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.

I had a school swimming lessons every week for three summers. Like all other school sports lessons that involved being told to do something in the pool, then ignored while those who could already swim were praised by the PE 'teacher'. Needless to say, I couldn't swim by the time I left school either.

I took myself off to proper lessons when I was an adult.

My ds17 had swimming lessons at the weekends (six to a group) from age 5, worked up through all the grades and now works part time as a pool lifeguard.

School swimming lessons aren't practical. If a class is 30 children, you need to split that into five smaller groups with a teacher for each group plus helpers in the pool to start with. No state school can afford that. It really is up to parents to ensure their children can swim.

Maybe people won't agree with this, but I think council pools need to do less weekend lessons and more swim sessions. At my local pool there are literally 10 hours over the whole weekend across both pools that are family swimming sessions. The rest of the time it is lessons. Bearing in mind that children will most probably be awake for about 10-12 hours each day - that's painfully little!

Also that 10 hours is sometimes both pools open but sometimes just one, so if you are a little person who needs warmer shallower water, or a bigger non-swimming child who can't really swim in the shallow pool, you won't have all 10 hours open to you. I know for a fact that you HAVE to arrive 15 minutes early for weekend family sessions, otherwise both pools with be full.

In terms of money,, lessons at our local pool have to be booked in termly blocks and fully paid for at the time of booking. Swimming lessons are £31 a month for one lesson a week, kids session are £3 or free if they are under 3.

I am not knocking swimming lessons in any way, I have no doubt they are brilliant for a lot of children, but if the main option for actually learning to swim requires people to commit to the same time every weekend and have £31 per child avalible at the start of each month, instead of being flexible during the weekend, not required an every weekend commitment, and only requiring maybe £13 to be avalible at once - it's not surprising kids can't swim.

I absolutely see the benefit of proper swimming lessons, and am in no way claiming they aren't amazing for the children that have them, we can't be surprised that the number of children who can swim is small, when the chance to learn to swim

Plus some of this will depend on the child regardless of how much they go swimming. We haven't been able to swim much these last few months, but before that were taking our 1 and 3 year old most weeks, sometimes a few times, so they were very used to being in the water as I was keen to make sure they were comfortable in water. Unfortunately our eldest developed a bit of a fear of the water, I think she has sensory issues and really can't handle water going in her eyes. She literally went from jumping off the side and going under water up to about 12 months old, to being unable to be splashed with just a few weeks gap in going. She's only just turned 4, so still plenty of time, but if she can't get over that she will be one of those unable to swim despite going very regularly.

It is really really common for young children of around your daughter’s age to go through a phase of being afraid of the water and particularly afraid of getting their face wet even if they have been confident before. It is to do with their growing sense of danger and self awareness. Both my children went through this and the swimming teachers said they see it all the time. You just have to keep taking them into the water and making it a fun experience and they will almost certainly come out the other side loving the water again.

That was pretty much my primary school swimming 40 years ago. We learnt something approaching front crawl and breast stroke, but not properly, we never did the breathing techniques. I couldn't really do crawl, I just thrashed about, but did (and still do) a decent old lady head above water breast stroke.

I could rescue a brick in my pyjamas, etc. Truth be told, the best thing I got out of it was the fun of going to the local baths with my mates.

I often wondered about going and learning how to do it properly, but honestly, old lady breast stroke keeps me afloat. I am not sure I need to know how to time my breaths to dip my head in like an Olympian.

My primary school lessons over 50 years ago were 6 weeks long. The first thing they did was make you put your head under the water. I have always had and still do a fear of water on my face. I couldn’t do it so I was ignored. I’ve never learned to swim and have never missed it but I did spend every Friday and ££££ after work at the side of a sweltering swimming pool making sure all three of mine were competent swimmers!

This is exactly how my school swimming lessons went. I wasn't ignored though, I was berated and bullied and even thrown into the pool.

Enough to turn me off learning how to swim forever.

I'm not surprised. My youngest cannot swim. The school still have swimming on their official PE primary curriculum, but post-covid those lessons have not been offered. I tried to take my child (and still am) and teach them myself on a semi-regular basis (when I get a chance in the holidays) but I am a single mum on 50% contact, work long hours and just do not have the time term-time. My ex husband refuses to consider swimming lessons because I "teach" DC. He also refuses to commit to 50% swimming lesson time should I enrol DC. Intense swimming lessons are half on my time, half on his. So I could pay myself but my DC would only be able to attend half the lessons. Only one secondary school in the area has swimming on their Y7 curriculum, and my ex doesn't want to send DC there because it's not a convenient route for him. I am stuck.

Me too. It was traumatic as a DC.
I remember the fear the instructor screaming he'd hold my head under if I couldn't keep my head down.
I could swim a little from holidays in the countryside, that was ruined.
I remember my head spinning holding my breath under the water.
I purposely forgot my swimming bag after that experience, it was easier to have teacher shouting in my face.

I personally don’t find this statistic that surprising.

Sad, yes. Surprising, not so much.

I work in a secondary school in a highly deprived area, with a higher amount of pupil premium children than the national average.

As a former PP student myself, I also couldn’t swim until my mid 20s. During junior school, we were provided with 1 hour lessons once a week for a term, for 4 years. My parents couldn’t afford private swimming lessons and on the rare occasion we went swimming as a family, I had a high amount of siblings for my parents to keep an eye on, so was unable to be taught by them.

Realistically, the chances of a child learning to swim from 6 hours of lessons each year, are quite low!

The above is actually a reality for a lot of children on low income, unfortunately.

Almost literally the only thing I am glad about re my XH (apart from the kids) is that he used to take them swimming during the one time a year when he had the kids. He is a very strong swimmer and very water confident, whereas I'm not. I can swim but I swim like a Golden Retriever, with my head up out of the water, sort of sculling along. All my kids are far better swimmers than me and very very happy in the water.

Shame he was such an utter cunt in every other way.

I'm writing this from a sun bed while my children frolic in a pool. Even when we do a UK holiday, swimming is a huge part of it and they want to be in a pool as much as possible. If your children can't swim, do you just avoid traditional holidays?

Some people won't be able to afford holidays.

My son who can't swim goes in swimming pools. He just obviously can't swim, he lays on the big floats, splashes etc and has a whale of a time without swimming.

Even some families that can swim, don't enjoy swimming very much. Or beach holidays.

Growing up my Dad and I could swim, my Mum couldn't. In holiday terms it didn't matter as none of us wanted to go to the beach or pool. I asked DH, the only non-swimmer in his family and they just didn't do holidays that involved swimming as nobody else was that in to it either.

A UK holiday would be sightseeing, theme parks, hiking, cycling, pony trekking... so many non-swimming options.

We have lots of holidays abroad but not the package holiday lie on a sun bed type, never been to Spain or Turkey. My dd could swim from a young age (water babies, private and council lessons) but it would have made little difference to our holidays. We would go in pool sometimes but it’s never main focus of holiday.

It used to be that kids could and would go swimming for free with their library card round here when my DD was around 2 or 3 (she's 16 now). They stopped doing that. Then they closed all but 2 of the pools in a borough of 300k population. Then they moved to a booking system during COVID that you had to be 18 to access, and they never really stopped doing that. So the barriers to kids getting used to water safely and in a fun way have increased 3 fold and the swimming lessons are non existent.

Very tragic but not that surprising then when multiple children drown in swimming lakes that they're not supposed to be in as happened this summer. Totally preventable but seems we as a nation don't want to pay for it.

I thought myself to swim at 12 in a lake

My dd worked at an American summer camp this summer and for the younger children swimming lessons were on itinerary. I’d imagine they all learned to swim quickly as in water daily. We don’t have equivalent of that type of experience here in England.

@Cakeandusername the American's seem to do far more activities and sports than we do in this country. It's super important in their culture. It's kind of a shame we don't have that!

@Cakeandcardio summer camps in the us are largely a middle class and upwards thing. they are expensive!!!
Yes, there are some more affordable ones (usually religious ones), but the majority are not for low earners.
I wouldn’t generalise from the summer camp experience to the general US population . Some states gave childhood obesity rates well above 30%….

It’s another of those things that are a postcode lottery.

Our local council pool offers free lessons to children of military personnel. That’s great and these parents are fighting for our country - but they are also the cohort who can afford lessons whereas my area has some real social economically deprived areas and those children lose out.

Swim England are always petitioning the government for better access to swimming and Adam Peaty too. Worthwhile looking up what they do and adding your voice.

We lived abroad when ds was born so he was in the water from a few weeks old (complex pool).

He’s a swimmer now but he did lessons through the local pool (UK) as soon as he was old enough. We were lucky it was affordable and accessible.

Even the cost of public swimming is prohibitive for families nowadays. Especially with the limited availability, and shorter sessions alongside the cost

Not disagreeing that the camp my dc was working at was wealthy with virtually no overweight girls.
Just mentioning it as an option that isn’t available to mc in uk.
If dd could have learned to swim at camp at 6 or 7 I wouldn’t have needed to faff with lessons for years. Mine did a crash course one school holiday - took a weeks annual leave but was equivalent to a whole term or something and I could really see benefit. 4 or 8 weeks of daily lessons at camp and the incentive they couldn’t put a toe in water without passing swim test I’d imagine all girls could swim well after one camp.