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.

I would agree with this.

I honestly don't think butterfly should be introduced until a much higher stage - I think it's currently stage 4 but IMO should be more like stage 6 or even 7. Realistically most people are only going to swim fly if they go into competitive swimming.

In your shoes I'd be taking her weekly and googling advice for parents on how to teach kids to swim, and also getting her some private 1-1 lessons. Both mine made quite slow progress until swimming clicked for them so aim towards consistent practice.

Dear heavens. Pay for swimming lessons pronto weekly and get this sorted.

I don’t think YABU. I would be shocked too!! My three all had weekly swimming lessons in infant school (put on by the school) for 3 years (reception to y2). All the kids in that school, even the ones who refused to go in the water in Reception, leave by Y2 being able to swim an entire length of the big pool. I know because every other week I’m one of the parent volunteers who goes to the leisure centre with them. My eldest and 5 others in his class who were strong swimmers got their 800m badges age 7. He is particularly sporty, but even my current 6 year old who is not that sporty can swim a length of the big pool. I didn’t take any of them swimming regularly myself, or pay for lessons outside of school. We do go on holiday once or twice a year to places that have swimming pools and they do a LOT of swimming while on holiday. This is where I saw the big leaps in progression, but the swimming lessons built on that in between. Are other children in your daughters class progressing?

The thing that progressed all my kids most noticeably was goggles and learning to swim underwater. Suddenly they can get in the correct position to power themselves forward if they aren’t trying to keep their head above the water. They would come up for gulps of air then go back down again. Gradually they learnt to stay above the water. If you are on holiday this yr with a pool make sure you have a few different pairs of goggles (some work better than others) and practice this with your daughter, it might help her progress

Exactly this. You wouldn’t expect a child to learn to read if they only had a block of once a week lessons for ten weeks! Same with swimming, it’s about building on basic skills - which she has as she can swim 6 m , and gaining confidence and stamina. Concentrate on breast stroke and front crawl and work on the breathing as it is different for both.

I think school organised swimming lessons are extremely inconsistent.

I have two very competent swimmers, one who is swimming competitively, one who recently joined the club. Neither made progress with the school lessons.

Just take her yourself on a weekly basis if you are not bothered by technique.

It's practice that is required, week in week out. To build confidence and then techniques and stamina.

By learning the strokes correctly eventually leads to faster and strong techniques. Being able to swim further for longer and in a life saving situation that's what you want.

If you just want water confidence and one length you can teach that. Get her dong handstands and summersaults to get used to her face in the water - she won't panic then if she ever falls in. Teach her to roll onto her back and float like a star fish -they teach float to life and then finally treading water so she can stay in one place if needed.

When I was at primary school in the 90s I don’t recall learning much at all. It was the standard situation of it you could already swim your swim, not sure what the others did 😂 they never taught me anything though and we didn’t work towards badges. You’d have to be in a swimming club or lesson out of school to do that.

I learnt to swim from my mum and regularly going to the pool at weekends or in the holidays.

Badges are still a thing at group or private lessons. My son goes and is currently in year 2/age 7. Hes been going since he was 3.5, used to kick off, maybe until he was 5. Hes now doing stage 3. I've also questioned why butterfly wiggle when he can't get breaststroke or front crawl right. He can however swim okish backstroke. I won't take him out of out of school lessons until hes done all his badges (up to 7) whatever is happening at school. My husband learnt at 30 due to only having school swimming.

Swimming teacher here and whilst frustrating after a year of lessons, some kids just need more practice. The child also needs to want to swim. The kids that fly through the stages are often the kids that swim regularly with the families.

Learning the right techniques has such an important place in swimming. Not just to be club swimmers but also if you want to swim for fitness/health. I agree butterfly isn’t of any real importance for leisure centre lessons and it’s never my focus, more a fun activity at the end of pretending to be dolphins or mermaids!

1-1 lessons should really help especially if supported by you taking them once or twice a week (in an ideal world!)

My children went to a primary school with its own pool - large classes - no chance the children, particularly the ones who lacked confidence were going to swim more than a width.
We live near the coast so prioritised swimming and water confidence. Lessons at the leisure centre stage 1-7 and going as a family (it was fun and we went weekly).
If you want her to swim you either need to teach her yourself and go weekly or put some money behind it with structured lessons.

For us, we ended up saving money on 1 to 1- like you, we went every week for 2 years with little progress. Changed to a 1-1 (more expensive lesson) and she finished all of the 'levels' in 9 months and was a very confident swimmer- so we stopped paying for them. She's an adult now and still swims for a stretch out etc. She learnt the techniques and went from there.

I often see school swimming lessons and I wouldn't expect them to learn much from a term of those. Today there were 30 lids all in the training pool and 2 teachers. So much going on, they just don't have much of a chance to learn a lot.

Private swimming lessons worked well for my daughter to get all the technique down and then I took her regular to practice and build stamina. She's stopped lessons a year ago but because she had the good grounding in the technique she's doing really well with building stamina with me. I bough the badges online and award them to her myself for the distances. I think it's a much better way of doing it. I never learned good technique as a kid. I can swim good distances but can't do front crawl properly..my daughter is already much better than me.

To be honest schools will take the entire class probably. They will need to make provision for the children who are scared to take their feet off the bottom, or even scared to get in the water, right up to those who can swim a range of strokes out of their depth for some minutes. Plus I bet they aren't in the water long by the time they allow changing time for all the kids. If you want your child to swim properly change your "we go swimming as a family every few months" to we go swimming as a family every couple of weeks, or get her some more lessons.

I agree OP. Are they really teaching butterfly arms??!

If you can afford to, get her private 121.

I might go against the grain here but I kind of understand your point that just being able to swim in one stroke is most important. I am a keen and strong swimmer since I was very young and can comfortably swim 2.5 miles without stopping. I never had any lessons, my parents took me at least weekly and taught me and they had no swim teacher experience. I do remember school swimming and I taught 2 other kids to swim.

My advice is go as much as you can yourself. Make it fun, get some toys off Amazon like diving sticks to retrieve, that’ll also encourage going under water. Once they like being in the water, use the sticks to encourage going further, make it a game e.g if you swim to it without touching the floor 3 points, minus 1 point for every touch down. Don’t make it a chore.

Swimming is such an important skill but best not to hate it!

She needs to practice more frequently, of course she isn’t going to progress in group lessons at school. How much time are they even in the water?!

Forget about the school swimming lessons. Even when I was a kid, they were utter rubbish.

Book her in for proper lessons. My kids had weekly lessons from age four to eleven.

On top of that,we went to our local pool weekly during the summer hols so they could play around and have fun in the water.

It's not the school's responsibility it's yours as the parent.

She just needs pool time

She'll get it

Can I point out that while offering swimming as an opportunity is on the curriculum... the overacting aim is to be able to swim 25m by the end of KS2. Thats it. If you want her to achieve this faster or exceed it you will need to put in the donkey work yourself and pay for private lessons or take her more regularly. Many parents see this as a necessary skill which they are not going to leave to bargain basement swim group lessons (which schools almost always are- especially if offered at subsidised or no cost to parents). The aim of the national curriculum is basically to give children a chance of not drowning if they fall in the river. I seriously would advise against critiquing the school as swimming is the least of their problems and your child would be considered to still be ok as she has two years left anyway and they have no control over the swim school spec. The leisure centre will simply brush you off with something along the lines of thank you for your feedback, we follow the national guidelines blah blah blah. Bottom line.

I am a swimming teacher and can echo what others have said. It is difficult to learn to swim in half an hour a week if you don’t go as a family as well. If you take them yourself, then you can reinforce what has been learned in the lesson and also have fun in the water so her confidence improves. Otherwise 1-1 lessons are the answer but practice in between is still needed.

We do private lessons in a private pool. Lots of companies do that sort of thing now. Two adults with 4 children. Cheaper than 1 to 1 but still lots of attention. My 6yo started in September and can already swim 7-8 metres in 3 different strokes. She is very confident in the water though. I have friends whose children started lessons at the local pool at the same time and they're not doing as well as she is. I think because the class sizes are bigger?...I'm not sure.

School swimming lessons are utterly pointless. The ones who can't swim don't actually learn and the ones who can just bumble about doing nothing much. My 8 year old can swim 1000m and swims with her club 3 times a week and they won't even let her into the deep end in school swimming. I understand why as they have to cater to everyone but she gets nothing out of it at all.

She learned to swim through a mix of leisure centre lessons and a weekly 1-1. It was expensive but neither of us can swim at all so we were never going to able to teach her.