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?

My Dads school does a few weeks of swimming every year from reception. How they dealt with the undressing, drying and dressing with the younger ones I have no idea!!

She also does a half an hour lesson once a week in a group of 6 which costs £27 a month, I can understand not being able to afford it with 3! Maybe do 1 at a time starting with the oldest and stopping when each one can swim then starting with the next child?

I learnt to swim though state primary school in the 80's, Scotland. They didn't have the whole class, just those who couldn't swim, seems a sensible approach. My Mum couldn't swim, so couldn't teach us, and lessons were too expensive.

Think perhaps it was changed to make them have the whole class and therefore not enough attention for those who need proper teaching, i.e. can't swim at all.

*DDs

Mine get to do half a term’s lessons per year from year 4 but covid has meant mine missed year 4 and 5 so doing it now - 6 weeks for £19 (that we have to pay for transport). They really can’t learn anything much in 6 weeks with 29 other dc.
I have 3 dc and paid for youngest 2 to have private lessons as it was similar to group lessons for 2 but they learned faster. They often do summer booster sessions where it’s a week of lessons - 5 days in a row - which ime is better than once a week as it’s much more focused and they learn faster.

According to this thread they should scrap the millions of pounds paid out to schools to ensure ALL children can swim a small distance by the end of Primary.
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to be fair @lilmishap they should! No one learns to swim at school, far cheaper to pump that money back into the pools, cheaper lessons, free lessons for FSM children, cheaper pool entry.

it would be more successful!

ds's school swimming lessons were 6 weeks only.

Very few, if any, children learn to swim in 6 weeks in large group lessons.

OP teaching your children to swim is primarily a parent responsibility.

Given you apparently learned to swim at school lessons, I find it hard to understand how you are unable to teach your own children to swim. It isn't rocket science.

I can just about swim to save my life, I can have a go at the three main strokes. I was able to teach my nephew the basics too. Swimming lessons are a complete rip off for younger kids, unless you are looking for them to become actual proper swimmers and join the swim team. It boils down to get them comfortable in the water, teach them the basic arm and leg movements and how to breathe.

@Jobseeker19 Our council offers free summer swim school. It used to be open to all kids but this year it was only for kids who actually can't swim. So there might be help around, maybe ask your local swimming pool?

@Derbee

Presumably you’re also the kind of parent who never reads to your children and thinks the school should be doing everything? Lazy parents is a really sad thing. It’s not unaffordable to take you children swimming, and they could have picked up enough experience to learn to swim. Then you could prioritise swimming lessons for the older child, or however you wanted to do it.

Easier to just complain about the school and the teachers though, isn’t it?

Do fuck off luv. It IS a part of the curriculum, you don't know the financial circumstances so how dare you decide what is or isn't unaffordable?

Easy to bitch at people on MN though isn't it, no matter how ignorant you are.

You're right about it being on the national curriculum, but one term of lessons will not bring a child up to a standard where they can use multiple strokes and swim 25 metres confidently. And yes, it's bloody hard to juggle swimming lessons and full time work - I was lucky to have lessons available on a Saturday so booked my DDs into those, but it was a total of 6 years of having a chunk of my weekend eaten up by swimming lessons. And one of them always had the 8 am slot.

I learnt to swim though state primary school in the 80's, Scotland

So did I, but we had the whole class not just those who couldn't swim.

Sorry everyone is being so nasty, OP.

@futureghost

Its pretty disgusting that people are posting 'just pay!' without considering that some people, in fact many people, in this country cannot afford to.

I learnt to swim in school lessons in my state school in the 80s.

I think all kids should be taught at school to swim.

Yes, they should be taught at school. But the school isn’t going to teach OP’s DS so the fact that they should doesn’t really help here, and learning to swim is a life saving essential - I’d go without a lot of things to ensure my kid could swim. It’s up there with making sure they know how to cross the road safely. So she needs to get DC1 taught either by paying or by teaching him herself, and hope that for DC2&3 school lessons have resumed and/or finances have improved.

I agree with you OP. If it's in the curriculum it should be taught, and we don't expect parents to be able to teach other parts of the curriculum or be responsible for what has been missed in the last year.

In terms of them saying other schools only do a term, possibly some do but DD did swimming all of year 3, and started in year 4 before Covid stopped lessons.

As for expecting parents to pay for lessons, that's great if they can but a) some can't afford it and b) DD has been on a waiting list for lessons for 2 years at our local leisure centre so it can be easier said than done.

However I do have some sympathy for the school as if the local leisure centres are not running classes due to Covid I'm not sure there's much they can do about it

@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?

Pretty sure it's part of the National Curriculum and therefore should be offered by the school. Maybe do a bit of online research, see if this is the case and then send the information to the school and see how they respond?

www.swimming.org/schools/swimming-national-curriculum/

I think you are over estimating the quality of school swimming lessons

This.

Despite you telling us you 'learned to swim' solely through lessons at your school back in the day, OP, that really isn't the case for 99% of children, or schools for tha tmatter.

Learning to swim takes at least 2 or 3 years of regular lessons to build confidence, stamina, different skills. I'd consider it an 'essential' part of child rearing costs, and something that should be factored into the cost of bringing up a child as much as paying for nursery, after school club, holiday clubs etc is. Learning to swim could save your child's life one day - and a term learning at school haphazardly with a whole class will not achieve that level of skill.

My DCs went to swimming lessons from the age of 3 (I didn't do 'baby swimming - that's not really essential when it comes down to it, and I couldn't afford it) and they stopped at around Year 4/5. It did cost a lot. We lived on a set amount of cash for several years when they were small, no holidays, no meals out, no 'extras' of any kind other than what was essential to keep them safe before/after school when we were at work, but swimming lessons were part of that. There's no way they'd have learned to swim in a term, or even a whole academic year, at Year 5 or whatever. That's far too late.

So because money was short, DC didn't do any other kind of paid activity when they were small, other than Beavers/Cubs (nominal subs) and swimming lessons during those few key years.

OP, this is really down to you to sort out, not the school. My DC also had no lessons at school because it wasn't offered back then.

You should have started them years ago with a swimming class - at around ages 3/4. If you had, you wouldn't be where you are now (harsh, I know, but true). As I say, you have to prioritise swimming as a 'life skill' - it's not in the same league as dance classes, or gymnastics or learning to ride a horse - they're luxuries, nice if you can afford them (we couldn't). But swimming is important. You can't pass that responsibiity onto others now, OP - it was alway your responsibility to sort out. (Again, harsh but true - sorry).

Do fuck off luv. It IS a part of the curriculum, you don't know the financial circumstances so how dare you decide what is or isn't unaffordable?

OP said she took her children swimming. So clearly not unaffordable for her to do that.

Also, the vast majority of local councils have subsidised swimming prices for those on low incomes, often with kids going free or paying a small amount. Ours has a card you apply for and then swimming costs £1.

to be fair @lilmishap they should! No one learns to swim at school

My daughter learnt to swim at school.

Schools must ensure kids can swim by the end of ks2. It’s statutory. Swimming is not just a nice hobby for the middle classes, it’s an important life skill. I’m disgusted at the number of people saying their school don’t provide lessons.

You're right OP. If it is on the curriculum they should teach it. I was taught (in the eighties!) but I admit the lessons were very poor - the teacher wasn't in the pool and just mimed the strokes from the edge! We did have our own pool at school though which I guess was unusual (for a state school).

School swimming never helped me.
I think we were year 4 or 5, can’t remember now. I could already swim when we went as I’d been learning since I was 5. I probably had my 200m award by the time I went with school, certainly I had my 100m. Plus water skills and diving skills.

I taught both my DNs. It may be on the National Curriculum but if leisure centres don’t want to close for an entire half day to accommodate, there isn’t much the school can do.

Pay for your child to have swimming lessons if you want them to learn to swim! Its a parent's responsibility not the schools!

The school should have a complaints procedure either on their website or available for you to see on paper. It should list the informal steps, then the formal steps if you want. It might get a better response, though I'm not sure it's likely.

Schools are judged against the national curriculum for OFSTED and things which can bring in forced changed, but it's not that hard for something as low down the priority list as swimming for schools to work around not providing. See how many schools, even ones with a faith ethos, get around the daily collective worship rules. It's not really legally binding as most would think of that, even maintained school can skirt around things like this through the right paths.

Where I am, there are very few lessons at the leisure centre and the casual family swims I've used before to teach my kids are pretty much only in the middle of weekdays so no good for school kids. It's pretty much just lane swimming and aqua exercises classes that have so far reopened at a useful time. It's annoying, I miss it and I do think with how things are around here that it will impact kids' ability to swim.

@BoredZelda

Given you apparently learned to swim at school lessons, I find it hard to understand how you are unable to teach your own children to swim. It isn't rocket science.

I can just about swim to save my life, I can have a go at the three main strokes. I was able to teach my nephew the basics too. Swimming lessons are a complete rip off for younger kids, unless you are looking for them to become actual proper swimmers and join the swim team. It boils down to get them comfortable in the water, teach them the basic arm and leg movements and how to breathe.

I can swim (simple breaststroke) but I have absolutely no idea how to teach my DS’s front crawl - they just manage 2 strokes before stopping because they can’t figure out how to bring their head up to breathe whilst still swimming. I have tried numerous times but they are 9 now and still can’t do it! I can’t work out how to explain frog legs either - every effort has failed and even if they get it once or twice they can’t bring the arms in with the legs. Needs a proper instructor as I just can’t get any further

Do all three need lessons at the same time ....or could each one have a set each ?
If not take them yourself .use a wiggle etc arm bands
Mine never had school swimming ...