6 year old struggling learning to swim

[JammyGeorge]

Hi, ds1 is 6 and in year 1. He's been having swimming lessons on and off since he was in pre-school. At the moment he is attending a group lesson once a week for half an hour with about 4/5 other kids.

He's comfortable in the water and enjoys swimming but he still can't swim unaided at all. I'm thinking about moving him to a new place as where he is now is quite far away and when I spoke to them they said he would have to start at level 1. I have visions of him lined up with a load of 3/4 year olds half his size and am worried it's going to knock his confidence.

My nieces/nephew/friends kids are all able to swim unaided and are much younger but I don't know what the norm is if you see what I mean.

How old were your DC when they swam unaided?

I can't remember exactly - and also depends on your definition of "swim unaided". However, the fact is that is where your ds is now, so it's a bit irrelevant what other people's dc could / couldn't do.
I booked My dc 3 into a course over one half term, for an hour a day. Turned out there were only 2 there the first day, and then the other one didn't come back, so my dd had virtually 1:1 for an hour a day, 5 days in a row, and got her 25m badge at the end of the week. Would something like that work for your ds? A bit of 'intensive work'. It was only at the council pool - just something I saw advertised on a poster on the wall, wasn't expensive at all.

All that aside, 6 yrs isn't old to be in a beginner class.

My DD is a swimming teacher - for her lessons, the children are grouped according to their age and ability, not only their age or ability, if you see what I mean. So 3-4 yr olds will be grouped accordingly, as will 6-7 yr olds, and so forth. So your 6-yr old son will be in a lesson with other 6-yr olds of the same ability. He won't be (or shouldn't be) in his lessons with children of a much younger age.

Thanks the intensive lessons might be something to look into, I think they might help.