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.

£12.50 a month for gym membership? That's amazingly cheap.
I'm up North and have been trying to find affordable gym membership for myself. £29 a month is the cheapest - but that's a 'special offer' for the first 3 months when you sign up to a 12 month contract, with the remaining 9 months being £40.

My DCs are past swimming lessons stage now, but the current cost of swimming lessons is £32.50 a month per child, and the waiting list is currently closed. Our local town pool has shut down, so they need to be booked at the next town's leisure centre 12 miles away. The lessons are weekday afternoons, or Saturday mornings at 8am when there are no buses.

Also, I'm a shift worker, so would be unable to commit to a regular weekly schedule of lessons.

Like I say, I'm past that stage now, but I can absolutely see why some parents would have several financial and logistical obstacles in their way to access lessons.

I agree it's poor, but England (or rather the UK as a whole) is quite bad for places for the public to learn to swim in comparison to other countries.

I was lucky I got lessons from a very young age ( I got my Mile badge at age 6, that's 72 lengths of a standard swimming pool! - my grandad also bought me a game gear for completing it haha.)

But lessons are expensive, many schools can't teach how to swim because they don't have pools, local pools don't always have lessons running at convenient times for them to take their children and the amount and quality of pools is quite poor nationally.

My ex was from Australia and conversely, she was learning to swim at school from primary age. There is a culture here of "We don't need to swim" and I expect you'd see higher rates of children being able to swim at that age in mediteranian countries.

I need to move near you!
Here there's only lane swimming twice a week (once during the day when i'm at work so i can't do it) or for like one hour only on a saturday or sunday.

All the rest is lesson or "free swim" where the pool is a free for all.

As a child, I had the choice of 3 pools, in easy walking distance. Able to be used at any time and affordable. There are significantly less sports facilities now than in the 60s!! Very short sighted, as fit youngsters, able to swim, save money on health, welfare, emergency services in the future. We are a society that's forgotten what's important and fun!

All three of my children could swim from a very early age. I took them myself, and they also had swimming lessons.

Yes, it wasn't cheap, but to me it is a vital life skill.

@Hereforthecommentz
If a child grew up in a place with a lot of swimming opportunites, you learn to swim. I did just by going lots. I never had swimming lessons. I also don't remember not knowing how to swim. School PE swimming lessons growing up were not for learning how to swim. It's just swimming lengths as exercise.

Swimming lessons are expensive. If you don't think it is, then you are much more well off then many in this country. Like others say, if you can't afford to have swimming lessons, you are also likely not go to swim on holidays.

I actually don't like swimming at all. The pools are cold and the changing rooms are dirty.

There’s also obstacles if you have more than one child and are a single parent/single able bodied parent/ have a partner who works a away, in that - supervision ratios of adult to children can rule swimming as a family out.

My kids swam lots, before me and their dad split up when they were 4.5 and 7. They went less afterwards, and had primary school lessons. The youngest also went - with friends in later primary (whilst I observed).

My youngest is a pretty good swimmer now. The eldest is pretty poor.

He hates swimming AND they are both neurodiverse. I believe there is a link between poor swimming skills and neurodiversity.

I went swimming every week in my primary school in KS2. Now so many schools are struggling to offer even a year of swimming because legally it has to be voluntary donations but the cost has skyrocketed due to heating costs, staffing costs etc and parents are struggling to pay the amount that covers it.

I do agree that it would be really good to have more swimming opportunities in schools, but I can see why it’s not happening - essentially money!

To be fair to pp you put none of this info in your post

To be fair I put ear issues and now wears hearing aids in my post.

I also used “I” not “we” which I thought was me indicating that I was on my own with them but apparently not.

Our kids are learning to swim purely for safety. I don't particularly enjoy swimming and although we are fortunate to be able to go away we prefer other types of holiday.

Very depressingly I heard swimming be referred to as the new skiing. Only rich middle class kids get the opportunity. It used to be something cheap you could do as a family so everyone learnt. Sadly it's not just the cost its the available sessions, the length of the sessions and the location of pools.

It isn't always down to lack of money as many pools insist on one adult to one child unless the children can swim. Very hard to do if you are parenting on your own.

I believe that swimming should be a life skill but I'm also hugely sympathetic to how difficlt it is to learn in this country. There aren't a lot of places wher eyou can swim for free - yes, it's an island, but few people are hitting most of our beaches here to teach a toddler - and people don't have swimming pools. Leisure centres fill the need at relatively low cost in some places, but even then - there IS a cost, and it's not just financial. Most lessons are mid afternoon so it means a parent (or paid childcarer) has to take the child after school. In our area, it's laughable how not a single leisure centre or even private gym tht has a pool is anyhwere NEAR public transport so at best, it's a bus ride and a walk if you don't drive.

there were a number of children in DS' class that simply didn't have the ability to learn to swim because the cost and logistics of taking them was too difficult.

Re teenagers swimming in lake and dying etc - it's somethign i feel strongly about and I've insisted that my children come with me to the beach, at some hassle, to start learning about the dangers of water outside of the safe environment of a swimming pool. I also gave them tests IN the swimming pool far beyond what they had to pass at the gym, before I allowed them to stop. But then, I'm from South Africa and am fully aware that I was easily able to learn to swim AND that it can be hugely dangerous.

I also think that quite often, as children get older, being able to swim is the first sort of "class" thing that can impact them. if they can't swim, they can't join their buddies on trips to the beach or to the bigger leisure centres with slides etc. It's the teenager equivalent of the adult who's never been to the theatre or to a fancy restuarant or can't play golf getting excluded/held back in certain workplaces.

More kids are living below the breadline than 1 in 4 so I am not shocked at all

Doesn't surprise me at all. I've had my DC in lessons from newborn basically, so six years now, apart from pandemic lockdowns, and they still are learning and can't properly swim without aids. This is despite weekly lessons and having fun in the pool together on top. They just struggle to grasp it!

Swim lessons are really expensive and not many families can afford them considering it can take a long time to learn to swim, and schools don't always offer it.

The time and money to learn to swim is a privilege many families don't have.

Swimming is a requirement for primary schools to teach. Trouble is the coaches are so horrendously expensive now never mind the hire cost of the pool. Plus the pressure on academics means losing half a day of learning for a 40 minute lesson is hard going.

1 in 4 DC possibly have development coordination problems.
Neither of my DC can swim in a traditional way, they splash about, their coordination is horrendous, nor can they cycle a bike, what can you do.
They both have coordination problems and a genetic muscle disorder with mirrored movements between limbs.
I can't return them.

You’re only allowed 2 kids under 8 per adult at my local pool - I just checked.

how is a single parent to three supposed to take them swimming?

Same reason some are still in nappies. Age 4. Shit parenting.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest unfortunately. In my experience of working in primary schools, most kids get to go swimming twice during their 7 years, usually in KS2, and in blocks of about 5-6 weeks.
Unfortunately, the time they get in the actual pool is really limited. Probably about half an hour tops, and a lot of that time is spent either sat on the side, listening to safety briefings, or hanging onto the edge, waiting for their turn with the teacher.
In all honesty, kids who start school swim lessons as non-swimmers, mostly remain virtually non-swimmers by the end.
Really, if parents want kids who can swim, they need to take on the task of teaching them themselves, either with private lessons, or just casually during family swim times. Unfortunately, lessons are very expensive, and a family trip to a council pool is nowhere near as cheap as it used to be.

My kids are in their late 20s now but were SO lucky that their small primary school booked out the nearby pool every Wednesday afternoon and hired a bus to take the whole school there. However it was also before DBS and excessive health and safety so parents used to be able to help in the pool while the teacher stood on the side. Plus whilst not a rich area by any means, there were very few children who weren't in the SwimSchool system so very few real beginners.

It is so sad that so many children have to miss out on learning these essential skills but I guess the money can only stretch so far and with so many more children needing special assistance these days and budgets being cut by successive governments, something has to go.

What a load of nonsense.

DS wasn’t allowed to swim. Due to disabilities.

He’s a teacher now so I reckon I did ok.

Your swimming lessons and gym membership are both very cheap - not everyone has access to that.

However, it's also still around £40 a month. Many people simply don't have that spare.