Swimming

[yesokthen]

Aibu to wonder how far your child can swim? I understand the National goal is that kids can swim 25 metres by the end of primary but I keep hearing of all these 5 year olds and younger that can already do this.

My 10 year old can swim a bit. No idea if he could do 25 metres as both of our local pools are small so he's never had the opportunity. My 7 year old can't swim and has no water confidence as the swim school insisted on dunking him underwater despite being repeatedly asked not to do this by me and my son.

@superduster that’s it with my 9 year old, no water confidence - although I have no idea why. He doesn’t even like being in a shallow pool where he’ll never go over his head, which is baffling as this particular child is fearless in everything else!

We never really had the opportunity for proper lessons before last year just down to money and time. It doesn’t help our local pool is disgusting and I hate going there.

Mine could swim 4m just after the first lockdown when she was 2.5. She has been swimming what I imagine to be more than 10m in zigzags, circles, spins and generally messing about out of her depth for a good few months now, but has just got her 10m badge at 3.5yrs. She started water babies at 6 months and has had 9 months out of the pool because of Covid. I have given her extra opportunities because of Covid and taken her to the pool to do her own thing 3 times a month since she was 2 and absolutely loves it, minus 9 months of lockdown closures. But that's not the norm, she's pretty amazing. X

My 8year old has passed his silver and swims 800m and over. They all learn at different paces and all are brilliant 😊

My son had a term of lessons at age 4 but we stopped after that because he mostly messed about and didn’t pay attention and thus learn’t nothing!

He then went on to have lessons throughout year 5 at primary school but they don’t seem to give out certificates for school lessons like we used to get. When we had lessons at school we were expected by the end to be able to jump into the deep end in our pjs and retrieve a brick from the bottom. My son said he could swim. I took him swimming and he can mostly just float!! He can do front crawl badly for a very short distance. Obviously to use all the fun stuff and go without an adult you have to be able to swim 25 metres competently. I’ve got him booked in for a swimming assessment at our local pool next week to find out what level classes he’d need to take if we paid for private lessons, but I’m not sure I can really afford them they are just so expensive I was really expecting him have reached minimum standards in a year of lessons with school. Hes 12.

Technique is more important than distance but 25m is.mn’t much - by the end of primary it really should be at least 100m.
11 yr old can swim 1km + but has had lessons on and off since 4/5 years old and we live by the sea. 9 year old had lessons interrupted by Covid so not as good a swimmer but can swim about 100m though her technique need work.

They r all so different!

DS1 got mile badge (64 lengths) age 6. Rubbish technique though!! Now he's a club swimmer (age 9).

DS2 can swim about 200m of lovely breastroke, probably couldn't swim much further without a break. Could.probably only manage 100m of crawl with basic stroke and lots of slapping the water. Maybe 200m of decent backstroke. Maybe 50m.of continuous butterfly kick no arms.

Average around here I'd guess, from looking at ages of kids in the stages is that kids who have lessons can do around 100m age 7/8.

In DS1 school class, some kids age 9/10 are club level training multiple nights a week and covering 70 odd lengths a night. Others of same age cannot swim at all and never had lessons.

My own personal goal for my children was that they would be confident swimmers (ASA stage 6/7) by the end of primary to be safe around water.

DS could swim 50m front crawl and 25m backstroke by 7. He has zero fear of the water, unlike me!
It completely depends on the child. I also think making the switch from group lessons to one on one made a massive difference for DS.