School offering zero swimming lessons, son is now in year 6 and cant swim

[Jobseeker19]

Is it compulsory for a school to do swimming lessons?

My son has never had them and is now in year 6.

When I was a child we did it every year.

I asked them today and was told that they are not doing it because of covid, when I told them my child is in year 6 and never had them they told me they only do it in year 5 for one term thats it and thats how all primary schools do it.

They are chatting shit as I have had an older child through there who also never had lessons.

What can I do about it?

We were told it was part of the national curriculum and compulsory. Ours did it in Year 3-5 for a term each of those years. Due to covid disruption they have extended it now it has resumed so those in year so. Who have yet to do their 25m certificate can take part.

In our LA children get one term of lessons in primary 6 (year 5)

You are obviously very concerned about this OP. So I am wondering why you haven’t approached the school to ask if they are going to arrange something to replace the lessons your child should have had during the global pandemic when pools were closed.

@PileOfBooks

What do you think you can do about it? You can take your child swimming or pay for lessons.

It's very unusual for schools to do regular swimming.

No it isn’t!! It’s a requirement of all primary schools in England to provide at lest 2 terms of swimming lessons during the course of their primary education!!?

Swimming 25m by the time a child leaves primary school is part of the PE national curriculum so schools should provide some lessons. However, academies do not have to follow the national curriculum. Is your child’s primary school an academy, OP?

@bakingdemon

I agree that this is too important to leave to schools and that time in the water to ensure they're confident and happy is really important - and only family time can really do that.

But you are also right that it's in the national curriculum: www.swimming.org/schools/swimming-national-curriculum/
If the teachers aren't responding, take it up with the school governors (I was one for years). They are responsible for allocating the school budget, which will include pool hire, and ensuring that the school is delivering what it should. It'll be more effective if you can get a number of other parents to back you up, maybe coordinating via a WA group.

This is really helpful advice. Amongst a lot of judgement and unhelpful comments.

Taking an entire class swimming uses up a fair whack of time that would be better spent teaching them basic academic stuff.
I had swimming at school and we did nothing else that afternoon,

Teaching children to swim is parent's job.
Do you want school to teach them how to ride a bike too?

@BlackberrySky

I think you are over estimating the quality of school swimming lessons. If your children cannot swim at all, the ones provided by the school would not leave them able to swim without supervision anyway. Most schools offer about two terms of lessons to each child (so about 20 lessons) , but they don't learn much each lesson.

Wow what low expectations you have. That’s quite sad really that you are expecting the kids to be taken out of normal schooling, taken to the pool just to learn not much really. Wow, I think you need to expect and demand more

Silver one set of 6-8 weeks is the norm here. Op said she went every year. That must be very unusual.

@BruceAndNosh

Taking an entire class swimming uses up a fair whack of time that would be better spent teaching them basic academic stuff. I had swimming at school and we did nothing else that afternoon,

Teaching children to swim is parent's job.
Do you want school to teach them how to ride a bike too?

Well, someone in Government disagrees with you, hence why it's on the National Curriculum.

We had very good swimming lessons at our local leisure centre during primary school in the 80s, includng "bronze survival" where we dived for bricks etc, we got bussed there and back and it took a whole morning, but I actually learned to swim before that in Saturday lessons. I don't know if I would have learned through school or not.

However my kids who have just left primary had something like one term of lessons each at a local school's outdoor pool which they walked to. There is no way they would have learned to swim doing that. I honestly don't think it's likely that nowadays a child would be able to learn to swim through school lessons, unless the school massively prioritised swimming/ had its own pool/ had parents willing to pay a lot for the privilege.

@RobertGalbraith

Swimming 25m by the time a child leaves primary school is part of the PE national curriculum so schools should provide some lessons. However, academies do not have to follow the national curriculum. Is your child’s primary school an academy, OP?

I didn't know that about academies not having to follow the curriculum. How did I not know that!

I do wonder if the time doing school lessons would be better spent teaching water survival rather than traditional swimming, so how to float, how to starfish if you are in trouble, safety around lochs, lakes, the sea; correct equipment, how to recognise riptides, etc. Just thinking about the sad cases over the summer where young people died after getting into difficulties in the water, and where knowing how to swim maybe wasn't enough.

Perhaps they do that already - DD isn't old enough for school, so just thinking about my own experiences.

This is a compulsory thing for primary schools to provide - the only part of pe that they must provide. Each and every child should leave school able to swim 25metres by law.

We only had a term of swimming in year 4 and that was it! We also had to pay for them even though it was school taking them - it wasn’t free! (And you can’t expect them to learn to swim in a term. It will take more than that usually!)

@BruceAndNosh

Taking an entire class swimming uses up a fair whack of time that would be better spent teaching them basic academic stuff. I had swimming at school and we did nothing else that afternoon,

Teaching children to swim is parent's job.
Do you want school to teach them how to ride a bike too?

Completely ignorant view. You really must live life in a bubble. The reason it’s on the school curriculum is because many parents cannot afford lessons or are simply not in a position to get them to a pool. What if there are multiple younger siblings? The ratio doesn’t even allow the parent to be in the pool with more than 2 non swimmers as was the case when I had 3 under 3. Covid has meant that swimming instructiors are totally overwhelmed with enquires and waiting lists. So many kids didn’t get lessons over the last 18 months. It’s extremely difficult to enroll your child in lessons right now where I live. Riding a bike isn’t an essential skill that might save your life, swimming is. ALL CHILDREN should be taught to swim not just the privileged ones who’s mummy and daddy can afford lessons or to take them to the pool regularly

My Dc only had a few weeks of swimming lessons at primary school. We paid for lessons outside of school and prioritised this over other things (eg other clubs/sports/lie ins at weekends) as it is important to be able to swim, even at a basic level.

The national curriculum requires primary schools to teach kids water safety and the ability to swim 25m. Most schools offer the bare minimum of one term of swimming lessons. It sounds like OP’s son has missed his turn for swimming lessons because of Covid. Unfortunately most schools are not offering catch-up for any lessons missed during the pandemic. I suggest speaking to the school board and governors to see if they can arrange a catch up in this instance because the kids have missed something important.

All our local schools had their own outdoor pools for lessons in the 90s, they were all filled in in the 00s

Contact your local swimming club, most have a Learn to Swim arm as well as the competitive side and they tend to be cheaper than the leisure centre. Although waiting around for children at different activities is par for the course

I went to school in the 90's and we certainly weren't taught to swim properly 🤷‍♀️ we had a term of swimming in one of my primary years but otherwise swim lessons were private and out of school time.

@Jobseeker19

How did I learn to swim then at school if they they were so shit?

Everyone i know learnt how ro swim from school. I never had lessons outside of school.

My Dad taught me , I taught my daughter. Worked FT single parent.
You could pay for your kids to have lessons one at a time if you can't afford it all In one go.

Do you want school to teach them how to ride a bike too?

Schools round here do the cycling proficiency as well as swimming. but then we are lucky that the high school has a swimming pool/leisure centre (the nearest one for several miles). But then we are surrounded by rivers and the roads are country lanes (and no public transport) so its a bit of a priority locally whereas a city school may have other areas it needs to focus on.

I think you should concentrate on regularly taking your kids swimming and also doing seperate 1 to 1 to teach basic skills. I taught my brother doing a session a fortnight.

You havent mentioned if you can swim?

@Silverswirl I not "expecting" them to be taken out of class, it really annoys me that they are. In our school, every single child can already swim and school lessons are a massive waste of time. I wish they didn't bother!

sorry I was trying to quote reply and failed miserably!