Swimming question

[sleeplessinderbyshire]

My DD is 5y10m. She loves swimming and has been doing well in 121 lessons. Today she got her ASA bronze challenge. Her teacher said she's a very good little swimmer and he was proud of her for getting this so young.

I'm clearly very proud of her but wondering what age might one expect this level to be achieved? I'm finding the one to one lessons amazing for progress but they are expensive and DD complains she'd like to swim in a group lesson too. Her friends from school all seem to be working on 10-15 m badges so clearly she can't join them at the local leisure centre - have I consigned myself to years of expensive one to one??

Also what sort of standard do swimming clubs take children? (I'm an old-lady style breaststroker at best so no clue about club swimming)

Could your child not join a swimming club? She would benefit from having other children to compete with and it would be cheaper than weekly one tone lessons.

In our area children can try out for the local swimming club from the age of six once they have reached stage 5.

She could easily go into group lessons - probably somewhere between Stage 5 to Stage 8 by the sound of it. Ring up the local pools and ask for an assessment.

It might be that she can swim for a club eventually, but at our local one that just involves swimming lots of lengths and getting fitter until they are 8/9 and can actually compete.

Our club don't take swimmers until 8 or 9 years old by which time they are expected to have mastered all 4 strokes, basic starts/dives and tumble turns and have the stamina to do at least 100m non stop at a time.

Of course she could go to the local leisure center! She just wouldnt be put in the groups with her school friends but for an appropiate level for her!

Why are you only doing 1 2 1? My daughter loves her group, its nice to have friends and i think they encourage each other to progress. If it were me id put her into a normal group (theyd asssess level) and have occasional 121 to work on things if you want to.

In my opinion shes way too young for a swimming club, even if theyd take her, you dint want her spending all her free time swimming. Why not find something complementary like gymnastics for her to stretch her in otherways and she can choose to compete in a few years if she wishes.

My six year old has done his mile and is in the swim academy. He loves the group as they really speed up racing each other up and down the pool. What do they do in the bronze badge?

Our lessons go up to gold award at least (DS stopped then). They also provide long distance swim sessions a couple of times a year to collect distance badges.

The club DS swims for takes children from 8ish as they need to be able to focus for at least an hour, listen to instructions and follow very specific directions to improve. They must be able to swim all 4 strokes for 50m and generally have a good posture in the water.

It takes a lot of time and effort- very little time for much else once swimming takes over.

I think Bronze Award would be around Stage 5 to 6, if I was basing it on what my DD was expected to do in those stages.

My DD is 7yo and ASA Stage 8 - she can swim over 2000m on her back (not tried going any further) and 1000m on her front (around 500m with correct tumble turns - they tire her out after a while). There are only 3 children around her age at the same stage - the rest are aged 10+. She is good on breast and butterfly, but backstroke is definitely her forte - she has asthma and does tend to tire when doing long drills on the other strokes.

What is her butterfly and breaststroke like? I think it was around stage 5 that all 4 strokes were expected to be ASA standard to progress further.

Your DD sounds very much like mine and I cannot get my DD out of the water - between swimming and gymnastics she is determined to bankrupt me of time and money