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.

My kids swim independently from the age of 2 but they had private lessons in small groups since they were babies and we took them swimming on most rainy weekends instead of soft plays

You need to take her yourself and teach her yourself. Also, 121 private lessons. You don’t need to learn 4 strokes, you need to swim lengths. Also, dive in, and pick up weights from the bottom of the pool and diving in and turning at the end of the lengths. Speed swimming. My parents also paid for life saving lessons, so I learnt swimming in pyjamas and dragging another person lengths of the pool in pyjamas. This is life lesson compulsories.

school swimming is 30 minutes of the teacher explaining health & safety and getting in the pool before it ends. That’s it. It’s the class larking about and behaviour issues of large groups, nothing gets done.

This simply isn’t true. School swimming is mostly completed by independent leisure centres with their own swim teachers, so they wouldn’t have a clue who the trouble makers are. The only time this wouldn’t happen is if the school have their own pool and qualified swim teacher on site which isn’t going to be very frequent.
I do the assessing for our schools, because I’ve got lots of experience and you need that to be able to accurately get the children in to the right groups as quick as I can so we don’t waste teaching time. I ask Tim to swim across the pool front crawl that’s it. And then I look at his frontcrawl. I have absolutely no idea if Tim is a trouble maker.

Change to a different leisure centre maybe? My DD was bottom group forever, swapped centres and shes flown through the stages. Think they just keep them down sometimes to bleed more money out of you.

All three of my kids seemed to take forever to learn to swim when having lessons. They went week after week, never seemed to make much progress - as you said, the teachers mostly seemed to be about technique rather than stamina or distance. But then, all of a sudden, it all seemed to come together, and they could swim really well, in all strokes (except butterfly - they'd been taught it but never really go to grips with it).

The best thing for them though was spending hours in the swimming pool on holiday. All day every day for several days. They learned more about swimming then than they ever did at swimming lessons, in my opinion.

Hi, my daughter works for Puddle ducks/ Swim Academy swim school. She started as a poolside assistant and has now been a qualified swimming teacher for nearly two years. I would very much recommend giving them a try for your daughter's lessons, they have small class sizes and a brilliant teaching method.

School swimming lessons are designed to give children who otherwise would never get taken to a pool a chance to learn the basics. Children are meant to be able to swim 25m befire they leave year 6, according to the national curriculum. In reality, it's not possible to teach 30 non swimmers with such limited time in the pool and so many children. You need to pay for more lessons or take her every week for a while yourself. My eldest child is now a competitive swimmer but had over 4 years of lessons before he could swim a length well. My youngest child started swimming a little later but took less than 2 years to swim a length. Same teachers, just different children. If id left it to school, neither of them would be able to swim.

Seriously, butterfly? That's ridiculous. A strong front crawl , and back stroke for speed and distance. with side crawl for lifesaving ..that's what you need. Butterfly..for what? A useless for anything stroke .

I’m a qualified swimming teacher. I used to go and help with school swimming lessons. The lessons weren’t great, apart from the group I used to take, obvs.

The best lessons are with a swimming club. I taught with our local club and the children had lessons in small groups of four or five. A teacher would go in the water with the beginners. The children made very good progress.

The other thing that really helped OP was finding a friend who was a better swimmer than my daughter and doing a few joint swimming trips with that family. The peer pressure to try to properly swim with the friend helped lots more than the lessons.

@Villanousvillans does your local swimming club do lessons for non-swimmers? Ours has try-outs (minimum age is 8), and you need to be able to swim a length in 4 strokes at a semi-competitive time….
Lessons for beginners are local leisure centre, and private providers.

If you’re taking her in the pool, couldn’t you just teach her yourself?

Swim lessons through school are usually not progressive and dare I say just ticking a box for some schools. If you want your child to learn this life skill you will have to get private/group lessons and get her to the pool to practise in between lessons. One school swim class my 10yr old was on had the kids in the water for 20mins out of the hr!

Sorry but I echo what others have said here, school swimming lessons ( particularly when farmed out to local council pools) are way too short ( much of lesson spent travelling and changing), overcrowded and chaotic. A good swimmer may get a little better , but a non swimmer or poir swimmer may regress as differing or confusing emphasis on different styles / methods. You do need to take your child yourself , or pay for 1:1 and monitor/ sit poolside.

Another one that thinks school lessons are a bit rubbish. Not necessarily because they are school ones as ours were at the leisure centre but because you get one maybe two terms of lessons.

When my daughter did it, they split the class into 3 groups of 10. The top group just did lengths, the middle group were in the main pool working on technique (probably stages 3 and 4) and then the rest were in the teaching pool learning the basics.

A year later when they did the next term, the top group expanded and had split into two lanes as the club swimmers were much better than the other good ones, the middle group were generally doing slow lengths and most of the people in the teaching pool a year earlier were still there. Basically the gap between the top and bottom had widened.

School swimming lessons are not great at all.
She's is getting older so you need to invest in regular 1-1 or 2-1 lessons - you might find teacher away from the sausage factory leisure centre lessons that will help her..we actually paid for twice a week lessons for my one DC when he wasn't making enough progress in group lessons and that did the trick - did that for about a year and now he is happy in group lessons. Swimming is a life skill - so so important to not just be able to swim but to be a strong swimmer as you never know what sea/current /pool could cause difficulty in the future.

I think blaming the school and lessons is the wrong answer. A lot of blame goes with the children, they just dont listen and before you have a go at my answer i taught childrens swimming for years. She needs to go regularly to a pool and there is no point in swimming lengths and working towards badges until she has the basics. if she doesnt have the basics with the amount of lessons she has had then you need to look at your daughter instead. She is obviously not listening.

Yes, from age five complete none swimmers. The club has realised that teaching them, correctly from scratch, results in better swimmers.

Maybe she just wants to have fun in the water and learn to swim to a basic level. Why don't you try take her to your local leisure centre and have some relaxed time together.

And maybe she just doesn't like swimming. Not all kids do.

I’m always surprised with the obsession with swimming.

Some people can’t play basketball.
Some people are no good at athletics.

Why do we think that all kids will be excellent swimmers?

I did swimming lessons for years at school and still can’t swim a length. I excelled at other sports. And that’s ok.

Before anyone jumps in with the safety aspect - I get it. You want to give your kids those skills. But you can still do that without expecting your kid to swim laps on end.

My eldest is 40. I took her swimming every week from about 3 months old. She had some private lessons when she was about 5 to improve her stroke, but she could already swim and was very confident in the water. By the time she has school swimming sessions she was a club swimmer. My parents took us swimming as young kids, my children take their children swimming from being babies. Most of their friends do too.

I was told that the swimming lessons in Y4 are less about teaching kids to swim and more about teaching them to be safe in the water ie. Treading water, floating etc

Disclosure - I don’t know how true that is, but compared to the private lessons my son had, it seems that way

In terms of feedback from private lessons, our swim school has an area for parents to watch so you can see for yourself how they’re getting on and can (briefly) speak to the instructor afterwards, however if they have concerns of advice they approach you.

Based on what you've said I’d look at other swim schools but also be taking her to the pool more often to increase confidence - this is a big part of being able to swim.

Mine has had swimming lessons and started at 1b now 1a but not keen on being out of depth though swims ok. Paused lessons and taking him weekly myself to keep up his ability. He goes with school next year but I think they concentrate on non swimmers though may be totally wrong. He loves going with me though I don’t make him go out his depth but is happy jumping in and going under. I think he gets school lessons next year but probably they concentrate on non swimmers though might be talking rubbish. I feel it’s a non negotiable skill given the loss of life of children you hear about drowning each year so will continue with the visits.

I don't swim with my face in the water, although I can do it I'm not comfortable so I just keep my head out and I'm fine, or I swim more on my side so my head is naturally out of the water. Might not be conventional but it works for me and might work for your daughter if breathing is what she's worried about. Along with others I too think you should take her swimming and walk along beside her with the flat of your hand just touching her tummy so she gains confidence. She'll be swimming in no time, I'm sure!

You want your kids to learn to swim but make no effort to do it and then blame the school for it. She’s in the right group, she can’t swim.