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!

You know schools aren't parents ? My kids could swim before they went to school you can take them yourself. Did you read to them before they went to school , teach them colours , numbers etc. That's all part of being a parent.

costs about a fiver or less to go to local leisure centre with 1 child. People can afford internet monthly, smart phones etc so obviously have a spare fiver.
School swimming is fun but i don't know one single person who has been successful learning to swim at school...the lessons are 20 minutes at best and the majority of kids can swim by time they go- the none swimmers were always ridiculed it was awful

National Curriculum requirement 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 safetyAll schools must provide swimming instruction either in key stage 1 or key stage 2.
In particular, pupils should be taught to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke]
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

You could raise a formal complaint using the complaints procedure on the school website (legal requirement to put it up).
If it's part of a MAT you could write to the board of trustees. Religious school (Voluntary Aided for example) you could write to the diocese. You might be asked to follow the complaints procedure before escalating, but no harm in highlighting the issue higher up.

There was never a magical alternative option where your child was taught to swim for free.

Our eldest had school 'swimming lessons' pre-covid. This consisted of 6 afternoons across a half of one term in y4 with most of the time spent travelling and changing and 45 minutes at the pool during which the children spent approximately 95% of the time queuing beside the pool and 5% of the time in the water because they would only allow 2 kids in the pool at a time. It was utterly useless.

The options available are to pay for lessons or teach your kids yourself.

I'd be very concerned about any kid who was in year 6 and couldn't yet swim!!!

Get them some swimming lessons, is such an important life skill and as PP have said, they won't learn much in the school swimming lessons.

This is something the parents need to do schools can't do everything for them

Because she's come across very entitled and overly angry talking about extortion rings etc. That's not reasonable.

There's no responsibility taken, or statement that she feels bad she's not been able to sort it herself. Just a huge entitlement that school should be doing it and that's that.

Schools are at breaking point.

I suspect given how late in year 6 it is, they have decided to focus on the kids who can swim a bit, and try and get them to the National Curriculum level for end of KS2, the reality is that a complete non swimmer is very unlikely to do so in a handful of lessons. It may not be ideal, but I can see that it would be a pragmatic decision.

How has your child got to this age without being able to swim??? Why haven’t you taught them / got them lessons? I took my daughter swimming from 8weeks old. She could swim without flotation aids before she turned 1 and had swim lessons I paid for until she reached the end of all the stages. Yes it’s a cost but it’s a vital one. School shouldn’t have to teach your kid to swim now; it would disrupt all the other kids who can swim!

YABVU- Teach your child to swim. If they can't swim in year 6, 10 lessons won't be enough.

School lessons won't teach a non swimmer y6 child to swim. With the best intentions the group size and variance in ability will be too much for anyone to get anything of value out of it. It's with the parents to ensure their dc have basic life skills, school lessons are a nice to have. You don't need to pay for lessons, going as often as you can to a pool, river, sea, lake or whatever you can and teaching the basics is a great way to learn. And wild swimming has no time restriction.

Going in with 'I pay taxes so do as I say' won't get you anywhere. If anything it will only get backs up because no public sector worker takes well to 'I pAy YoUr WaGeS'

I see you point that all the kids should be able to access the lessons, so YANBU to that extent. It’s in the national curriculum.

However, i do also agree that yr6 is v late to be a non swimmer. The school lessons were never going to get them from non swimmer to swimmer - it’s just a little bit extra really. So to that extend YABU as it sounds like you were expecting miracles.

Where I live lots of parents have already taught children the basics of reading and writing by the time they start school. Imagine if the Reception teachers refused to teach these skills to the children who hadn't already been taught!

I’d definitely complain to the school but I’d also sort this yourself urgently if at all possible. I don’t think the amount of lessons they get from school would be enough to teach them to swim anyway.

This. If your kid can't swim by age 11, that is awful. What if they ended up in water unexpectedly? What happens at the beach/pool parties?

Bollocks is it a fiver or less. At our local pool an adult and a child is £9.50. (And it’s very basic, big old pool with communal changing, nothing fancy.)

Umm, it literally is the school's responsibility.

Anyhow, this policy is specifically excluding the poorest, young carers, a disproportionate number of SEND, other ethnicities and most vulnerable students. So it does need to be notified to the governors as it's probably been not mentioned 'because it's operational' when inclusion isn't.

Parents should have arranged this well before the child was 11. I don’t know a single person who learned to swim during the minimal school lessons, there just isn’t the time factoring in changing and travelling time.

If it’s a state school this is essentially akin to the school saying they don’t teach non-readers or non-writers so I get your outrage. It’s a national curriculum requirement, parents shouldn’t generally have to teach their kids the stuff that’s going to be taught in school. They should be focusing all the time they have left on the non swimmers to get them to 25m. so complain.

that’s not going to get your DD swimming tho. Can you swim? If so look for discounted sessions and take her and get her safer in the water. Look into discounted council lessons - or summer camps that offer swimming lessons etc.

Not everyone can teach their own children to swim, maybe they can't afford it, maybe they can't get to the pool when lesson slots are available, maybe they can't actually swim themselves to take them at other times. There could be lots of reasons why the OP has not taught their own children and they shouldn't be judged on that.

When my own DC had swimming lessons through the school, I went along as a parent helper (for the transport bit). The able swimmers (including my DCs) swam up and down really quickly and got nothing out of it that they couldn't already do. Those that couldn't swim were given arm bands and basically walked across the shallow end from one side to the other for 6 weeks and none of them could swim at the end of the sessions. A waste of time and funding for everyone, although I don't doubt the swimmers enjoyed their time out of class having fun in the pool. I think the funding would have been better spent on focused lessons for the non swimmers.

I work with schools in another activity area that is funded by our Local Authority and I am constantly frustrated that those that can already do the activity get to take part in everything but those that can't get pushed to the side and told they are not good enough to progress further. It's all about funding and pushing big numbers through to justify that funding when it should be about improving the skills in the children, who, for whatever reason, have not had any opportunity to become proficient in the skill.

YANBU OP, they should be focusing on those that can't swim rather than those that can.

Op while the school system is ridiculous, children rarely become competent swimmers from school swimming lessons alone. You have to teach them to swim yourself or go to local council lessons. By year 6, a child should be able to swim so you really need to get them lessons asap. Even if they went with school they wouldn’t learn. Like others have said local council pool lessons are usually cheap and affordable at under a fiver a lesson. I would go asap as you really don’t want your dc to be a non swimmer in high school

How is it excluding any of the demographics you mentioned apart from the poorest?

The school are wrong, they have a requirement under the national curriculum to teach swimming.

I use the council lessons for DD, with a leisure centre membership it's £26 a month which covers the weekly 30 min lesson and also enables her to use the swimming pool and all others in the city as and when we want.

Swimming is a vital life skill. We budget out of our household income to pay for swimming lessons. My daughter is 6 and a confident swimmer.

Why have you waited until Y6 to even consider this? You shouldn't be relying on school to teach them to swim.

if the OP is on her uppers and cannot afford swimming lessons I doubt many beach or pool parties are happening.