When did you stop swim lessons?

[Popsicle82646]

DS 7 wants to stop swim lessons, he doesn't look forward to going anymore.

He is able to swim, and is stage 4 currently just over half way through at 65 %.
They seem to be going over everything he's already learnt ie dolphin and frog strokes etc.

When did you stop your child's swim lessons? Once it had achieved the goal of being able to swim and get out of any dangerous situation? Or when they had perfected every stroke and got upto gala swim competition level?
Not sure whether to carry on or not.

Thanks ☺️

Mine are still swimming and don't do the same levels as a lot of you mention but I would let my eldest stop now if he wasn't happy. He does lengths classes so can swim 300m plus no issue in his preferred strokes. Can do all strokes pretty well so it's just finessing them now but he is still going as he has things he can improve and enjoys the diving.

I wanted him to have a bit of endurance so can swim distances and also be pretty good at the main strokes (really don't care if he can do butterfly but he's actually pretty good at that one). At his swim school they do one survival lesson per term fully dressed reminding them what to do so that's helpful too.

Dd1 stopped after gaining her 400m badge. Can't remember which year group she was in, but think she was around 9 or 10 years old.

Dd2 stopped after getting her 200m badge but was at a different pool, so also learnt some life saving skills (swimming in T-shirt et al). I think she was at the last stage before competition level (black cap) which was purple cap and she was around the age of 7 or 8 years old.

Both could swim 25m by Reception age.

Exactly where you are now and mine is 7 too.
No interest at all

DS stopped in July, he is 10. He’s been in swimming lessons since age 4 and was in blue hats which is the final group and he was 93% of the way through it. He wasn’t enjoying it anymore and is a strong swimmer so I was happy for him to stop.

My view - getting to the middle of stage 4 is not competent swimmer level, it’s the cusp of moving from learning to swim the basics and being able to actually swim but it’s not full lengths yet and would be very quick to regress from if not swimming very regularly in other ways to make up for not continuing weekly lessons.

I get that not all children enjoy it but it’s a life skill, I personally wouldn’t stop until at least end of stage 5 and with a good 6 months of full 25 metre lengths minimum.

Stage 4. Got sick of dragging child to pool one evening, ruined the whole evening. I was doing it so they go exercise but they spent a lot of time standing on the side. They didn't get any personal guidance in two terms. I don't except much from group lessons but I expect each child to get some attention and coaching over a term. Then they wanted to switch to a 52 week system. Pulled child out, give her the occasional crash course for stroke improvement.

End of year 6, and can swim a couple of lengths. But she enjoys swimming and has joined a swim club at secondary school so will hopefully continue to build up a bit more stamina.

End of all the stages, 7 I think. But my DC didn’t hate going. I wanted my eldest to carry on as both were in the pool and I got a little break! Then as the eldest had completed the stages I thought the youngest should to. I probably would have stopped once they could do 25m of a stroke though if they’d hated it. That’s the UK school national curriculum requirement.

It feels like my kids are on year gazillion of their lessons. One thing I’m curious about, my mum kept my swim towel from when I was a kid. We got distance badges though the ASA or something like that, they have a fish on, does anyone remember them? I did all sorts of distances eg 800 metres. I’m pretty sure this must have all been at primary as never remembered doing any badges at secondary. When I was 10 I was put in for a 2km race. I’m certain I was 10 because it was when I spent two terms at a school on Scotland (we then left and went back to my old school) and I remember ploughing up and down the leisure centre pool there. These seem like such long distances nowadays, there is no way my kids could comfortably swim say 50 metres yet and they’ve had so many lessons. Do kids still do them?

7 is too young. It’s a life skill and none negotiate in my house.

We may stop after stage 7
But she likes it so I guess I might felt differently if she didn't, I don't know

Don’t know about the longer ones but there are certainly distance badges as you work up the stages, ending with 100m at stage 7.

@Mishmashs I've checked my child's online portal (she's in stage 7 and very nearly finished it)
Most kids stop after stage 7 unless you go on to swimming club
And she's got 100metre rainbow distance badge
So that seems to be the longest distance

25m is no where near good enough, that's as far as I got with swimming and I'm not a confident swimmer at all.

I have one who's still swimming at 17, she's club level and swims 6 times a week. And a 13 year old who has just given up, he'd been swimming 3 times a week but had enough. He'd been club swimming since 8 years old so doing at lest twice a week since then. He's a strong swimmer so I'm not to bothered he's decided to stop now.

I would say they need to go through all the stages or, you could do what I did with DS I switched him to club swimming younger then DD, he hadn't finished the stages and they actually teacher them how to do the strokes better in our club the in lessons. He got more time in the pool and it cost me less, when he was in the beginners group. Our club only requires them to be able to do 25m to start in beginners.

I am not sure what they are able to do with the stages you are referring to, but not before they can comfortably do 100m.

Generally, to be allowed to do water sports as they get older, they need to be able to confidently swim 50m. Mine would have missed out on so many opportunities (rowing, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, pioneering over water, wind surfing, SUP-ing, surfing, making rafts, and so forth) if I hadn't been able to sign to say they could swim 50m.

That's a very good point, scouts always ask for this when doing water activities. Or any other outdoor activity centres. It always makes DD chuckle as she could swim a mile 🤣.

When I couldn't afford the lessons any more.

Stage 8 when he was 11 and had a 400m badge. 25m isn't really strong enough even though it's the level set for KS2 curriculum.

Would seem it varies a bit going by these responses but my DC have done 400 metres award in stage 6 and then it steadily increases from then on. Big age range in the children though, on the day one did the 400 metres the children in the group ranged from 7yrs to 11/12 yrs. There are lots of 8 and 9 year olds at swimming clubs that can comfortably do the longer distances, but equally lots of older children in lessons not doing them.

I said when she had done badge 6. Ours won’t give the distance awards out unless they do each stroke to perfection, so although she swam 100m she didn’t get the badge. But I wanted to make sure she had done further tbh so we went to a local pool where she did about 200m. So then we called it a day. She has since gone back to do a life saving badge though which is really good. You have to have done badge 5 to do it. I’d recommend it! I wanted mine to be strong swimmers especially on holiday in the sea in deep water etc so wanted to make sure they’d done the badges where they tread water for a while, swam in clothes etc

Year and Stage 6. It felt like time to move on to new things.

Stage 8 I think, age 10ish. After that they did a lifesaving course.

25 meters is NOT enough. It might get them across a nice still pond, but put them in a river or the sea in an emergency situation and 25 metres of effort won’t get them far. 100m minimum, ideally 200-250m.

Covid stopped it and we never went back after that. Very confident swimmer and it was basically more of a swimming club than lessons by the end, although she was given the option to move over to an actual swimming club and didn't want to.

I think she would naturally have got fed up with it around the end of primary, judging by when she got bored of some other activities.

Edited to say that she's since done lifesaving through her secondary school.

So true. They seem to do such low distances now. I said to my DD day we will go to the leisure centre and see how far she can actually swim. They seem to concentrate on the strokes being textbook now which I don’t think is always necessary. Like if you have to swim from a boat to the shore, no one is checking if your hand or arm is completely perfect, but you need the stamina!
I did 1500m when I was in year 5. Then I stopped lessons. It seems crazy to me my child of the same age was being tested for 100m

It may be a bit different here being in Aus but I didn't let the kids stop swimming lessons before they could confidently do 400metres of a freestyle. They both actually went on to squad swimming after lessons but even if they didn't I wouldn't let them stop so early on. I didn't want either child getting into trouble at the beach or a river or not being able to participate in a water based activity with school/uni or friends because they couldn't swim well enough.