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.

This is it. Most parents are happy if their kids can do a couple of lengths of breaststroke, head above water. No it's not good technique, but it will help them not to drown and mean they can enjoy themselves in a swimming pool.

What you get with swimming lessons now is literally years of schooling in proper technique, which some kids find it really hard to master. These kids often cannot swim a width without putting their feet down even after years of lessons.

Completely agree. I loved swimming when I was younger, despite the crap technique, and went loads especially when j was old enough to go myself. But my daughter doesn't like it and wouldn't go herself, mainly because she never mastered the technique well. Plus always had sore/ snotty nose from it being underwater throughout.

I found swimming lessons with the stages pretty frustrating with the focus on techniques rather than swimming. My youngest couldn't get to grips with butterfly so was stuck on whatever level for forever. Who needs butterfly. But in the end it was worth it. I personally hate swimming in indoor pools so taking my kids to teach them myself was not an option. I happily would do it in a lake or the sea but pools not for me. School swimming though, you definitely won't learn how to swim

the I’m not a fan of swim england swimming lessons either.
My child is currently stuck at stage 4 because he bends his legs while kicking. he can easily swim 50m in 3 strokes etc.
There are kids at stage 5 and even in early stage 6 lessons who can’t swim a length!
We’ll be stopping lessons next month as its just so frustrating.

A year of lessons age 7 is not nearly enough and only taking her every few months is pretty remiss of you personally - just beginning stage 3 is only working on technique on very small lengths - stage 4 upwards tends to be full lengths of the pool. You need to be taking her yourself - you can’t expect school to do something you aren’t prepared to do yourself and it only tends to be a 1/2 a term of lessons which is nothing

The problem there is your expectation too.

I don't know anyone who has competent swimmers who hasn't either spent years (much more than 1.5 years) taking them to weekly lessons or very regularly taking them to family swim session. Bear in mind that of those 53 lessons a huge amount of time is spent waiting for your turn and watching others.

Most swim schools wouldn't expect you to pass stages any quicker than once per term and even then that's ambitious.

My dc are all club swimmers now but they have all had weekly lessons from age 3 ish (covid gaps unavoidable) and they have all had a range of tuition including holiday intensives and small groups too. I have always been clear that they need to have swimming lessons until the end of primary as a minimum and all have opted to continue into teens.

Having 1.5 years of sporadic lessons in large groups from age 7 will not a safe swimmer make.

Haven’t read everything but saw your comments. My kids had years of weekly swim lessons plus the two months at school but that’s not how they learned to swim really. Best thing we did was go on a couple holidays with pools and go swimming every day. You need to supplement loads at home, once a week for 20 minutes isn’t going to do much.

I think this is what has taken me by surprise and is at the heart of all this. I had assumed that with a year of weekly private lessons - yes she did have these to those people who think I’ve have left it to the school - PLUS a booster from school lessons in Y3 and Y4, she would be able to swim a width and a length at least.

I don’t want her to be good at 5 different strokes including the tricky ones - I want her to be able to swim for a few minutes without touching the bottom with whatever stroke she feels comfortable with. To those who say that school lessons are just about not drowning, I disagree. The techniques they teach them and insistence they learn them correctly are actually in my view meaning they take much longer to get to the stage of being able to do one stroke well and for longer distances. Isn’t this what would get you out of trouble more easily? Surely spending a year giving all the children basic swimming with the strength to do lengths in a few different styles, and then focusing on techniques AFTER that for the keen ones makes more sense?

The cynic in me thinks that it’s in swim school’s financial interests to prologue it, and in Swim England’s interests to raise far more skilled swimmers (rather than those who quickly master staying afloat and getting from A to B) so that they have a bigger pool of talent to cream from later on.

Learning to swim needs lots of practice, not just lessons. The lessons are the foundation, but that needs to be built upon with lots of time in the water. Take her swimming at the weekend, and spend good time in the pool.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the Swim England approach in theory, but it's a bit inflexible for those who don't respond well to it and there seems to be no quality control over swim teachers, so I think a lot of parents are paying out too much for too little.

But it also sounds like your DD isn't really engaging a huge amount in lessons (may be because they've been pretty poor - poor quality teaching can really affect attitude). So I would focus on taking her yourself. Sounds like stamina might be an issue, so do some swimming but spend plenty of time just playing with toys in the shallow end, getting her to dive down for things and come back up, kick a few feet to something, somersault int he water, etc. When it's fun, it's easier to keep going and that builds stamina. If you can afford it, a 2 week summer holiday in a villa with a pool often seems to be effective for kids who just don't progress in weekly lessons (but then you need to maintain it with weekly sessions).

It’s not the schools job to teach your child to swim- you need to get lessons like everyone else does!

It's quite literally on the curriculum. Like many things, without parental involvement the school will be less effective. But it bloody well is their job.

For many children Swimming lessons with school is their introduction to water safety and swimming. Your dd has had some experience but possibly not given her the confidence to progress yet. Maybe try an intensive course, many private schools host them during school holidays if not leisure centres. Does she enjoy going, might the echoey environment, temperature of the water, changing facilities put her off.

They get 30 mins per week. In that time they're usually a group of 8. There will be very little progress at this rate, if you want her to swim better she needs 2-3 lessons per week. Just like maths, English etc. If you only did 30 mins of reading per week that was broken down into 30 seconds every 5 mins or so, you would never finish a book!

You need to swimming at least once a week with her

Children learn at different rates. If your daughter is nervous also then it could easily take 2 or 3 years of lessons with the local council to become a confident swimmer. I would get her back into some lessons and see the school ones as an extra practice. The abilities range so much in school lessons I think it would be difficult to teach. Also with all the holidays schools have they miss so many weeks.

I don’t want to come across as rude but at 9 years old a stage 3 at school lessons will be bottom group (I’m a swim teacher). You’ll have some 9 year olds swimming at club level.

they won’t progress much in school lessons. They do as best as they can but the ability will be so varied

She’s 9, you’ve been to the pool as a family semi regularly and often on holiday and she still can’t swim? You need to invest some effort into this yourself - what do you do when at the pool as a family? Is she still in armbands? It’s great that school are trying to help but it sounds like class behaviour will always inhibit any potential improvement so be a responsible parent and fix it yourself - swimming is a life saving skill. If you can afford holidays I assume you can afford to pop to the local pool occasionally? Sorry, I don’t mean to be a cow. Do you swim? If you don’t and are hard up there are often free holiday courses at town leisure centres for non swimmers in the summer holidays.

The private teaching your paid for doesn’t seem to be any good. Both my kids have had council lessons (didn’t go well/make progress) and private ones (improvement was swift). I think you need a new teacher.

school lessons aren’t really for learning to swim though.

@Nenanena I can thoroughly recommend private lessons.

They 'appear' to be more expensive but if you work out the cost per minute of one to one time they're actually much cheaper.

My DS was getting no where with group classes but has made SO much progress in private lessons it will actually cost me less in the long run as he will get to competent swimmer stage so much faster.

I live by the sea, I had my daughter at private 1:1 swimming lessons at age 4.5 and she could swim a length of pool a year later, however she continued lessons to an advance stage , we wanted her fully confident going in sea where we live, jumping off pier etc. school swimming lessons don’t teach them how to swim

I don’t think you can rely upon school lessons for your daughter to be a competent swimmer. My children had private swimming lessons, never more than 4 in a group and the teacher was in the water. They stopped when they were competent and had achieved all stages. It’s a life skill that all children should have IMO.

I found that the 'crash course' council lessons worked best. They are available at our local leisure centres in the school holiday and they go an hour every morning for a week, which means they don't forget what they are doing in between lessons. Also my children hated going to lessons every week and preferred this.

What are you expecting from a 30 min lesson with multiple kids?! If you feel that strongly about progressing and being a good swimmer it’s up to you as her parent. You should have persisted instead of giving up because it was hard and she was reluctant. Why are you expecting her to be more enthusiastic and engaged with swimming at school than she was when you took her to private lessons.

She needs a proper weekly swimming club with small groups appropriate for her level or 1:1 lessons.

Trying to make a kid who can't actually swim learn butterfly arms is insane. As a kid I swam competitively at county level, Speedo training 3-4 nights/week and they gave up trying to make me swim the butterfly because I was so shit at it😅