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.

Sadly I think you stopped private lessons at a crucial point. I had to fight a bit as my 5 year old had been in stage 2 for 18 months. She kept touching the bottom of the pool because she could. When she was moved to stage 3 she was in deeper water so that safety net was gone, she had to swim and got a lot better. Then our pool (while she was still 5) announced they were closing the pool for 4 months to replace the roof. I immediately went elsewhere to get her lessons as I could not risk her going backwards when she is only really starting her ‘independent’ swimming journey.
I think school swimming lessons have always been a farce, even in the 90s when I went. My friends who couldn’t swim were ‘taught’ in the shallow end, don’t think any of them learnt to swim. I could already swim so was instructed to ‘go to the deep end and swim lengths until it was time to go back to school’ I mean I was pretty happy with the arrangement but there was no teaching involved! The school ones aren’t consistent enough.

You need to take her at least biweekly to see any real progress

I don't really know why people think this its not been true for my kids or my nieces nephews. It does take longer than a year though. In my family young kids get taken to the pool for fun, weekly. Then once they are 5 that's replaced by a weekly 30 min lessons at a good quality swim school - 4/5 kids in a class. They would have all been about stage 3 in a year or so & able do 10m, then would have taken another year/18m to get to stage 5 and be swimming lengths of backstroke, front crawl & breastroke. Then another year/18m to get to stage 7 and be doing 400m/800m badges etc, and swimming all 4 strokes well.

That's just from weekly group lessons. Then most have been ready to stop at about age 9.

It was very similar when I was a kid although children tended to start a year or so later at nearer 6 & finish nearer 10.

School lessons were never enough on their own for most kids to swim well, neither is only one year of group lessons, but you do not need to be going 2/3 times a week to learn to swim.

I do think there is not enough focus on distance nowadays and it means kids have poorer fitness. When I was a kid you did the treading water and blowing up jumpers etc but there was lots of opportunity to get distance badges, I did loads right up to 2k etc, I wasn't in a club or anything. My kids didn't seem to do any distance badges apart from one year when eldest had a teacher who got how much they liked getting them, he got 200, 400 & 800m (she offered a special one off longer session to try for the longer badges) but that teacher then moved on. The swim england syllabus is poor on this, if you follow to the letter I think you only do regular lengths from stage 5 and there's no requirement at all for longer than about 200m.

OP, I've been a teacher for over 40 years. I'm in Australia, so swimming is a must, but even here, school swimming lessons, once a week, one term a year, just don't cut it.

They are a great pre summer boost for those who can already swim, but they're the absolute bare minimum and usually have larger groups than normal swimming lessons.

You may have done well in your swimming lessons years ago, but I'd put money on you not having completely clear recollections of how everyone else was going. In my 42 years, there have always been some students who have really struggled.

As others have said, the fastest progress will come when she swims more regularly. If you can afford it, go back to group lessons but also take her to the local pool at least once a week yourself too.

Take her yourself. Honestly if been in year 3 then not swam regularly she probably gone back a stage. She needs to be taken regularly. Also school swimming lessons are limited as it's literally a block then it's stopped until the next year.

School swimming lessons are notoriously a token gesture/waste of time, and would never get someone swimming who couldn’t swim before (in my opinion). Which is a shame as not all families can afford lessons.

the intensive courses over a week in the school holidays are good for rapid progress

I am a swimming teacher, school swimming is no where near the same as actual going to the staged lessons, and requirements for school are for them to be able to swim basic recognisable front crawl, back stroke and either butterfly or breaststroke for 25m, rather than the full standard wanted in actual lessons.

I predominantly teach schools, and our group sizing is much bigger and the range of abilities in the group can vary widely - I have some complete non swimmers in the same group as stage 3/4 swimmers and can have upto 20 children in the group, which is double what we have as a max in a standard group staged lesson.

Also at stage 3 the requirement is only swimming 5m with feet off the floor, which in a school lesson that might be harder to do due to the way the pool is set up for the lesson.

I would say if you want your daughter to progress to improve you need to go back to group lessons or even 1:1 to help get her up higher.

The way I saw school swimming lessons is as an extra for the majority who already have swimming lessons (I know this depends on area) and an introduction and basics for those that can’t swim at all or swim very little. My children took ages to learn from age 5 and 4 for younger one but they got to a point where it all came together and they are great swimmers now.

I will never understand the need for butterfly. I don't know who invented it but they were a bit dim as it uses a huge amount of energy to get not very far. . Australian Crawl ( what you guys call front crawl) is much more sensible as is breaststroke. Backstroke is underrated. A lot of kids can swim a long way using backstroke as they don't have the breathing issue. None of my very strong swimming teen/adult DC can do a stroke of butterfly. They all grew up on the Northern beaches of Sydney. Besides the Olympics I don't know anyone who can swim butterfly. Pointless.

I know its fustrating but from our experience (similar age), school swimming lessons aren't great.

If you want her to improve you are going to need to enroll her in lessons outside of school, and/or take her lots yourself.

We love water related holidays so the kids being able to swim has always been important to us (and they love it and are very good). But even if you don't do a lot of water holidays, your child is getting to the age where her friends might start having swimming parties or going swimming without parents so you might want to focus on trying to get her skills up this year. Personally I think being able to swim a couple of lengths unaided without getting tired is the minimum you might want to aim for.

Ours maybe did 10 weeks total of school swimming in primary school, they were each 30 minutes lessons. It would have been a bit more normally but the pandemic impacted for the oldest and then everything was out of whack (in terms of which year groups got the lessons) still for the youngest. Fortunately our kids could already swim as they did years of private lessons. With school there were two teachers with close to 30 kids. More than 1/2 maybe almost 2/3's were already reasonably competent swimmers and were in the deep end with a single teacher, and the rest who really needed the lessons, didn't get enough pool time in a 10 week course to make any progress.

I never did well at school swimming, I think it was because I lacked confidence in the water plus was generally unfit, uncoordinated (I am probably dyspraxic) and had so little body fat that I don't naturally float.

Me and the one Muslim girl in my class who used to miss school for months at a time were stuck in the lower group literally for years while everyone else moved up.

I would take her swimming yourself or book private lessons.

School lessons are a waste of time.

I was an overweight kid (still am tbh) but I could and can swim like a fish.

I was stereotyped into the non-swimmer group because I was fat.

So much for confidence building 🙄

i have 4 kids of varying ages. 1 is ASD. The eldest 2 learnt to swim by going to the swimming pool with us, I don’t even remember much beyond saying ‘kick your legs like this’ and they were both strong swimmers by age 7/8. Youngest 2 - Jesus Christ I’ve spent hundreds on lessons, swimming with school for 12 weeks etc and the ASD one still can’t swim! The other one can but I would say that she mainly got confident in holiday with us last year because she was in the pool with us so much.The difference is I don’t take them swimming (unless I’m in a scorching hot country) because I would rather be burned at the stake I don’t have the time. I genuinely think nothing beats going with your adults regularly. I think swimming lessons are designed to make money and very much like teachers the instructors are battling bad behaviour and therefore the teaching bit is harder.

I have to agree re butterfly. Pointless and exhausting! To me it certainly shouldn’t be on any young learner children’s swimming curriculum. If they’re very good/keen and want to learn it later, that’s another matter.

If I were you, OP, I’d start taking your dd swimming yourself. To a nice warm shallow pool where she can practise - and I would hope, enjoy it!

I was taught to swim by my parents. We went swimming at school for a few terms but it’s not school’s responsibility to teach your child how to swim. It’s yours. Most schools don’t have the means to take children swimming! I mean this in the nicest way. It’s like teaching your child how to ride a bike. It’s not part of the curriculum. It’s a life skill that is mainly taught by parents and some schools are just incredibly lucky to get the funding/have accessibility to leisure centres.

I would just take her swimming/book her in swimming regularly with friends. I attribute learning to swim to going pretty much every weekend with my cousins, going on the giant float things they had and having little races 😂

She’ll be fine 🙂 It’s just practise and making it fun. Is there anyone who can go with her on a regular basis? My mum hated swimming so was always my dad who took us

Swimming lessons can really be a waste of time and money. Years of those group lessons with not much change. When DD was about 7 we hired a Spanish villa for 2 weeks with a giant swimming pool all to ourselves. The kids were in there constantly and she almost naturally started swimming properly.

I had school swimming lessons for years. Never learned to swim until I was an adult, and paid for lessons myself. My kids don't get lessons through school, but one of our local pools does summer camps, and that's how they learned - 5 days of proper one-hour lessons in the morning, with instructors in the water with them, followed by a hour of freetime in the water in the afternoon. A couple of these camps, and they were sorted. The intense period and instructors in the water with them makes all the difference.

I stopped paying for swimming lessons at Xmas. Neither of them are going to be swimmers so I didn’t see the point of them learning butterfly and paying £72 a month for them to barely swim. What I want is Thor them to be able to swim at least 25m and be safe in and around water, which was going to take at least another 2 years of lessons! Both improved dramatically on a holiday spent by the pool so I’m now taking them swimming at least once a month and they’ve chosen to do a martial art instead. If I had more money/time with them we’d go more often but I’m a single parent and only get half the weekends with them so it’s harder.

You need to either take her yourself much more frequently or sign her up for lessons and make sure she sees it through. School swimming lessons achieve basic water safety and nothing else. The kids that can't already swim are at a massive disadvantage. Our kids school has a pool, they go in it most days in the summer term (it's outdoor so too cold before then) and tbh I don't think either of mine have actually learned anything from those sessions. They have a great time but that's about it.

Fwiw I've worked as a swimming teacher in the past but wasn't able to teach my own kids (see also, piano playing, ice skating, climbing) because they don't listen to a word I say. I've had to outsource the lot. 🤦‍♀️

No child is going to learn to swim with only school swimming lessons. Mine only gets 6 lessons a year with school. They'd be better focusing them on learning to float and general life saving water safety instead of trying to improve stroke technique really.

I put both mine in swimming lessons until they've completed stage 3/can swim 100m.

We go semi-regularly just for fun but not often enough really but I do also encourage practicing actual swimming when we go - having races with them or seeing if they can swim under my legs and silly things to make sure its not all just standing up and splashing around they can actually still swim too.

I completely agree, OP, even the private lessons seem to be about perfecting the technique instead of first making sure they can swim a length unaided in basic strokes.

When I was at school it was get down the pool any old how to get the distance badge as long as you didn't touch the floor or stop at the ends. Not ideal from a technique perspective but at least you could move yourself. I had to start to learn properly again as an adult but did get a 400m and personal survival award at school.

I agree with pp's that butterfly is a waste of time and should be added at later stages - or only done for fun at the earlier stages to get a bit of a feel for it.

In your shoes I'd start her private lessons again. Sometimes a change of teacher can make all the difference. Everyone should carry on until at least stage 5 and ideally stage 7.

I am in my 40s and remember my school swimming lessons. Once a week for a term for about 30 mins in Year 3. There were three groups. The ones who’d never set foot in a pool at the start of term were using a float by the end. The top group made lots of progress as they could already swim. The ones in the middle it was 50/50. Some learnt to swim (badly) and some didn’t.

Ive also accompanied a class of Y4 children recently on their swimming lessons and it was like watching those videos of people coming from third world countries experiencing escalators for the first time. There was not a chance anyone in that class who couldn’t swim at the start of the year would actually learn how to swim in those lessons. We had to have extra adults ready to jump in to stop the children from drowning!

Absolutely agree. Took DD once a week from when she was a few months old. Then swimming in classes then 1-2-1. She’s an excellent swimmer. You have to get to the confident and enjoying the water bit.