Kids swimming lessons - slow progress and been going for years!

[bananasplitsallround]

My DC are 9 and 7. Both have been to group swimming lessons since they were 5 years old. Progress just seems so slow. My youngest still can’t really swim very far, maybe 10 meters in a pool where he can touch the bottom. Eldest just got his 400m badge. But this is after 4 years of weekly lessons!

Some of the same kids are still in their class so they aren’t necessarily progressing any faster either.

I never had private swimming lessons as a child. At primary school I think I had a couple of half terms of lessons. Never went swimming with family unless on the annual beach holiday. But I was a relatively confident swimmer by around 10/11 years.

Are years of weekly lessons really necessary to learn to swim confidently these days or have I just been suckered into committing to lessons that would never have made a difference to their ability to swim in the end anyway?

AIBU to stop my older child’s lessons?

Maybe we just started too young?

When is the right time to stop?

The water safety risk always plays on my mind hence why we just keep going. Any advice welcomed!

How much total swimming time are they actually getting?

A 30 min lesson with 6 pupils who are non swimmers is 5 minutes of ‘swimming’ time per child.

Lessons will do technique, but they won’t consolidate the skills or build the stamina or get the practise.

Realistically to make meaningful progress need to be going swimming with them to give time to build that water movement familiarity and work on stuff from lessons.

Do they swim outside of lessons? I had swimming lessons as a kid but not consistently for years but my mum took us swimming every week for fun. Ditto with my children. Both had lessons from about 4 to 7 but we also stayed and played at the pool and went on weekends so they got confident with being in the pool.

Continuing lessons are really for children who want to swim in competitions and perfect their strokes.

Mine made the most progress with week long intensive courses in half terms. It did involve 8am starts but I think the daily repetition really helped, especially at the early stages.

Part of why it takes ages though is the swimming curriculum- they learn all sorts of stuff that I don’t think was ever covered in my lessons as a child. Particularly the very early introduction of all four strokes - quite why a child in stage 3 who can barely swim a width of very mediocre front crawl needs to spend weeks learning “dolphin kick” I don’t know.

I totally agree about the intensive half term lessons. Mine did a year age 5 of regular lessons and then gave up regular lessons and did maybe 3 week long stints plus we went to caravan parks in the holiday where they swam every day. By 10 he was a really strong swimmer who could do all the strokes and then just did water polo/diving classes for fun.

Don't always be so quick to dismiss the younger teachers. The teachers in this category at our leisure centre are almost all current or ex competitive swimmers, who reached a fairly high standard themselves (at least County, but often Regional and above) and have been volunteering poolside alongside coaches with the younger club swimmers since they were 14yo.

I agree with PPs that taking them to a 30min lesson once a week isn't enough for any meaningful progress. They need regular unstructured swims with family where they can consolidate their skills, grow their confidence and develop a proper 'feel' for the water. It's similar to learning to read: you have to practice regularly at home on top of school phonics lessons to make decent progress.

Well this is just nonsense. The only skill I agree most U10s wouldn't be able to master is sustaining multiple consecutive lengths of Swim England standard butterfly, as DCs just don't have the strength yet, but even that will have a few outliers.
As for age 6-10 just being a splash about: my DCs completed stage 7 at 7yo and 8yo respectively. It is achievable if you take them for extra swims once a week/fortnight. If all your DCs are doing is splashing about, I would be having firm words with them about focusing in lessons and putting in the effort, and moving them to a swim school/teacher with better behavioural management.

We love supporting our local young coaches, babysitters etc! I was one! However, in our case, there was a difference between a 16 year old (so maybe max two years experience volunteering alongside a coach) vs a 40 something swim coach who does it for a living. Double the price and rightly so. There is certainly a place for both and once our son has full confidence in the water we may well go back to the other swim school with the younger ones. Maybe I am just SUPER impressed with the quality of swim teachers and progress at our current place, so just sharing our experience which made all the difference.

One of my kids got stuck on a level for years. Turned out she had coordination difficulties.

My other child seems to be shooting up the levels now. But the first 4 years seemed slow. I dont remember it being like this as a kid (but I imagine my mum would remember the hours sat by the pool)

DS7 goes to swim school, I have no idea what curriculum they are following. They are really good at moving them through the groups depending on their progress. It’s a private one at a hotel pool. 30 mins once a week.

Small group classes, he started when he was 5, so he has been there just over 2 years and recently swam 600 meters. He is a fish and loves to swim, although he feels ready to leave as he can “swim” but I just want him to get a bit stronger and work a bit more of safety and stamina and then we will then look at proper clubs.

Oh swimming lessons are the biggest con going….i and my whole class age 7/8 learned to swim in a 10 week course at school and comfortably swimming 50m at the end of it…some of us further. Swimming lessons are £££ and of course it is in the swimming schools interest to keep that gig going as long as long as possible. I don’t know how you find a good swimming teacher/school….it should never take 4 years tjough

Once they know the basics its confidence and practice. Taking them yourself for fun times will help. By age 10 I was taking myself swimming but I doubt I could swim more than 50m in 1 go

Mine is 11 years old.

And has been going since she was 4- with break for covid.

She's really good.

And level 6 . Only got one level more. She's at the level where I could stop her lessons at any time really.

Her younger sister is at level 4. So I really just keep taking her every week cos her younger sister is going anyway and they get the exercise. She'd probably swim a lot less if she wasn't going to the lessons. And her proficiency would decrease.

Also if they are having the lessons. They are able to go swimming for free throughout the month at the leisure centre.

I often puzzle over this. My mum kept my swim towel from primary and it has all my ASA badges for 800/1000 metres. When I was ten I did two terms in a Scottish school and got put in for a 2000 metre race. I was a strong swimmer by then. And yet I don’t remember ever having lessons or being taught technique! On the other hand my school abroad (before Scotland) had a pool and we swam at least once a week.

i must have spent thousands on my now 8 and 11 year old’s lessons! We live by the sea so I want them to be strong swimmers. What has made a difference for my eldest is bringing him to the pool together once a week in the evening and doing lengths with him. I got chat gpt to make a training plan for a 10-11 yr old. And this past year he’s had a super teacher who focuses on technique. So I’m working on the stamina with him.

As a swimming teacher, I have never been asked to hold children back to keep money coming in. NEVER.
Some classes are big ,so progress will take longer because the teacher has more swimmers to teacher.

Smaller classes are more expensive, but you should see more progress, or be able to pick up issues such as poor coordination quicker.

Stage 5 is generally a stage to reach. They've covered all 4 strokes, done some distance badges and some water safety.

Its all in the practice. 4 x 30 mins swimming per month isn't much , so we encourage family swimming. Holiday swim courses.

Few of us make it to the Olympics, but weak swimmers are among the victims of drowning, so perhaps to swimming together, and /or look for smaller classes.

Good luck 👍

@Isekaied can I ask which swim programme your two are doing so I can look up the levels? And see where my two might sit in terms of levels. Their current xcrllent teacher is a former competitive swimmer so she’s not following any levels plan etc

It's the Swim England one.

Level 7 is the last level in that one.

Though they can go further with rookie lifeguard training. My 11 year has done the bronze Rookie Lifeguard training. The leisure centre do extra courses in the holidays.

I think 400m is pretty impressive so your older child feels like quite a strong swimmer to me.

I do think that it's all about practice. 30 minutes a week is not enough. We used to swim before and after swimming lessons, and regularly went for a swim on weekends and in the holidays too. Bit tedious for me, butimportant.

Once they're quite confident in the water, the swimming lessons are just giving extra technique but you should be able ot get them to get stronger by encouraging them to swim lengths, practice jumping or going under etc.

I’m sorry, I think swimming lessons are very close to a scam, they’re certainly a scheme. Cancel. Book a holiday somewhere with a pool, or take a week locally. Swim every day with your child. Job done.

Similar enough here in that eight and ten-year-old have been going for a couple of years and still not great. To be honest 400 meters sounds brilliant to me!!
I've taken mine out of lessons for now and we're making an effort to go to the pool once a week to just play and swim. Going to arrange private lessons for them after Christmas

Best thing you can do is go swimming with them. Have fun and horse around, it’s great for confidence in water and I always enjoyed it.

We had a similar experience here with regards to private swim school versus Swim England. I pulled the child from private swim school after 2 years of very little progress. Put them in a Swim England council pool and they really started to make progress. My second child has gone straight into Swim England classes and is equally doing well. I think the ability to be able to track the child's progress each week with Swim England is the important factor. With the private swim school there was no posted curriculum, no updates, and to be honest, i think they took advantage of that. Incidentally that private swim school is no longer running anymore...

Thanks everyone for your input. All very insightful comments. I think we probably need to stop our 9 year olds lessons as he doesn’t really enjoy it and sees it as a chore rather than something he does for fun or genuine interest. We’ll definitely look at a 1:1 intensive for our youngest!

My youngest three children started lessons aged 7/8 so that it was a faster process.

Eldest started aged 5 and mucked around. We stopped him for two years then restarted aged 8/9 and he sailed through the programme very fast.

My 7yo has had almost 3 years of 30 min lessons (started in Jan of reception, now year 3) and is in Silver in the Better swim school so 25m in all strokes, though he got a 50m badge 6 months ago in front crawl (breast stroke is his weakest).

We don’t have time to take him weekly on top of his lessons so other than holidays and the odd family trip (maybe once every few months) he just has his lesson time. I’m happy with his progress. DC2 is in her third term of lessons at just turned 5 and is in green (swimming 5m) so I’m also happy enough tbh. We will probably stop when DC1 completes Gold, which is 50m in all strokes + lifesaving skills, unless anyone tells me different!

I went through similar and ended up paying for private lessons. The teacher was really good and got them stronger and up to speed. No faffing around with dolphin and backstroke. Just improving lengths of crawl and breaststroke.