swimming lessons

[wurlywurly]

ds1 has swimming lessons on a monday night and he is now on his level 2.

He has had swimming lessons with the school today and they made him wear armbands. He has never had to wear armbands in his "proper lessons". He is now totally disheartened about it all.

I asked him if everyone had to wear armbands, thinking its the first lesson start them all off the same and see how they go and he replied "no x y and z didnt and a b c went in the big pool to have their lesson"

I feel almost as if everything that he has achieved in his "proper lessons" has been totally disregarded and that all the money we have spent has been a waste.

Am i over reacting??

Aww a bit maybe....but i've been there
There is a lot to sort out for that first lesson. I bet next week they'll realise he can swim and take the armbands off

If the swimming lessons taught him to swim then they weren't a waste were they?

I don't think your being unreasonable, but my dd2 who is 5 had private swimming lessons and could swim 50 metres during the lessons, but when I took them swimming she would cling to me and say she was scared even though I knew she could swim because I watched her during the lessons.

think i'm just a bit gutted that they have made him doubt his ability to be able to do it.

Imo school swimming lessons are crap - I know of kids who were excellent swimmers outside school (25/50m badges) who were made go in the learner pool when they started school swimming lessons.

Sometimes it is because of the numbers of children they are dealing with, half have to go in the less advanced class for example, even if some of those would be able for the more advanced group. My dd does less well at school lessons but I think it is because they don't allow goggles to be worn (there was a whole thread about the goggle issue recently)

I would definitely keep up the private lessons.

OP - same story with mine. DD is ok at her pvt lessons, but in the 'non swimmers' group at the school swim lesson. I was really frustrated! It was mainly because they tested everyone with no goggles & DD can't think (let alone display skills) with no goggles in water. Couple if times they out her with the 'deep end' team & she managed fine. But technically she is listed as a non-swimmer (£££ wasted!) but she's still not bothered to 'demonstrate' her skills. Lately, am not bothered either as its just 5 mins in the water for each child. I've upped her private lessons to 1-to-1 so that she can get going with the real swimming bit.

Same here, school swimming lessons are pitched way below what they can actually do, but because there's a big class/ pool full, and they can't supervise that many kids, they bung armbands on them all and do a half arsed swimming lesson. It irritates me, but I'm trying to rise above it. At extra lessons they are learning to swim, at school lessons they are learning to have fun and piss about. TBF they do enjoy the school 'lessons' more.

I think school lessons are good for the real non-swimmers (we have some children who have never been in a proper swimming pool before!). The majority of children finish the course being able to 'swim' ie propel themselves through the water without using aids. It's not pretty though!

However, to enable that to happen, the better swimmers don't get much attention. But when you think almost all the children in the top group are either in a swimming club, or have private lessons, they are getting the opportunity at other times. The bottom group, if they don't learn to swim now, at school, they probably never will.

Likewise, we sometimes have 'spare' lessons at the end of the year, these are given to the poorest children so that they get an extra chance to improve. There doesn't seem much point giving them to a child who swims outside of school.

That's not good. I teach school swimming and never get a non-swimmer to wear armbands- if the ratios, supervision and differentiation are right you shouldn't need to. I suppose if there are huge numbers of small children in a deep pool, that might explain the need.
My non-swimmers use noodles and floats, just as they would in a private lesson; we usually need 2 adults with that group as it can be up to about 14 children to start with. The others are split according to ability and taken into deeper water.

I would just write off the school lessons and not worry, tell him to concentrate on the private ones.

You could query it. I have never known arm bands be worn in any lesson, school or private.

Our non-swimmers don't use armbands,just floats and "noodles".

They are taught swimming by the instructors who do the paid-for lessons after school. They always assess them on the first lesson to see what they can do, and move them into different groups accordingly. It always becomes apparent who can swim and who can't, quite quickly.

At least it's free and a fun diversion for a few weeks.

I accompanied my daughter's class to their swimming lessons and witnessed the teachers/swim teachers putting the kids in all the wrong pools and ability levels. Some were sorted in the second week but my advice is to volunteer to go along to 'help' if you can manage it, and then you can tell the swim teacher directly where to put your son. My daughter, as a result, got on great in her school swimming lessons.