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.

Do you want your child to be able to swim competitively (are they even interested in doing so?), or simply be comfortable enough not to worry about drowning?
If it is just the latter take them to the seaside - they will float much easier. They will have fun, be more confident about getting dunked.
I have always loved swimming and mucking about in water, but with the exception of pools with waterslides etc. I find swimming pools VERY boring.

That's a lot of lessons to go a couple of body lengths. I would think stroke correctness is of little benefit if you do not have the strength and stamina to stay afloat. It's like saying that, unless a baby can run with perfect form, you're not going to teach them to walk. Confidence in water should be the first skill, then strength and stamina. Once they have those then hone in on stroke correctness. I'd suggest making swimming fun with pool toys to swim to or dive to, see who can swim under water the furtherest, float the longest etc

Agree with this. If your school takes her swimming its about basic safety, I think the curriculum says "safe self rescue" after that the aim is to swim 25 metres but if all they learn to do is float then it better than not floating -anything else they learn is a bonus.
Its your responsibility to either teach her or pay for swimming lessons and your responsibility to ensure she practices regularly and improves in skill and confidence if that is what you want

Agree with previous posters. School takes her swimming but the lessons arent always great - its about basic safety, I think the curriculum says "safe self rescue" after that the aim is to swim 25 metres but if all they learn to do is float then it better than not floating -anything else they learn is a bonus.
Its your responsibility to either teach her or pay for swimming lessons and very much your responsibility to ensure she practices regularly and improves in skill and confidence if that is what you want.
We cant expect our kids to be great at everything and to love everything we do, so if its not her thing then its just important that this child is able to remain safe should it unexpectedly end up in water.
It may sound harsh but you cant rely on other people - school teachers or swimming lessons- to just present you with a "fully trained" child.
If you want feedback ask for it and ask what you can do to help. Sounds like she not only needs the chance to build but to maintain her confidence in water

As a swim teacher - ‘self-rescue’ is spot on @Witknit.
i teach both school swimming and the stages, and for many of the things posters are talking about - wanting their kids to simply survive in water - the school swimming curriculum is far superior to Swim England stages.
I am surprised so many parents have such strong views and opinions of the quality of the lessons, when they’re surely not there to see the majority.
I think the curriculum makes absolute sense
25m anything
float on back
tread water 30 sec
climb out deep end
submerge no goggles
and that’s far more important than 10m butterfly or breaststroke with perfect technique.

in fact if I was in charge of swim England, after stage 3, I’d offer 2 pathways. The current SE one, and a ‘survival and stamina’ one which would be a bit like the school swimming curriculum, doing increasing distances and times of treading.

At our local pool, you need to be able to swim five metres in the big pool unaided to be level three. I’m a bit confused if she’s level three she should already be able to swim a width unaided?

What do you expect. It takes years of consistent lessons to learn to swim and you haven't bothered. Not the schools job

Depends on the distance of the width!

exit objective of stage 2 is 5m front and back.

I teach at one swim school where we also would expect them to breathe properly before passing stage 2. So not simply holding breath, pegging it across 5m, and standing up. (Like the ops dd, she would be stage 2)

I teach at another where you can do the last sentence and be in stage 3.

as a swim teacher, the first school is far superior. But ironically, and you can see from the responses on this thread, many parents believe the 2nd school to be superior as they believe their child has progressed faster. They haven’t.

every single time a parent gets involved and tries to tell me their kid should be in a higher stage, it is to the child’s detriment.

My DD5 started weekly lessons this September and I noticed that after a term she wasn’t really making progress and wasn’t letting go of the side even when holding onto a pool noodle/float. I took her swimming over the holidays and we practiced when she was out of her depth in the middle of the swimming pool where there was no side. I think me being with her in the pool gave her some additional confidence over her group lessons and she has really flown since then.

Obviously the level is quite different, but I wonder whether identifying one or two things she struggles with and practicing them with her one on one might help unblock things?

My kids seemed to learn the best on holiday where it was relaxed and fun. They all had paid lessons but they didn’t seem to progress very quickly, but I saw a massive difference in their confidence and ability when we were playing etc. I think you should be taking her to more “fun” swimming type things. Hopefully she’ll relax and just pick it up

Its not the schools responsibility to teach your child to swim. Its yours.

neither of my dc were natural swimmers and didn't progress much at all. in the end i gave up with group lessons and got them 1:1 for a year or so. this got them swimming a little and we went back to group (cheaper) lessons and they did then progress. i could watch all the lessons which was helpful. we got to stage 8 eventually and gave up thankfully. though 1 of them does enjoy swimming as an adult. it does sound like your kids are being asked to do quite difficult things before getting basics mastered op.

Yabu
Some kids aren’t naturals or they need more lessons.

She needs regular lessons with a good instructor.

She’ll get there, but it takes time.

I taught my four all grown now myself, the younger the better, as they got older three went on to be really good swimmers one can swim but doesn’t enjoy it as much. It needs to be enjoyable like most things they learn.

I stopped my oldest child doing the school swimming when he joined a Swim Club because 1) he absolutely hated going and was getting extremely dostressed by the sessions and 2) he could clearly already swim to a good standard. They tried arguing that the cirriculum states they need to be able to swim 25m, I pointed out that he trained twice a week and had swam both 50m and 100m races at this point, so he had clearly far exceeded it anyway.

It's completely pointless for children who are already strong swimmers.

This is a good point

I replied to another comment earlier in the thread and IMO butterfly should be added at a higher stage than it is currently. Most people are never going to do fly if they're not in competitive swimming

Both my DS started by earning badges in splash classes. They both ended up swimming for their county. Swimming sessions should be regular, frequent and with properly qualified teachers. I, myself, was a competition referee. Be very cautious with the butterfly. At a young age it can cause severe damage to the joints and muscles if pushed too hard.

It's completely pointless for children who are already strong swimmers.

this isn’t true. We teach at school swimming all sorts of survival stuff not taught anywhere else - HELP position, side stroke, beach flags, huddle position, survival stroke, go through all sorts of self rescue scenarios etc and also for many strong swimmers, who aren’t good at everything at school, it’s a lovely confidence booster to be top of the class.

So you do nothing with her, she goes once a week for a few months a year and what are you expecting? Do better.
schools have to take kids swimming as part of the national curriculum but it’s getting worse year on year as the entitlement of parents think schools can fix everything. When you’ve got a class of 33 and 20 non-swimmers, the miracles of progress that happen are astounding, yet they barely swim more than 10m after a course if they’ve worked hard.
‘I don’t like the instructor’ is your mentality rubbing off on her - excuses and more excuses.
Book swimming lessons if you can afford to and stop the excuses and get her swimming! Lessons are cheaper than paying for a family to swim weekly so find £5-7 a week - that’s all they cost!

This is just a way for swim centres to make money!. Nobody learns to swim as a baby.

Mine were swimming by 2. They had such confidence from their baby classes

Can other kids in the class swim a width? If they can, it’s your kids inability not the schools

I do understand the frustration with lessons putting a focus on less useful strokes. My son did lessons for a few years but stalled for several terms in the third from the top category because he couldn't get the breaststroke kick properly. He was good at front and back crawl, but wasn't getting to progress at those entirely because he couldn't get a weird froggy kick exactly right. What he really needed was more time spent building up his breathing stamina in front crawl, but he wasn't getting it.

After the third time he failed to pass up, I didn't renew the lessons and got a gym membership instead so he could just go swimming regularly. Within a few weeks he was doing multiple lengths with tumble turns in between (which he learned from youtube). In the summer I might book a few one-to-ones at the gym to help him improve his technique, but more than anything he needed lung stamina. I don't know if he'll ever learn proper froggy kick, if he wants to eventually, he can work on it. But stalling his progress on the more useful swimming stroke, just felt so pointless.

I felt similar about my DDs. They had swimming lessons almost from birth … but age 6 & 7 they still couldn’t swim unaided by floats, wings, rings etc 🤷🏼‍♀️ I did take them frequently. They were completely confident in the water. It literally baffled me. We were on holiday in the Summer and I said whomever could swim a width of our pool unaided first was getting the latest, coveted Barbie doll. DD2 swam straight across the pool! DD1 watched her, obviously thought fuck that and immediately followed her 😂 I think perhaps it just needed to be more incentivised…bribery isn’t always a bad thing. I hated taking them to swimming lessons 😂

Why haven’t you had her in regular swimming lessons or taught her yourself (regularly) if you’ve noticed she can’t really swim? This is down to you as parents, not the school alone. School swimming lessons are notoriously rubbish. Sorry but this is a parenting failure on your part here. Stop relying on everyone else and help your child fffs.