AIBU to question school swimming progress when DD still can’t swim a width?

[Nenanena]

Dd is 9. We go swimming as a family every few months and spend longer in the pool on holidays. She did a year of swimming lessons when she was 7 at the local leisure centre. Moved from Stage 1 to just beginning stage 3 but didn’t like the teacher and felt intimidated in the deeper water. Persisted for a bit despite not enjoying it and then got upset so we stopped lessons. About 6 months later started swimming in Y3 at school (at same leisure centre). Did 12 weeks. Initially got put in complete beginning group, when we flagged up she had been in stage 3 they moved her up. Currently halfway through another term of swimming in Y4. I got to see the lesson the other day as helped walk the kids to the centre.

Dd was in the ‘bottom’ group. They didn’t even have a width to swim in because of way pool was arranged. Some of the kids were mucking about so the teacher had to do quite a lot of behaviour management. They seemed to do loads on technique and isolating arms, legs etc and less focus on stamina and distance. She still can’t swim more than 6m unaided without putting feet down. Face always expected to be in water so think she isn’t breathing well. I’m shocked. We get no feedback about progress (was the same with private lessons). When I was at school we worked towards badges. You aimed for a width then a length etc and progress was fairly rapid. What’s the point on working on butterfly arms if you can’t even do a width of an easier stroke? Makes no sense to me.

You can definitely outsource swimming. I wouldn't have a clue how to teach someone to swim.

Yes - swimming teachers do courses on how to teach - they don't just rock up and tell a child to swim down the pool.

Or more accurately, to facilitate that learning.

However, water safety is the life skill, not swimming. So water safety is the thing to concentrate on.

I'm not sure if be much chop at teaching water safety either. I'd be able to teach an awkward, energy using doggy paddle, but having seen the way that the swimming teachers teach kids to float by adjusting them subtly in the water, and how they get them to be efficient when they swim so they don't flail away all their energy in the first few minutes is beyond me and my (school & council lessons taught) ability to swim.

I can bob about in a pool on holiday, but I don't get any pleasure from swimming and I'd never do it for exercise. My DS, who has been in lessons since 6 months old, adores swimming and finds it a great joy. That in itself is worth the cost of lessons for me, setting him up to have an activity he can enjoy through his life.

Take her for private lessons. I took my daughter every Sat morning from age 3. She went all the way through to stage 10 & then chose life guarding. She subsequently qualified as a pool life guard. Consistency is key. School swimming is pretty pointless!

So unreasonable. You are the person with primary responsibility for her education. You've delegated some to a school who have taught her the basics. School have other things to teach her, they can't do everything. Maybe take a bit of responsibility for the child you chose to bring into this world?

Sorry for the slight derail from the ops thread. But a number of people have questioned how she can be stage 3 and not be able to swim 5m. It's something I've found often on swimming threads that people assume the way their child's swim school interprets the stages is the same as others. At the swim school both my Dd's went to (youngest still does and oldest swims for a club) the children had to be able to swim 10m without aids and be starting to do over arms strokes before they'd even pass them for stage 1. The descriptions on the certificate have always been a bit ridiculous and nowhere near met with there ability. Youngest Dd is now stage 6 and doing 200m just as a warm up (50m of each stroke). The lack of consistency between swim schools make the stages a bit meaningless really.

as a swim teacher who teaches in 2 different swim schools who are on opposite ends of the interpretation, @Conflictavoidanti would say the blame for this lies entirely with parents demanding progression. And for them progression means moving through the stages as quickly as possible. Precisely what the op has done. Whereas if they left it to the teachers who know what they are doing to teach, actual progression would be made. The far superior swim school I teach in does not pass out of stage 2 until they are actually breathing front crawl properly, with rotation to the side; they can often kick easily 200m on their back by then, as that is needed to breathe fc properly. The other swim school I teach in, where the private owner basically does whatever a parent requests in order to keep their money with her, will pass out of stage 2 at a parents demand because their child can swim 5m. Utterly to the detriment of the child who may well end up in stage 7 still not rotating. The children who get taught breathing properly, and spend time isolating leg kick in stage 2, fly through 6/7/8 in weeks.

@arethereanyleftatall your post is interesting as it does sort of show what many have suspected for a long time that the stages are absolutely not comparable across different locations or teachers. From a parental perspective, I don’t really care what the actual stages are but want to understand what the goals are and whether my children are progressing and improving.

My youngest is now doing a learn to swim programme with a swimming club that doesn’t follow the asa stages at all and I prefer it. The teaching is much better and sounds more like your school 1 (lots of focus on breathing and technique early on). It’s really noticeable that even the little ones have beautiful front crawl.

@Bunnycat101

the criteria is ambiguous.

stage 2 criteria is 5m.

then it’s the own swim school that decides how good that 5m should be.

you can get a swimmer holding their breath, kicking for 5m.

you can move them up if you like, but you’ve still got the approx one years work to do somewhere of breathing, kick and rotation.

I took my daughter swimming about every second week when she was very young but she was reluctant to swim alone without any aids. I was concerned thst she still couldn’t swim by the time she was 5 so when she became desperate for a hamster, I told her she would get one the day she swam a length on her own. The next day she wanted to go swimming and immediately swam a width and then two lengths. The only problem was that it was a Sunday and we had to drive for a couple of hours before we found a pet shop that was open and which had hamsters in stock 🤣🤣

What a ridiculous comment. And not one you'd dare to make to the OP's face.

I assume you do know that swimming teachers do training and CPD to teach kids (and adults) to swim?

My mum used to pay me 2p every time I jumped into the pool. It's amazing how well such incentives work!