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!

The latter is my son, year 6 and still cannot swim. We paid for a year of 1-2-1 lessons and at the end of that fortune, he still couldn't swim and the swim instructor said she didn't know where to go with him next and she felt bad taking our money. (Now he still cannot swim but has a reaction to cold and has to avoid full body water exposure in cool/cold water)

Sorry OP, off topic there, but our school had to stop all lessons as the local pool had been destroyed to be rebuilt so they have now offered a course to non swimmers in year 6 at a proper swim school BUT the term of lessons is costing the parents £60. I am not sure what they are doing as my son isn't able to go, but I will have to ask a friend as her daughter is.

It's not the school's responsibility to teach your child to swim at that age. It's yours. You find a local council pool and you take them it's really not that hard

🤣 Your faux anger 🤣 'My hard earned taxes paying for some else's kids swimming lessons' 🤣

For my life!

You do realise that about .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001p

Of your 'hard earned taxes' will have gone towards swimming lessons OP 🤦‍♀️🤣🤦‍♀️

Not a hill to die on really is it?

Exactly.

I haven't rtft but am a teacher and it is quite rare for children to be unable to swim by Year 3. In our cohort of 120 children, only four were non swimmers this year well you clearly live in a VERY privileged area of the country!

I wonder if you have actually read the thread.

My area was one of the very last areas in the country where the leisure centre was run by the local council and switched to a well known leisure company in 2016ish (new leisure centre opened in 2017).

Leisure centres are run by profit making companies. They have to make a profit AND, usually, give some money back to the council in some way. They are not cheap. My local pool charges £50 a month for lessons. Although nowadays it is fairly easy to get onto lessons because it is so expensive. When it was council run, it was much more difficult.

Jees. Sometimes Mumsnet is an awful place. Why is it an impossibility to imagine why someone might not be able to afford swimming lessons? Listing smart phones and internet as a reason why someone should have a spare fiver. On the one hand apparently ten lessons isn't enough to teach a kid to swim at school but paying a fiver to swim at a local pool somehow solves the situation? Maybe they don't have the fiver, or internet at home and tbh, swimming is a life skill but if we're going to talk priorities, in this day and age, having kids, I'd at least want a phone so that I could receive emails from school/ emergency calls about my kid if needed.

As far as entitled goes. She's peed off about the dragging of the heels reducing the time available and then getting told non swimmers are not getting any lessons at all but children who are already able to swim getting lessons in something they can already do?! In what world is getting annoyed about that unreasonable?! They may as well save all the money and give no one lessons. I don't care if a child won't be able to swim 20m after the lessons finish. At least they'll have had the exposure which they obviously won't get at home. Maybe they've never been to a pool. Who knows, maybe some of the parents can't swim themselves and therefore can't teach their kids (don't get me started on the whole "no excuse not to do council lessons" crap. Man, some people live in a bubble and it shows). Maybe they have a fear of water. I'm struggling to see why non swimmers should be refused access to something that's compulsory on the curriculum. Isn't that why it's compulsory?! To sort that sort of situation out. If it were anything else a child couldn't do at school, is it excusable for the school to say, "Well, they can't do it so unfortunately we're not going to teach them"?! In fact, I'm sure that would make life easier for a lot of teachers and a lot of children. Maybe they should. Clearly a lot of people here would be in agreement with that.

Do you understand what ‘faux’ means?
It doesn’t seem faux to me, she seems genuinely cross (and rightly so imo.)