Realised I have spent £720 on swimming lessons and daughter still can't swim.

[sortingmyselfoutslowly]

She is 6, very bright and ahead in all areas at school, good at listening, well coordinated. Can ride a big bike without stabilisers and learn a whole 3 minute dance at street dance class. Aibu to think that after 3 years of 30 min weekly swim lessons she should be able to swim? She is in the 3rd class up in the learner pool. So she has made enough progress to be moved up twice. But I watched her today and her stroke technique is awful and she puts her feet down to breathe. I knew she was progressing slowly but stuck with it because a) she enjoys the classes and has made some good friends b) it's good exercise and c) it fits in well with family life as I can swim in the big pool at the same time as her lesson. This is a big deal as i don't have family close by so time by myself to exercise is precious and I love swimming. Now thinking that I need to move her to another swim school as it's such slow progress. Her little brother is 4 soon and I don't want to pay for 2 sets of lessons. We pay £20 a month and there are 6 in each class. I also had to pay for her badges when she moved up classes and write her certificates myself :/

As it's the holidays could you not take some time to teach her yourself? I did swimming lessons but it was my father who actually taught me to swim, on a week long holiday he took me to the hotel pool at 6am everyday while my mother and baby brother slept, when it would be empty and by the end of the week I had cracked it. I continued with lessons to improve my technique and stamina but it was the one to one time with my father that was key. He made it much more fun than lessons, and that week is one of my most treasured and enduring memories. It sounds like your dd has the basics, maybe a little one on one time with you and some parental encouragement will reap rewards, certainly worth a try as it will cost you a lot less than the lessons!

I've spent easily over £5k over the years for my 2, they are good swimmers though and also have the lifeguard qualification...but still...

Is she particularly skinny?
I think some thin kids just don't have buoyancy.
DD was just like this.
Despite years of school/council and then private lessons she still couldn't swim at 11 and we were offered a free council remedial intensive course which no one had ever failed!
She still sank like a stone at the end of it.
Eventually she grew boobs and hips and found she was actually able to stay afloat.
She is now a member of her uni surf team!
With our younger DS's I determined that I was not wasting money on lessons and taught them myself, they were both doing widths by the age of 5.
You are obviously a good swimmer, would you be in a position to teach her?

I found group lessons to be a complete waste of time for both of my DCs - they must have spent 75% of the time standing at the side of the pool waiting their turn.

On the plus side, DH and I took them swimming regularly(ish) and they eventually learnt there. Maybe you just need to change your mindset and think of it as childcare which she enjoys - if she learns to swim, it's a bonus!!

My DS is a little older at 8 (well just turned 9 this week) but 1-1's have worked great for him. He started swimming lessons in January every other week and last week got his level 2 and 25m backstroke. He has had group lessons with school for years and we go swimming a lot but the 1-1's have been well worth it.

My eldest was like that, changed him to a school where they actually have small numbers and the teachers in the pool with them. Wasn't much more in price and Larry so much faster. I'd look for another lesson provider.

#Larry !?? Learned obviously.

My dad used to be a swimming teacher and is a strong advocate of formal swimming teaching not starting until age 7. Before that, fun and water confidence. He believes that the coordination required for proper swimming is rare in children under 7, and takes a long time to develop. Wait until they're 7, and it comes a lot quicker.

I think there's a lot to be said for his approach, definitely worked with my kids.

DS2 was skinny, long limbs. He swam like a fish and did a mile easily aged 7 so I don't think stature is always a factor. When he and DS1 had lessons it was pretty hardcore though. Always out their depth, always in the water. The instructor had a pole and fished out those struggling...seemed to work!
Agreed your DD progress seems slow. Something needs to change.

She is quite skinny, yes. She has a chip on her shoulder about me teaching her anything (probably as I'm a teacher). Up until now I was going in the learner pool or shallow end of big pool with her after her lesson to reinforce and help push her on but she won't let me teach her and i get frustrated. Worried about putting her off altogether. Pool doesn't let non swimmers past the 80cm mark. So we do need an instructor.

If she's only getting effectively 5 minutes (30 mins split by 6 kids) coaching a week, it's no wonder she's struggling to learn. Pay for one to one lessons, or take her regularly yourself to practice.

Have to say I like the idea of a pole to catch the ones who are struggling! If thrown in the deep end literally I think she could swim
But this would clearly put her off for life!
I so want her to love swimming as much as me. As a baby I was tied to a deck chair to stop me getting into the sea.

I could have written this post and it has reinforced a lot of my concerns about my 6 yo dd. All she does in her group is go through a hoop and fetch items. I feel like I'm paying for expensive puppy training. I tell myself she likes it and it's improving her confidence, but that won't save her life if she falls in some water. She is also resistant to me teaching her anything as I suppose it is easier to say no to me.

Exactly CrumblyMumbly.
I was determined she would learn to swim young due to being anxious about children being around water. However she is constantly supervised by one of us so in hindsight we should have just taken her swimming for fun, saved the money and waited until she is 7 to start proper 1:1 lessons. Baby swimming classes are a waste of time unless you really enjoy them (I didn't and stopped after a few weeks). I didn't realise what a complex skill swimming is. My dad taught me to swim but only taught me breaststroke do that's all I do!

Find a better swim school.

My daughter is a naturally good swimmer: she could swim unaided within a couple of group klessons and was moevd up to simming with kids severl years older within a couple of terms of lessons at age 4/5. Then she was moved up again to a different teacher and completely stalled. If anything she went backwards. I stuck it out for another couple of terms, realised it was down to a shit teacher and moved her. At the new swim school she went back to swimming with kids her own age, regained her confidence and absolutely flew. She's 8 swims competitively for school and club now.

Ask for recommendations and choose a swim school that does really small classes with an instructor or 2 in the water.

It might just be that she needs a different teacher or lessons at a different pool. My dd detested swimming lessons, even Mum & Baby ones at a lovely warm pool. She screamed inconsolably for the whole lesson and we were still in the baby class when she was about 2. I was wasting my money so left it until she was 4. Then tried another pool with council run classes which she also detested and got incredibly het up about going. She was not too bad in between lessons but still wouldn't go in the big pool.

Eventually, on my SIL's recommendation, I started different classes at yet another pool but this one had no "baby pool" and the little ones could not stand in the shallow end. We sold it as the place where her cousins learned, and I was pretty invisible behind a newspaper so she couldn't see me watching. She was 6 and could hardly swim a stroke.

Even though it was a deep Olympic size pool, dd really clicked with the teacher and started not only making progress, but actually looked forward to it. By the end of the first term she'd won an award for most progress. By 7 she was an absolute water baby and by 9 she was in the top group.

She just needed a different environment and a different teacher. Might be all your dd needs.

And one that teaches beginners where they can't put their feet down.

Yep - that made a huge difference, drspouse

It depends when you start when you say "3 years of lessons" - frankly until 4.5 it's unlikely it's been more than getting water confidence, which you could have managed by taking her swimming yourself. Think about it, its just learning through play at school until year 1, it's not expected they can do all that much formal learning, so she's only really been learning for a year and half.

Give it another 6 months and a few 1:1 lessons as well if you can afford it.

Think I've been going about this wrong.

I need to sit and watch the lesson happening rather than swimming at the same time, don't I?

The appeal of preschool lessons was that I could sit with her baby brother in the cafe and watch her. I couldn't take them both in the water at that stage. Could have taken her swimming on her own at the weekend though.

beyond there is a good reason for why face down swimming is taught!

Face in gets you to float in the correct position for an efficient stroke. Head up dog paddle swimming- legs are sinking therefore you are literally fighting a sinking battle!

but face down swimming does not need to be the focus from early on. Let them have some fun, some playing about, have a good time in water - don't make it into some big scary thing that they have to go to yet another type of school to learn.

Where we swim there is a fun pool next to the learner pool and you hear instructors shouting - almost screaming - at kids to put their head under the water - mine are jumping in from the sides, getting bricks from the bottom, getting onto floating rafts, drifting about clutching floats whilst linking arms etc - all useful stuff should you actually be on a sinking boat, or fall in a canal.

Hmm. It depends on the child as to whether the 'chuck them in the deep end and fish them out if they're struggling' approach will work.

A swimming teacher did this to my ds when he was 4 and, at 8, he's still terrified of water.

My dd hated early swimming lessons as they required her to put her face in the water, but learnt with school swimming in KS2. lessons.