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!

Our school start swimming lessons in year 2 and have them every year for half a term, it's the national curriculum so every child should go with the school, regardless if op gets child lessons or not the school should also provide them. My dd can swim could swim before starting with the school I taught her but the difference 6 weeks makes from the school is huge I seen so much improvement. Op write to the school governors or local mp.

It is a shame that families cannot fund swimming lessons, but it is not up to schools to plug that gap. They simply do not have the resources.

Do you have to pay in advance in one go for them?

My parents taught me to swim (though they weren't great swimmers) and we taught our children, too. I look on it as a parental duty - like teaching children how to cross the road safely and how to ride a bike. Outsourcing everything to schools means less time for the basics (maths, literacy etc). And teaching your own children gives you bonding time, too. Get in the water with your children and if you can't swim, learn together.

It is up to the school if it’s on the curriculum.

the fact schools are so underfunded they can’t is a totally different issue.
the fact councils are so underfunded lessons are cost prohibitive is another issue.

Everyone saying its not up to the schools, well YES it is its on the national curriculum just as reading and writing is!!!

I rarely took mine even to the pool for a splash about.

1. it’s expensive
2. if I can’t keep me safe I can’t keep them safe.

How have you let your child get to year 6 without knowing how to swim at all?! That's actually dangerous.

Not everyone earns enough to pay for weekly swimming lessons 52 weeks of the year. Our local council run pool never reopened after covid but lessons had been about £7 a week to an outsourced company that provided the lessons. Of the 3 primary schools in our town, none have returned to teaching swimming lessons as there are no spaces in the pools in our region. In a nearby different district 12 miles away, the pool is closing. Money and access issues are a real problem. Meanwhile a private pool has opened up 10 miles away with exorbitant prices and a massive waiting list. Don't judge the op, you don't know what her circumstances are.

I was never under the impression that school swimming lessons were to actually teach non swimmers, how on earth would they do that with 30 in a class and what only about 6 lessons?

I always thought they were more about developing skills and confidence in the water or maybe learning different strokes etc Plus don't school lessons start quite late, most kids should be able to swim by the age they get their lessons.

I think this is more on you and I'd be prepared for some comeback, swimming is quite a basic life skill and safety issue that children should be taught at home and then developed with their classmates. Same as it's not up to school to toilet or physically feed your children.

The curriculum also include sex Ed, consent, personal hygiene etc. Do you think that means parents are absolved from ever needing to teach this?

Fuck off with your judgemental attitude! My 14 year old can't swim, and not for lack of trying to teach her! Some people just can't grasp it.

Get in the water with your children and if you can't swim, learn together.

Lol yes, seeing my mum having a giant panic attack in the water splashing and flailing would really have improved my swimming confidence. Lucky I was 11 and a confident swimmer already, or I don't think I'd have ever got in a swimming pool again.

it's on the national curriculum, so yes schools should teach it. But we are seeing schools having to make really hard choices and it appears swimming lessons is a hard choice your school has made.

I think you will have to teach your child. I'm not sure if they would get much benefit from a half term school lessons in any event. Maybe learn some basics with floats etc., but unlikely to actually meet the curriculum requirements in such a short space of time.

What? You've not bothered to teach your 11yo to swim and think it's someone else's fault. My DS is 2 and swims. It's something you do with your toddlers and young children. Literally to keep them safe. My niece is 4 and they were doing life rescue stuff in her lessons. Do they wear arm bands at the pool or do you just never take them?

This is entirely your responsibility.

I think people are being a bit rough on you, OP.

You’ve stated that things are tight. I also understand what you mean about paying for other children’s swimming lessons through taxation.

However, I would agree with many previous posters that what the schools can provide isn’t sufficient to take a non-swimmer to being confident to swim 20/25m.

My daughter has just started school swimming lessons this term. It is pointless for her and a number of others as they can already swim. They get about 15 minutes swimming time as there are so many children in their year that go. It takes all morning if you include the coach to the swimming pool.

She is already going for a weekly lesson at the same council swimming pool. The vast majority of the others already have swimming lessons.

it would be a much better use of precious school funding to use the money for those who don’t already have the opportunity for outside lessons rather than those who can already swim or are already learning.

This is an area where it is fairer to be equitable than to be equal.

OP - do look at the council swimming lessons. I appreciate that things may still be too tight but they are much cheaper than most private providers, and in my opinion, not inferior in results. Yes, they don’t really have any one to one attention, but they do work. My little one is happily swimming 100m with decent looking strokes. Not sure how as I’ve never seen her being given any individual feedback, but they are working their magic somehow!

Understandable that paying for swimming lessons (or even getting to/from a local pool, stream, pond, river, creek or the sea) is impossible for a minority, but most people have some access and therefore it’s fairly unreasonable that children aren’t taught to swim either by their parents or by paid lessons by the time their school lessons come around.

6 school lessons are absolutely not enough for a non-swimming child to suddenly learn to swim. They’re a tick box exercise and “fun” but really fairly useless- those that can’t swim just run up and down the bottom of the pool, those that can don’t learn anything new. I know this because I’ve volunteered at many sessions.

I don’t understand why the OP thinks she is paying for other children’s lessons.

It’s unreasonable of the OP not to have ensured her child can swim by the time they leave primary. However it’s also unreasonable of the school to ban non-swimmers from the school sessions.

My mum taught us three to swim. We had no idea that she couldn't swim and had nearly drowned as a child in a river. She gritted her teeth, went into the shallow end where she could stand and cheered us on. We were all swimming by age 6. I was married with two children before she came clean. I was gobsmacked.

Mine learnt in the council pool and later in the sea. Tried teaching lessons expensive and rubbish, ditto the school lessons, luckily we live near the sea much easier to swim in salt water.

FF grandchildren far too young for school lessons so council pool it is.

YABU for being melodramatic and assuming malice.

Honestly op. I thought everyone understood that school lessons are only a top up and that everyone needed private lessons outside of this. In year 6 your child will likely be the only non swimmer in the class so even if they did take them , they may get a hard time being the only person in the baby pool with a float. Absolutely organise your own lessons , everyone has to .

It's not ok for the school to take this stance if it is in the curriculum (which I believe it is). However I do think there is some parental responisbility to teach children how to swim before they get to y6. It's an important life skill.

Our council do special offers for kids free lessons for say 8 weeks. Worth checking out

So I am expected to pay for someone else’s kids to learn to swim

Why are you being expected to pay if your child isn’t being given lessons? Don’t pay it. What is your child doing when the swimmers are swimming?

It’s in the curriculum because some parents DONT teach it, or don’t teach it adequately, for lots of reasons. Like swimming.