I was there with my own two boys who were in lessons with Swimming Nature - the company that runs lessons in Westminster (London). My boys have been going for a year now and the lessons are excellent.
However in another lane, a group of girls came in with a coach for what i assume was a half term swimming lesson. The girls were about 9 or 10 I would guess.
From the moment they arrived, the coach was shouting at them - at first for the ones who didn't have swimming caps. So many of them didn't that I would assume it was not made clear they needed them. He had not met these girls before and did not know their swimming ability. But he sent them off in twos from the shallow end to swim laps on their backs. Some of them could clearly barely float. One girl got into difficulty as soon as she was beyond where she could touch the floor. She started to go under, had a panic and he was yelling at her from the side. He was shouting to hold the rope (the divider between lanes) which she was next to but she had her back to it and was in such a panic that she could not get it. I watched her go under another two times before he got a pole from the side for her to garb and pulled her to the end.
In addition to this, one girl was crying and refused to get in and he just kept yelling at her to get in. Two others could clearly not swim and his solution to this was for them to do their lengths at the side of the pool so they could hold on as they did it. They were in tears too. There was no real insturction for the other girls - just a lot of yelling. The instructors for my boys (in another lane) looked at me in shock at one point - neither of us could believe it.
Please please tell me that this is not standard? I know I am lucky to have access to such a good swimming programme - but his really shocked me to the core.