Swimming club?

[Dreamingofdaffodils]

My 5 year old (Reception age) loves swimming and I think has the potential to be quite good at it. She swims with 7/8 year olds at the moment and has just completed her 200m badge. Should we just continue with this at this age, or when would be a good time to potentially look at club swimming?

Seven or eight for swimming club at the youngest, it’s a huge commitment and physically demanding

As early as a good club will take her. The hours won’t be onerous initially. Good training and a good stroke are important, and best to acquire these early.

Probably Worth reading the pool side chat in extracurricular area to get an Idea of what being a swim family is like. Sounds like they are making good progress , although 8 lengths is less than the warm up in a club session. If they go through the swimming levels, there will be a club ready level. I hope you like early mornings! Swimming is great for all body fitness though so even if they never compete, it is a lifelong skill.

At 5, just continue working through the badges. Clubs don't recruit for competitive swim before 7 in the UK in my experience, and the UK doesn't offer competition before age 9. Is she doing her Swim England stages? Our club recruits once they have Stage 8, and club training starts alongside finishing Stages 9 and 10 in lessons.

Beware that if in swim club (like me and DB were) they’ll most likely want to train her up to compete. Great if you like that but not great if like us you weren’t competitive.

That’s good she won’t be forced to compete yet.

Many swim clubs have a learn to swim section. My local club accepts children from age 5, with at least stage 3 swim badge. Others will accept stage 5 or 7 depending on local situation. You may find a club 'downgrades' your child on entry. We often find that strokes need to be retaught to higher standards.

The minimum age for competition is 8 (9 and under age group). At age 8, your child would likely swim two or three times a week, building up gradually as they progress. You don't need to worry about early mornings or losing your weekends to competition just yet.

If you child enjoys swimming, and has a natural talent, it's worth enquiring at your local club.

I d been a member of a swimming club since I was 5, I’m 58 now, so a long long time lol. At first it was only 2 sessions a week and very laid back and fun. Then I progressed naturally through the different squads until I was in the A squad, training twice a day. I had my first race (outside of club competitions) at age 8.

At age 5, even a club won’t expect them to be taking on ‘training’, any sessions will be part practice and learning proper strokes and part games. My best friends, throughout my life, have always primarily been swimmers.

I was talking to my parents about swimming and their input, the other day. They said their whole lives, when my sister and I were swimmers, revolved around swimming and travelling between home and many different pools, they were truly anazing parents. I was thanking them for their sacrifices, they said they found the whole experience very rewarding and wouldn’t change it, they also made some fabulous friends. So don’t be put off by that.

DS used to love swimming, and attended a non-competitive swim club for a few years. They did an internal gala once a year, and had weeks of focusing on diving, distance, technique for different strokes, lifesaving etc. lots of games too. Some kids moved on to competitive clubs, some just went once or twice a week for a swim session. They took kids for Stsge 5 I’d never cone across a non/ competitive swim club before, I have no idea of how common they are, bit worked brilliantly for us. No early morning commitments!

Different areas do it differently. Locally to me they expect you to be 7/8 and have nearly finished swimming lessons. There is a council lesson scheme or their Swim England equivalents. I agree though 200m is the warm up. And they’d expect you to have all 4 strokes and the beginning of a tumble turn. All of the local swimming clubs have their entry requirements on their websites and most people just go to the nearest or where training times work for them. Normally you’d be invited to a trial first. Then there is an elite scheme for selected / invited swimmers from all 6 smaller clubs.

Nearby another city has one huge club with numerous squads and there aren’t any smaller less competitive clubs within the city. Although some squads are less competitive than others.

What I will say though is that the swimmers are expected to be independent at training - parents are not allowed in the changing rooms. The coaches in our experience are pretty firm and don’t tolerate mucking around or not listening. And even in the lower squads they’ll be swimming with children 4-5 years older so don’t rush into it.

Our club has a learn to swim section and the teaching has been far superior to the leisure centre lessons. I had been double running my eldest but having two different teaching styles confused her and made her frustrated. As soon as my youngest hit the minimum standard I switched her to the club. She’s not the quickest or strongest but has beautiful technique which I hope will serve her well regardless of how keen on swimming she ends up being. I’ve managed on once a week so far but it will be crunch time soon about whether we want to add another session or stay firmly in the recreational path.

What you have to realise though is being good at 5 while great (and your daughter does sound ahead) doesn’t necessarily translate to suiting the swim club life. They have to really love it to want to do the hours needed to get competitive. My 9 year old is very much in the recreational camp swimming 3 hours a week. She doesn’t want to do more and stop some of her other interests. The girls who are aiming for county level are doing at least 10-12 hours. You ideally want to find a club with different pathways to suit your level of commitment and daughter’s keenness. 2/3 hours of high quality lessons is plenty for us- we’re not dedicated enough for swim squad life but we’ve benefited a lot from joining the swim club.

My DD passed her Gold Level swimming level on her 7th Birthday, and she has been in a swim club since then, She turns 8 in Sept and she currently trains 3 x week for club plus and additional session for swim lessons with school (which she is miles above her class as you would expect).
In her group she is swimming with 10 year olds.
as mentioned she is currently too young to compete, the only competition she could do is a open meet (in house type thing) where she was in the under 8's category.

My three all joined a swimming club at age five. They loved it and became really strong swimmers.