1 out of 4 children can’t swim when going into year 7.

[Quiethelper]

As the title says really. I was shocked to read over 1 out 4 children can’t swim 25m when going into year 7.

Secondary schools in our area don’t do lessons. Surly this needs to be addressed for the ones who couldn’t save themselves if they fell into water.

I would fully support and be happy for budget to be allocated for children to have essential swimming skills.

I feel really sad about this statistic.

That's a very weird swimming lesson. My DD does swimming lessons and from day 1 she's been in the water for the entire lesson.

And some kids are disabled. And single parents can’t take 3 kids and can’t afford it and don’t have the free time coz they work full time.

Yes agreed. I was responding to a PP questioning whether reception kids starting in nappies was a thing.

@Upstartled
Yes
80% o f black children, 78% Asian children

I appreciate your concern but is this another instance where parents should be taking responsibility for their children. Swimming lessons are widely available so I think that would be a better option than imposing yet more on the secondary curriculum and budget.

If your kid’s swimming lessons are mostly sat on the side then I’d go elsewhere because that is not normal. From their first lessons mine have been in the pool swimming the entire time, first using a noodle and then a float until they could do it independently. And this is just basic council leisure centre group lessons, not a fancy 1:1.

The majority of people who drown were actually walking or running. I think it's something like 35% of drownings were walkers/runners. The percentage of people who drown whilst swimming is much lower.

Obviously some of this is down to the fact most (but not all obviously) people that choose to go swimming can actually swim.

The over whelming majority of drowning cases are people who never intended to be in the water. It's pretty restrictive to avoid bodies of water (especially living on an island) so it's really important to be confident with the basics of floating and just being in the water.

I am surprised. I don't have children and am old enough to have had a long stretch of primary school swimming lessons (we walked there) which were divided into ability groups. I still remember the sense of achievement I felt when I moved from Beginner Plus to Intermediate to Pre-Advanced. So I'm guessing there were 5 groups for a class of around 30 kids. I find it really sad that this doesn't happen now. The primary school down the road from the private school work in walks over to use our swimming pool at least once a week (different year groups, I assume) but I suppose it's not the norm to have a private school in spitting distance. All the children at our private school can swim because, alongside the curriculum lessons from Reception up to Year 8, there are 2 types of Swim Squad - the optional one for keen and talented swimmers and the more or less compulsory (obviously can't be literally enforced) one for those who are struggling to learn. It's just another example of social divides that I admit I hadn't realised/thought about. Obviously not on anything like the same scale as not having enough to eat or anywhere decent to live. But sad nonetheless.

I do feel that adult non swimmer could learn in a matter of minutes in a shallow swimming pool though. Admittedly I almost never swim now but I assume I still can. Swimming to the point of just staying afloat and moving slowly forwards can't be that hard to work out, can it? Not that that would save your life, I suppose, so perhaps no point in trying it out.

Ah, that makes sense. It's a scathing indictment of how children are being raised, I can't believe anyone has missed this.

Oh and my eldest would love to be able to take himself off to the pool to go swimming. But in the council’s great wisdom they axed the park and ride hop on/off bus that went from the town centre to the leisure centre. It was every 15min, I would have thought the logical thing would be to reduce frequency if needed. But nope - just axed the whole service (buses were always in use). No explanation given.

So now there is no public transport access to the leisure centre at all. Zero. You can only get there by car.

Community was in uproar and have been campaigning to have some sort of service returned for years now. But council won’t budge. The leisure centre is council owned and is increasing need of extensive repair. A few years back they wanted to pull the whole thing down and rebuild but decided it was too expensive. Call me cynical but I won’t be surprised when they announce closure of the centre in the future citing ‘low use’ - because you purposefully made it nearly impossible for people to use it!

It depends, I grew up on the coast near several rivers. I knew people who have drowned in the area, one woman was trying to save her partner who was trying to save their dogs, they all drowned. 2 children were made orphans. A boy in my street drowned in the local river.

My mum made sure we had lessons so we were at least confident in water. I have done the pyjamas on retrieving a brick from a 7 foot deep pool. That meant when my dog got into trouble in water (it was a calm day so the river was calm) I was able to dive in and grab her. Although once I got us both out safely she jumped back in….

i would say it was a life skill.

That's why I said "effective".

Unless free swimming lessons are available to those on a low income. I don't think it's a priority for social spending though myself, I'd rather see something like Surestart again.

We had a school pool in the 1970s at our primary, freezing cold and used for a few weeks in summer term. I learnt aged 40.

I'm actually surprised it's only 25% and suspect it's probably lower than reported. I know plenty of adults who can't swim, their parents wouldn't have had the time, money or resources for lessons and even if they had, they probably never learned themselves so it didn't even occur to them to teach it

They are only widely available if you can afford them, have the means to travel to them and if your child isn't disabled and doesn't require specialist swimming lessons.

My local leisure centre charges just under £40pm for swimming lessons. To go myself it would cost £14 each time (£7 for me, £7 for my child) although I never learnt to swim very well (my parents can't swim so we never went as a kid, but I had a few lessons when in school as part of PE). I wouldn't have a clue how to teach my DC even if it was cheap to go by yourself so I'm not surprised by the statistic.

My dad taught me doggie paddle, then at school we used to have one lesson a week from the juniors onwards at the local council baths. This stopped at secondary school, but by then I could swim breaststroke effectively at least 100-400m and like other people my generation, if ever a plastic brick fell into a warm pool and I was passing by wearing my pyjamas, I'm your woman to fish it out.

At 50 I've just signed up for crawl lessons as I'm getting more into swimming. I could swim miles of breaststroke though.

Undoubtedly life has become economically difficult for many, and not helped at all by budget slashing by councils. It is very difficult now to pay for all that your child needs as parents. With Christmas coming up, next time a relative asks what they could gift your child how about swimming lessons? Not possible for all, but perhaps several relatives could pitch in?
It is that important, don’t be too proud to ask.

It literally isn’t that important. I’d rather have asked for petrol money to do the hospital trips.

it’s a nice to have. But it’s no way an essential life skill or “that important”.

Being widely available and widely accessible, however, are two totally different things.

Super expensive houses are widely available, but for some families are no more accessible than swimming lessons at £60/70 a month.

I’d say it’s a sad statistic if not surprising. Schools are so variable in their provision of swimming lessons.
In my local area, out of about 8 state primary schools only our school & its sister school go swimming every week from Yr3 to Yr6. Others only seem to offer 1-2 terms over the 4 years.
Tbh its one of reasons that swung our decision to send our DC to the school.

i don't understand what people mean about the lessons. Not being effective

I have a 3 and 5yo in council swimming lessons, we live in a disadvantaged are a in the midlands and they swim the whole time.

Both in classes of 8 with 2 teachers

Instructions are given then they all swim along in a row with the teacher walking beside - no waiting at all.

The classes started with infant water safety when they were babies - they can both swim, right them selves, float etc - all the things they need as a life saving skill.

I agree with pp that the "sports" element is what is focused on first when it is the safety aspect that should be.

@ARichtGoodDram agree they are pricey, we just use the bog standard council lessons and they are £27 per child per month.

I’m only surprised it’s not more. I live in an ordinary suburb of a city and the nearest pool is 7 miles away. I don’t know how much it costs because the website is so complicated that it’s almost unusable.

Not all lessons/teacers are the same/ as good.

Area we lived with kids first - council lessons were awful little progress and actually at one point put DD1 off swimming entirely - teacher did nothing but shout and wasn't even in water with the kids- there were better with swim group but getting back Sunday at 8pm from town center to our subbrub needed a car which we did not have.

We moved here - like night and day - council lessons were very good.

So people talking aboout ineffective swim lessons - probably have swim lessons like we first encountered. Standards varying across locations and insitutions isn't that unkown in many aspects of life - so hardly surprising swim lessons vary.