Swimming in year 3

[DJH2005]

My daughter had a bad expereince in a swimming pool 2 years ago. I have been paying out for one to one lessons for her for the past 18 months. The lady is in the pool with her.
The school from Easter want all children to go swimming, they do not go in the pool with them and my daughter is getting really worried.
Do you know if your child has to go swimming? I spoke to her instructer today and she is concerned that this may set her back again.
As a parent what would you do? Should I send her and hope for the best or talk to the school about her not going?
Please help with your opinions.

Hi, I would talk to the school about your concerns! All the children will be split into ability groups and the less confident swimmers usually have a swimmer in with them. Definitely worth speaking to the school! They will be happy to help.

I agree. Talk to the school.

I have taken children swimming and have been in the pool for certain children.

The school should be able to find out the policy from the swimming pool. If you are not happy, then explain this and don't send her swimming.

hth

They would be able to keep her in the shallow end.

Think carefully because the rest of the class will all be very excited about swimming and your dd may feel quite left out. There is a chance that the excitement will carry her along and she'd have a great time.

I think in your shoes I'd let her go but speak to the school and explain the circumstances.

Thank you all, I do not want her to miss out but am really worried, I had the same thought that maybe if she was with the children from her class it might help. Thanks again.

Definitely speak to teacher. Ask about teaching/kids ratios, my DD has started and the ratio in ours is at least 20 kids per teacher!

Kids very hyper, not much teaching done (in my opinion) and generally many opportunties for rough play.

Ask what dd will do at school because from what I see the only kids that benefit are those who have never swum at all.

my dd has swum with school since reception and no-one got in with them. we are also told its part of the curriculum and they must go.

I also think they have to go as part of the curriculum but I could be wrong. We are also starting soon in Year 3 and we've had a form to complete setting out whether the child is a non-swimmer, swimmer but not confident, confident swimmer (then boxes for up to 10m, 10-50m, 50m+ etc). I'd let her go, explain to the teacher her situation but try to build her confidence in the run up.

I went with DD's class went as a parent helper, they always ask as the children walk to and from the pool.
There was a boy who was petrified, he hadn't been in a pool since he was two and the staff were absolutely fantastic with him.
All the other children were really encouraging and cheered when he got into the pool, and by the end of the lesson put his face in the water. It was lovely to see.

Whatever you do, don't consider opting her out, especially as she is already going in the pool for her one-to-one lessons. I haven't taught many children to swim (mainly to get them through the 100m test so they can take part in kayaking etc on outdoor activities weeks), so I don't claim to be a swimming 'teacher' as such. What I used to do was to get them confident in swimming on their backs, so this was a position they could get into when they thought they were in trouble.

Do talk to the teachers concerned - they deal with this sort of thing all the time, and remember that the number of children who have come to harm in a supervised swimming session in a pool must be just about zero out of the millions who have been in this situation.

The other thing is that children are very quick at picking up your fears, so try to appear confident yourself and hopefully that will rub off.

Notso has a very good point. In most schools the other children can be very supportive, so try to encourage that too.

Surely you have to give consent? There is no way it is compulsory! It may be beneficial and part of the curriculum, but not compulsory.

Speak to the school and your daughter about it. Could you go to the swimming lesson too?

I hope your daughter is ok and you work this out.

Thank you all, I have a parents evening next week and have asked to speak to the head teacher. Wish me luck!!
Will let you all know how it goes, Thanks again.

Can you come at this from the other side? Your DD is having one2one lessons so why not see if in the next couple of months that instructor can work on building in periods of time when the instructor gets out and works with her from the side?

HI again, I have been trying to get my daughter to be in the pool with out the teacher , We have been working on that for a while Thanks for your input. I am meeting with the head teacher on wed this week. will let you know thanks again.

To be honest I'd be concerned that in 18 months the teacher hasn't been able to build up your daughter's confidence enough to be on her own in the pool.

My db refused to set foot in a swimming pool until he was about 9yo. No bad experiences, but dm took him once and after that we only had to drive up the road near the swimming pool for him to say "sit on side".

Swimming at the primary was in years 5 and 6, with 2 swims (when year 6 were on a trip) for year 4.
As db came up towards the year 4 swimming he casually mentioned to dm that she would have to write him a note to get him off swimming. Dm said she wouldn't, and he came to her about a week later and asked her to take him swimming so he could learn to swim before he went with the school. He managed it in about a month, and he wasn't very sporty. He had no problems swimming with the school then.

Also dd1 went for swimming lessons from age 3 at a local swimming pool. The infant school has it's own (outside) swimming pool, so they swim in the summer term from reception. Dd1 could swim well (about 25m) but with all the encouraging at lessons and from me, she would not put her face in the water. Actually she wouldn't get her head in far enough for her mouth to get wet, despite them doing 1 to 1 with her over several lessons to do this.
A week into swimming lessons from the school (2 lessons) and she was spending as much time under the water sitting on the floor, or duck-diving etc. as on top.

TheBuskersDog thank you for your coment, However it was due to a mistake by an instructer that my daughter is frightened , Unfortunately not all are good as we unfortunately found out the hard way. She has only been her new one to one instructer for about 8 months, the damage had already been done by then.

The head teacher was very understanding after I explained what had happened to my daughter in the past lessons. He is going to make sure she has a teacher in the pool with her and that she is NOT left on her own at all. He seems to understand that this is going to take time and that is what he is willing to give. Thank you all for your comments. It is interesting to see different points of view.
Thanks to all of you who have been supportive it means alot.