School won’t teach non-swimmers!

[Platypuslover]

I don’t think I’m unreasonable just considering how far I may need to take this. Year 6 now lost out on swimming lessons because school is useless head was suspended last year and never returned and this has been a pattern for her from previous school. Not sure why other than incompetence but the grapevine said possibly to do with money. So kids didn’t get swimming lesson as no one thought to arrange them once lock down was relaxed the pools reopened.

They waited until end of year to do 2 session to asses swimming. Told we’d get an email if she can’t swim and will have further session.

No email arrived and I called today. So then was told they don’t take non-swimmers only the children that are confident and can almost swim independently and we have to pay for our own swimming lesson.

So I am expected to pay for someone else’s kids to learn to swim with my very hard earned taxes amidst a cost of living crisis and us barely being able to afford basics and we can not afford the extortionate private lessons.

Bet the letter they said they’d send us to give details to book those lessons are with the same company they use to take them swimming now. This reeks of an extortion ring to me why else would you not take the children that need it most!

Swimming is part of the school curriculum and so it should be open to all. I am not sure how much swimming they must do but they must do swimming. My understanding was that all children should be swimming by the end of year 6. My gripe has always been ' then why do parents have to pay for them ?'

Excluding the non-swimmers is ridiculous. If they had a new pupil arrive in year 6 who was behind on something academic, they wouldn't decide to just not teach them maths or reading. However it probably is a bit late in the day for your child, as the school lessons are often short, large groups and sometimes the teachers are just the regular teachers who have done a fairly minimal training course.

Challenge their policy. If your child is covered by "pupil premium", ask whether that could be used to help ensure those children, at least, are given help. It's probably too late for yours, but hopefully the policy might change for next year.

I'm not convinced we have the best system for ensuring all children do get to learn to swim, but it's not clear what the best is, and it may vary from area to area. Where there's sufficient access to a local pool, vouchers for out-of-school lessons there might actually be more sense than a few school-run lessons - but do you provide that for everyone, or those who can't swim by age 9, or those on low incomes, and what about those parents can't/won't take them even with the vouchers? Where there isn't access to a pool locally, then transport is needed.

Possibly the best bet, but it would require investment, is to put a pool with adjacent classroom or two in each area, with a specialist swimming teacher. Bus whole classes for a whole/half day, and they take turns to have small-group lessons while the rest of the class work in the classroom with their normal teacher. Skew the time/group-sizes, so that everyone gets some swimming, but the non-swimmers get longer and in smaller groups.

Because I didn't have swimming lessons before I started school and I don't have children myself!

I saw friends taking their kids swimming as babies, but to be honest it seemed like a novelty thing they were doing for the cute underwater swimming photos! 😂

I've never mastered butterfly in my life.

For some strange reason I've never been adversely affected by this. I'm still a competent swimmer and do no less than 64 lengths every week.

That’s lack of funding. That’s an entirely different thread.

Lone parent on a low income and UC top ups here and I managed to pay for it. I would have gone without a lot of things so that DS could learn to swim, it's incredibly important imo.

It's great that you could afford it.

I would be worried though if you were choosing this over paying rent and buying food.

I do not agree. Who does mot think it would be lovely if every child had everything,but availability of funding dictates expenditure. You cut your cloth to suit. There is no cloth, so we shouldn't chuck away what we have on something which has minimal impact. I would rather they did water safety lessons and sorted cooking. A life skill that saves money in the longterm.

Upper middle class lol.

Im a single parent who works full time and gets topped up with UC and my kids have had swimming lessons since they were old enough.

We also swim in lakes and rivers that we have travel to.

Sort your priorities out. It isn’t schools job to teach your kids to swim. The school sessions alone won’t teach them anyway. Jeeeez.

Have a snickers.

@Platypuslover has an odd take on parents that take their kids swimming. Don't know when it became an upper middle class event. I didn't see many of those on the bus or shivering in the pool while teaching mine to swim at the council run pool

Also a loan parent on UC and working an ok paid full time job.

My child goes to local council swimming lessons, we live by the coast. Swimming is an essential skill round this neck of the woods.

It's not the schools job to teach your kid to swim, that's your job.

Schools are there to teach them to read, write, arithmetic and some knowledge.

Everything else is on you.

Personal hygiene
Healthy living
Sexual health
Sport
Swimming
Cooking
Cleaning
Taxes
Manners
Society and societal norms.

The list goes on. That's all on you as the parent.

I'm taking my Cub pack sailing in a few weeks time and although there's very little chance of them falling in, and even less danger of them drowning (as they're wearing buoyancy aids), some parents are still having to declare their child as a "non-swimmer" as they can't swim 50m. 2 lengths of a pool. I think it's very sad, and bloody scary, how some have got to the age of 8 and cannot get themselves 50m across the pool.

This seems a bit backwards. By the end of KS2 children are supposed to be able to swim 25m. What happens often is schools don’t take the kids who can swim 25 and more and will only take the non swimmers and less confident ones to help reach their target by year 6.

payment wise it’s tricky. Schools budget means a lot do contribute to cost of swimming but I’d be refusing to pay if my child wasn’t going. My child’s school never charged - they asked for the £1 locker money to be sent at the start of term and it would be returned at the end. Previously they used a different pool and needed a coach so we had to pay a contribution to that but more recently they walked. Their whole class went (apart from some parents who refused to send their y5 girls at the time as they didn’t think it was appropriate but that’s a whole other discussion).

The national curriculum PE can be found here with reference to swimming in one of the sections.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-physical-education-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-physical-education-programmes-of-study#swimming-and-water-safety

Also I would add that I’m a teacher and when I taught KS2 I took my class swimming. The actual instructor took the beginner and non swimmer groups and I was given the confident swimmers to practice strokes with. There was also a lifeguard at the pool. My daughters school staff take the children but only the qualified pool instructors teach them so it can vary.

Our local swimming pool was problematic, some weeks they would cancel sessions because of some big swim events coming up so those swimmers took precedence over everyone, they don't put it on the website so folks are turned away from other classes. It's chaotic sometimes

School swimming lessons are crap. I really won't bother or get worked up about it.
My DD was classed as a non swimmer in y5 ... and just put in the same group for y6 swimming. They didn't bother assessing the DC again.

The irony is, that DD was a competent swimmer from age 8 onwards, happily jumping off a 3m diving board on holiday!

£45 a month for lessons round here. Plus it’s 9 miles away by car

When it becomes cost prohibitive in some areas it makes it unattainable for people on lower incomes.

It’s not sad. It just takes some people longer. Yes, there are cost or logistical or other reasons why some children haven’t been taught to swim by that age, but there are also plenty of children who have been taught but for whom it’s more difficult to learn. There’s no way I could have swum two lengths at eight. I couldn’t keep myself afloat. I could by ten, and as an adult I swim regularly and confidently. My children have also taken a lot longer than many - it’s a knack of coordination that they just took a long time to acquire. But they got there too, eventually. There are plenty of others in their respective classes who are also still struggling (affluent area, everyone’s had swimming lessons, not everyone can swim). Thank goodness there’s been none of the sneering from their peers that there’s been on this thread.

Going on holiday where there are pools? Going on holiday?

We're talking about people who can barely afford or co-ordinate things to keep a roof over their kids' heads, food on the table or the electricity on. Like fuck are they turning their noses up at the cost of swimming lessons and travel and costumes, etc, and then fucking off for fortnight in a water park.

Haven’t read the whole thread but they really should have included the non swimmers. However, saying that, non swimmers aren’t going to learn to swim with just 6 weeks of school swimming lessons so even if your child had gone they most likely wouldn’t be swimming by the end of it and would still require more lessons to be competent. I hope you manage to find something suitable for them.

Getting there
spending money - it’s demoralising saying no to your kids all the time
activities when your there, bucket and spade etc
time off work / caring or any other responsibilities

I thought you had to pay for this yourself didn’t think it was school responsibility

Swimming is part of the curriculum isn’t it? YANBU to think every child should have access to school lessons. However the 5 or 6 sessions they get won’t be enough.