc,

Now, I know DS isn't an olympic swimmer and not the only one of his age that will be an able swimmer but I pay £20 a month for his lessons where he swims lengths, does all 4 strokes and has just completed his 400m.

AIBU to question the school about what provision they will have to develop DS's swimming skills before agreeing to pay for them?

I know I sound an arse but I'm broke

I thought swimming was on the NC therefore lessons are free?

I was going to say YABU, but really I think you have a point! I don't know what you should do though. I'd probably pay it because I think they get more out of it than just swimming instruction and I'm a bit of a sheep and do what I'm told. Baa

No it was £25 a term in Years 3 and 4 for my two. I wasn't impressed but I paid and they went.

Sparkling- baa

"I thought swimming was on the NC therefore lessons are free?"

Free? So who do you think pays for use of the pool, transport there and salaries for the instructors?

The 'extra' £5 may well be the cost of transporting them to the pool. Is there an option to not pay and for your child to stay in school? He isn't going to miss out particularly if he's having lessons outside school?

I know Ido. It was pre MN.

Swimming in Y6 is curriculum - every child must be able to swim 25m - that is the target and it is funded by the government.

However - transport to and from is not funded. So if there is a school minibus, that may need to be paid for.

FWIW - my school puts every Y7 through a swimming programme of a term and a half - its funded by the school as part of PE, and no contributions are asked for.

The only thing is, when my son was at primary school he felt he'd really missed out by not going to school swimming lessons. We were all given a questionnaire to fill out, and because I filled in that he could already swim more than 25m (he was on something like 400m at the time) he didn't have the chance to go.

And at my school, I can't imagine that if 1 child didn't go they'd be doing interesting and exciting things instead. They'd have to be sent to sit with another class and get on with something quietly on their own. So if you can afford it (and I appreciate it's a lot of money to many people) then it might be worth sucking it up.

the teacher will tailor the sets to average ability of the children. I guess they don't know this yet and 15m was just a guess. or maybe 15m is the only space they have? I'm a swimming teacher. If one child is much further advanced than the others I would get them to do harder things in the same distance- fly, no breathing etc.
But you need to be realistic. in every subject, one child will be better than others, be it maths, or art, or sport. You can't have one teacher per child to cater for their individual needs.

When my ds goes swimming with school all we are asked to pay is £2 per week towards the coach.

We paid £5.50 for a block of 5 lessons (year 4).

It covered some incidentals, but was low mainly because the children walked to and from the swimming pool. Previous years' costs had been higher due to the cost of transport.

While the lessons are part of the national curriculum, schools don't get given money to cover things like transport costs.

Ten weeks at £25 is probably only the coach money - £2.50 a week. I appreciate your son may not progress in his swimming in any way, but he's bound to enjoy it.

dd is YR3. Swimming is free, as is the coach to get there

Its still exercise even if your child can swim well. When my son did swimming lessons the children who were good at swimming did lengths. There was a huge range in ablity. (ie. child who swam for county and child who have NEVER been to a swimming pool)

There's no requirement in the national curriculum to provide swimming to your son's year group. Indeed, many schools don't because they can't afford to, generally the cost of transport to and from the pool is the biggest expense. So they concentrate on just providing swimming when they have to and don't offer it to other year groups because they know that they won't get enough contributions from parents.
I'm a primary school governor at the moment, and we're thinking of cutting out all non-essential swimming because it costs the school just under £2k a year to subsidise the lessons. We're starting to face the fact that the money could be spent more usefully elsewhere I'm afraid.

You can by law tell the school you are unwilling to pay for swimming lessons as it us part of the NC. They cannot exclude your child.

However, if payment for transport is required - unless you offer to take your child there and back yourself - I think you will need to pay for that.

I know that school swimming lessons were a complete waste of half a day for my dc, and all the other dc who were strong swimmers. I never made a fuss about it as they were lucky enough to be able to walk to the baths from their school, so there was no charge. I would have spoken with school about it if they'd wanted to charge me for wasting their time though. I think I'd have been talking through the Parents Forum or something (direct with the HT ? - depends on the school) rather than saying "I'm not going to pay". Often, the school needs to hear from quite a few parents, in order to review it's policy.

There was one Mum at First School saying the swimming lessons weren't 'challenging' enough for her DD. Totally missing the point of it just being another PE lesson and the whole class having fun in the water once a week.

Ah, but my dc wouldn't have said it was fun either, Sparkling. Often led by a teacher who wasn't a swim coach, it would usually involve very little swimming, or fun, in their experience.

Yes, what sparklingbrook said - it's a fun hour for the kids in the pool as a change to normal PE. Not everything has to challenge and push the children at primary, sometimes it's just about having a fun lesson. Mine can both swim but would be gutted if I said they couldn't join in with their friends because they weren't (in my opinion) getting anything out of it.

Yes monica my two were very able swimmers by Year 3 and I did begrudge paying for it but they got an afternoon out of school, a coach trip and swimming so they were happy.

I also agree with sparklingbrook

They're only in the water for a short amount of time and your child will probably welcome the chance to show his peers how well he can swim. Who knows, he might even be an inspiration to them.

Either way I'm sure he'll have fun.

I begrudge all the bloody "voluntary contributions" I have to make over the school year sparkling, it never seems to end!

Think of us poor rural parents - our kids have to travel 30 mins each way on a coach we pay for because swimming is compulsory. My children could all swim way before they started school. However, in y4, some kids can't swim and need to learn. Dd enjoys it too.