To expect swimming lessons to be successful after 3 terms

[squilly]

My dd is 7 and has been attending swimming lessons all this school year. She's gone from being afraid to put her head under the water to confidently floating on her tummy and making the appropriate ball, star, pencil shapes, coming up for air inbetween (and sometimes spending 2 minutes sweeping the hair out of her face). It's fair to say, she's not a natural in the water.

Buf ffs, if she was, I wouldn't have to spend money on swimming lessons for her. That's the point isn't it? That they teach her to swim?

I sit in the pool area every week and listen to the instructor yelling out the names of other kids in the class, instructing them on what they should be doing, but my dd is quiet, does as she's told and gets her head down, so doesn't often get mentioned, even.

SO...at a cost of £75 a term, x3 terms, with the same instructor, am I being unreasonable to expect dd to come out of her classes being able to swim?

None of mine learnt to swim until I got in the water with them and showed them myself, held their legs, arms etc etc and then they were off. Usborne books, teach your child to swim
I wasted so much money on lessons, I wish I'd never bothered tbh.

My dd stayed in he same class for 5 blocks of ten weeks. I normally went to swim in the main pool while she had her lesson because I found watching her so frustrating!!Lots of bobbing up and down and playing about by dd and not much listening to what she was supposed to be doing!
Eventually after she had failed to move on for the 5th time I went to watch. By now she had a new teacher who completely ignored my dd and spent much of the lesson chatting to the life guard and one of the other mums. I decided to move her to a different pool all together and she came on leaps and bounds. She went from being hardly able to swim at age 8 to getting her gold award at 10. This also coincided with her having some lessons with her school and the combination of the 2 seemed to do the trick. I appreciate that my dd's lack of attention initially was not helping but a good teacher should have addressed that or stopped taking my money if they weren't able to each her to swim. Definately worth perservering imo. Being able to swim has so many advantages.

I was wondering whether a new teacher might be the answer. But you know how kids are with these things. They get kind of fixed. I've given it some more measured/less knee jerk type thought and I think I'll ring the swimming instructor first. Apparently a friend of ours has done that and got some peace of mind from it, if nothing else. It will at least help me see what the instructor thinks of my girls progress and whether he even knows who she is! And it'll allow me to state that I don't think she's had enough attention this last couple of terms, which might make me feel better.

My DH says that the guy will just talk me into enrolling her again, but I don't think that's such a bad thing. As many of you have said, it's not a straightforward process and it could just be that it hasn't 'clicked' with her yet. My main problem is I can't see how it will click...but I guess that's the problem with complex skill based things like swimming/reading, etc..

I do feel better listening to what other mums have to say as it at least puts things into perspective for me. DD was the only child that got kept on from last term, and she's one of the oldest, so I guess I was feeling a bit precious about it all. Also, she's a PFB so I don't see she can do any wrong

Removing myself from the competitive mum frame of mind and reminding myself that dd is human, I can see that she's just not there yet. I still think the instructor is a bit lax and hasn't really given us anything solid to work at this last 6 weeks that hasn't been covered to death already, but there are 10-12 kids in the class at any one time, so it's not going to be dedicated teaching.

Off to call the guy and have a ponder. To swap or not to swap? To crash course or not to crash course? To self teach (which means baring my thighs, which would be cruel to the rest of humanity) or not to self teach? Food for thought!

Another problem I found when they are kept back is each term a new intake of smaller kids arrive and the lesson seems to go back to what your child can already do and not seem to go over what is stopping them moving on.

squilly - how often do you go swimming for fun inbetwen the lessons?

We had to go every weekend as well for some fun in the water before the swimming lessons began to make a difference.

IMO it's like learning the piano - there's no way your dd could play a tune if she'd gone to a group class once a week with no practice in between.

You have the wrong instructor! DD is a level 12 swimmer, she did levels 1, 2 and 3 in one school year, and then spent 12 months in level 4, she did levels 5, 6, and 7 in a school year and then spent 18 months in level 8.
I would get her a private lesson, get an impartial instructor to tell you where she is going wrong, they might cost £15 per half hour, but when you consider a terms worth of lessons + petrol it is cheap at half the price. Then I would find the instructor which your dd is comfortable with, and switch around the time table to be taught by said instructor. DD's was very strict, but the one who dd felt the safest with.
Finally ... feel sorry for me, ds has cp and gdd, so has had private lessons at £14 a WEEK for 5 YEARS and it is costing a small fourtune. BUT, I feel in this country (and dh pisses him self laughing at this) we live on an island and swimming is out of every thing the most important life skill (in an extra curricular way) that you can give your child. Oh, and I am a non smoker/drinker/spa sort of person so this is my treaty sort of thing.
Can you tell I was an adult beofre I learnt to swim!
good luck x

Can you afford private lessons for a couple of terms? DS2 always hated group lessons and they were a total waste of money as he would often just refuse to go. I found him a lovely instructor and in 6 WEEKS he went from being basically scared of the water to swimming a length underwater! I worked out it was cheaper in the long run than the snail like progress that I had with DS1 over many years.

Hi again

Kiddiz, that's exactly the problem we have. It's not great when she's the biggest in the class, which happens anyway as she's tall for her age, and I'm sure it's not pleasant for her.

I confess, we don't swim inbetween lessons, but this is partly down to dd. She doesn't want to go, but we always do swimming in the holidays, at least once a week. I know it's not great as learning is often about repetition at this age, so we're reducing her chances of success by not taking her so often, but her social diary is out of control.

I never wanted to be one of these crammed diary moms, but it's happened anyway!

I like the idea of more personalised training, but we are a bit short of money at the moment, so it'll have to wait.

DD is quite confident in the water, she's just not getting the shapes right and they're very particular at this swimming club about getting the shpaes right.

I couldn't get hold of the instructor yesterday, but am trying again today. Fingers crossed he'll shed some light on why she's not progressing so fast and if nothing else, it'll make him realise that she exists and maybe focus him on teaching her properly next time.

Donovan, you sound like such a star! You really are teaching your kids about determination and not giving in. I'd have quite long ago!

We don't really have any vices we can sacrifice to save money for this, so I guess we'll stick with the weekly group sessions for now. Some people have eventually made it and dd seems so darned close! Keep em crossed for me!

I'm a swim teacher and i've noticed that all children seem to have a sticking point where they won't move up for ages then they fly up the rest of the awards!

When you speak to the instructor ask them for a copy of the test so your dd can practice in the pool or even in the bath!

You could look into changing instructors as children will often sink with one then swim for another!!

Could she take a break from swimming until it becomes fun again. Make sure she doesn't lose touch completely by taking every couple of weeks, but let her play!

As long as your dd would be able to swim back to the side if she fell in then the most important bit is done, making it all look nice can wait for awhile!!

I started swimming lessons really young - maybe aged 4 or so and I hated it till I was about 8 or 9 - was terrified of the water and even though I went every week AND to courses during the school holidays, I really wasn' any good.

Suddenly (and I even remember the exact lesson and pool it happened in) I got it! And went on to swim competitively at county level till I was 17.

So don't worry - as long as she enjoys the lessons, she'll get there eventually!

Thanks pinkem. She can already make her way to the side. She's passed:

Entry & Exit of deep water
Face immersion, nose first, and bubbles
Tuck float
Floating on front with grabbed hands.

She failed:

Floating on back with grabbed hands
10m backcrawl basic action
10m frontcrawl basic action
10m breastroke basic action

That's the ball,star pencil thing, they've been teaching her. She can get to the side with her head out of the water, but she takes too long with breathing between strokes for it to be a smooth swim, iykwim.

I'm hoping, norky that it is just a case of she's not ready to do it yet. She tries so hard, bless her...and is willing to try again, so that's what we'll be doing. Whether it's the same instructor? That's the bit we decide on next. Thanks for your advice

shapes? err what?

does her school do swimming lessons as well?

dd1 could only float at age 7.

after two terms of swimming she has passed her 20metres badge. and is getting pretty confident.

never heard her going on about shapes?

Hi Misdee

I think they make them do shapes in the water in this swimming school to get the strokes technically right, if that makes sense. I don't swim much, so it doesn't make much sense to me.

Having watched, for the best part of a f*king year though (sorry, but I hate watching the swimming lessons) I realise that if they do a ball shape follwed by a star shape, then a pencil shape it effectively gives them breast-stroke and propels them through the water.

They don't do swimming lessons til y4 at dd's school and she's only y2, so we've got a while to wait for that! Typical British State school really, no pool; not money for a pool and no money for lessons. I am half tempted to hang around for the school lessons, but we've started, so we'll finish in the words of the famous quizmaster.

I've double checked with dd and she doesn't want to do the intensive course (too much like hard work I think, reading between the lines) but she's agreed to once a week after the holidays.

Hey ho...once a week is what we're stuck with then!

Do they do the ASA/Kelloggs programme ? dd is Year 2 and just got Level 3 and can easily swim 10m now. They get a mixture of Waterskills, National Swim and Rainbow distance awards so something for everyone.

tbh what you describe seems a lot to have to achieve as a first level and it must be pretty demotivating for her not only not to progress up classes but to not even get a reward for what she can do.

ah right, dd1 talks about frog legs for breast stroke, which is pretty effective. they do swimming here from year 3-5. parents pay for lessons (almost £60 for next term) at the local pool. they get bussed there every week.

tbh i'm not one for hanging around watching lessons, so never booked the kids in for them

can she actually swim across the pool at all? is she confident in the water?

we go swimmign as a family rarely, but when we do its more about fun than actual swimming.

They call it the Kingfisher programme, so I think it's different to the ASA Kellogs programme. I'll have to have a mooch and see if they do that one near us. I think it is getting a little disheartening for her to keep swimming and keep getting left behind. And last term they got a certificate. This term they just had a slip of paper! Not great!

DD is confident in the water and when we swim alone she'll happily do a doggy paddle version of front crawl from one side of the pool to another. Although, like you Misdee, our family swimming sessions are normally about fun, not form! And that usuall means chasing each other around and dunking each other over and over and over

It's £75 a term for us and they've just started to charge upfront rather than by the session. So I don't think it's cheap. Still...you get so little choice these days. And as people have said, we've just go to persevere.