Cost of school swimming lessons

[Coffeeandtats]

My son is in year 4 and attends a mainstream school which is part of a multi academy trust

They’re due to start swimming lessons after Easter and the letter which came home said the cost of this, including the instructor and transport to and from the venue, for the 9 weeks of lessons will be £62

As I understood it, because swimming is part of the national curriculum, they can’t make you pay for the lessons, but they can ask for a voluntary contribution from parents

AIBU to think £62 is absolutely taking the piss?

What happens to those who can’t afford? Do they get left behind?

That seems reasonable to me. When I looked at getting ds lessons they were nearly £10 per session (thankfully he now goes to a school with a pool and they don’t charge anything).

Ours were free with a voluntary contribution of £10 per child per term.

That's more than the private lessons my child was taking last year.

No charge here. Dd did 13 weeks of lessons in y5.

It doesn't save you money - she still carried on with her usual leisure centre lessons, which are in smaller groups and cost about £5.

It now costs us £1300 per term to take a class swimming. That is a bus, the pool and 2 swimming teachers. I’m a qualified school swimming teacher so I also teach and I take 2 TAs. The school covers all of this- including updating my swimming and rescue qualifications.
I get incredibly pissed off when our parents refuse permission for their child to go as “they don’t like it”. Without fail, those children cannot swim.
As an aside, I started with a group of 6 non-swimmers (some were refusing to get in at the start) in January. All can now do 5m on front and back.

Private lessons are a lot cheaper than that round here- about £4 for half an hour for up to about 8 kids. Doesn't include fuel admittedly but we don't live far from the leisure centre.

That’s more than council lessons for 2 months here - London..

Oh and school lessons are free - the children just have to walk.

Ours are free, but the kids have a 20 minute walk to the pool. Four lessons in yr 4&5. They go for a double lesson and the teacher admits they can't really teach anyone to swim in that time.

We pay for private swim lesson and are £18 a lesson!

We were asked for a £12 contribution to the coach for a full term's swimming in Year 4.

@Kaboomba

We pay for private swim lesson and are £18 a lesson!

Is that 1:1?!

Another problem with Academies.
Ours are completely free, plus it's a small independent local operator that provides the transport so the council are directly supporting the local economy too.

My DD is also year 4 and asked for £30 for 5 weeks swimming. I declined to pay because I’m a single parent and already shell out for lessons. There’s been no repercussions

If you're paying £18 for 1adult to 15 kids in a 30min - if that lesson then you've been robbed!

£3 per lesson for 5 days, so £15. They walk there and back.

I paid £1 per week for DD1, by the time DD2 was in Y4 the school were fully funding it. Given they had already learned to swim competently by then after years of lessons I wouldn’t have wanted to pay much more.

We are paying £30 a month in a group of 8 for a grandson Half hour lesson and £20 for half hour one to one each lesson for another child.So these prices seem ok.Wait until you see the price of a 2 day activity trip which is £190 for year 6.Prices are going up by the minute.

Not a direct comparison, as this is for 1-1, but my local virgin active charges £35 per half hour weekly swimming lesson plus the kids have to be members at £10 (I think) per month.

They can't ask you to pay for it and they can't exclude your child if you don't. It is a national curriculum requirement. Just the same as asking you to pay for maths lessons.

@elliejjtiny @x2boys if swimming/hydrotherapy are specified and quantified in DC’s EHCPs complain to the school and also to the LA, it is the LA who are ultimately responsible for ensuring the provision in the EHCP is delivered. If complaining doesn’t work threaten to begin Judicial Review proceedings against the LA. If the threat doesn’t work contact SOSSEN for help with a pre-action letter.

I’m aghast at how cheap some of these private swimming lessons are! I pay £130 a term for DS which is roughly 11/12 lessons per term - so over £10 a lesson. He’s in a small group of 4. I think I must just live in an expensive area because I’m not aware that any of my friends with kids at other pools are paying any less.

I don't think it is worth it. DD has swimming in a class of 30 and about 2 instructors. They are mostly crowd controlling when she goes swimming with her school- cost is about £10 as walking distance.
She learned to swim through private lessons as did most of her friends. Here at school, they are just to swim widths and not much else by way of instruction.
The few children who can't swim are with the other instructor.
You risk your child being left out but I would want to know how big the groups are at the pool.

We paid £20 for the coach for 6 sessions but I wouldn’t pay £62. Their lessons consisted of literally jumping in and out the first session (took ages to sort them into relevant groups), one lesson was cancelled altogether as the instructor got covid, the other 4 were not much better as there were so many children that they didn’t swim more than a few widths. There is no way a child will learn to swim with these sessions.